IC voicemail

[kannagara_gods]

This serves as the master post for all character's Hitomi voicemails. Each character should reply to this post with their character journal, with their character's name in the subject line of their post. You may, if you like, have a customized voicemail message in this original post (something along the lines of "You've reached ______, leave a

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Re: YUKI JUUDAI

[red_handed_jay]

[There's a long, long pause, but the sound of shifting and rustling cloth means that there's someone there.]

You're a fucking liar.

[week 30, day 1]

[sternitfortem]

[ It's later in the morning - comparatively, if just after dawn can be considered late in the morning. Juudai is tired, agitated, emotionally exhausted, and ready to give up.

So when he gets the expected call from Jason, he does something he doesn't normally do:

He lets himself be honest. ]

When? [ This is delivered flatly, coldly - not in a manner in which Juudai has ever spoken to Jay before. ] When have I ever lied to you? I never claimed to be anything.

[ He pauses, and laughs. It's hard. It sounds like Jason. ]

I never said I was a good person, did I?

Re: [week 30, day 1]

[red_handed_jay]

[No, Juudai didn't. But he acted like one, tried to get close to Jason when all Jason had done was push people away. He had told Jason that he was his friend for fuck's sake, and told him how important shit like that was.]

[Except that actually Juudai just murdered his friends. So it was just bullshit, all of it fucking lies. And yes, Jason himself had killed people, lots of people, you could even say that he murdered them, but were never...friends.]

You just acted like one, tried to give me advice as if you fucking knew. As if you were better than me.

[sternitfortem]

At least I'm trying!

[ He's dimly aware, on some level, that he's shouting, but everything feels like it's happening to him at some distance today. He sounds upset. Maybe he is upset. It would be logical. ]

What am I supposed to do? At least I'm trying to move somewhere! Should I do what you do? Kill criminals? Put more corpses on my back? Set myself up like I have any right to judge who lives and who dies? Push away everyone who loves me, do any more damage to them, because I don't deserve them? Is that what being honest is?

Then I'll lie, and keep lying.

[ He's breathing deeply. ]

Because I haven't given up.

[red_handed_jay]

Trying for what?

[Jason laughs then, long, low and bitter.]

You haven't given up? No Juudai. You haven't let go. You still want to be what you used to be. Want to be some sweet, dumb kid. Well, I've got news for you. You can't be him, you can never be him. He's fucking gone.

[Jason knows. He knows that Jason Todd is dead and gone, beaten, broken and murdered. And all that's left is the Red Hood.]

That's where we differ. I've accepted what I am, and I don't try to be what I'm not.

[sternitfortem]

[ Juudai bites back a snarl. As if Jason knows him. As if Jason knows what it was. ]

You're wrong. I know exactly what I am. I am who I choose to be.

[ His nails, meanwhile, dig into the palm of his free hand. ]

What have you chosen to be, huh? You think you can make a difference at the end of a gun? [ His hands are shaking. ] You can do whatever you want. You can do what you like. Harden yourself and think it'll make you stronger - but all you're doing is making yourself brittle. [ His legs are shaking. ] One day, it'll break you.

You think killing whoever's wrong will make everything else right, but it won't. It just makes a lot of people dead. And you're just killing yourself. Over and over. Until there's nothing left of you. Until you're not something human anymore. [ His voice is shaking. Shaking. Shaking. ]

I know.

[red_handed_jay]

You're so fucking wrong. [Jason snaps out the words, angry but defensive somehow. Because the words are so familiar, words that were parroted to him over and over again. Bruce. Dick.]

[But they words hit harder than Jason wants to admit. Because that's why he used the pain, in part, when he was feel so fucking brittle that he was worried that he was going to shatter, that he could just feel the hairline cracks running through him with just a single touch just setting him off. ]

[But he was dealing with it. He had the pain to clear his mind to remind him. And he had his mission. ]

What happens to me doesn't matter. But I am doing something, fixing something. [He's insistent now, his eyes blazing with a desperate sort of certainty.]

[Because he can't even consider the alternative.]

[sternitfortem]

Go ahead and believe that. I don't care.

[ Jason's on the defensive, and for a second, Juudai almost considers pushing his advantage, going in for the kill. Jay's flaws are showing, and all it would take would be one touch, the right words, the right kind of anger, to shatter him into a thousand pieces.

That thought turns his stomach, twists icy cold in his guts.

He could do that. And it would all be the same again, wouldn't it? He doesn't change, not under pressure. It's the same. The same damn thing. ]

I don't care.

[ Juudai forces himself to sit down at the base of a tree by the road to steady himself. Repeats again: ]

I don't care.

[ He could point out Jason's hypocrisy, but it would just reveal his own. Just another body left in his wake, dead or alive, doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. His hands are still shaking; they might not have stopped since they started. ]

I don't care.

[ If he keeps saying it, maybe it can be true. ]

I don't care...

[red_handed_jay]

You don't care?

[Jason laughs, long, low and bitter.]

That's a lie, and you know it, and I know it. You wouldn't be bothering with this if you didn't. You wouldn't be bothering with me. But you do, because you're trying to be good. To fix things that are broken, as if somehow, doing that can fucking atone.

[Jason falls silent for a moment, thinking about his own words, and how maybe, the hit a little closer than what he'd really like them to. He shakes his head a little. He can't have doubts. He just... can't. That's simply not an option.]

[sternitfortem]

Then what else can I do?

[ Juudai's not yelling anymore; he's not mad anymore, he's not on the offensive. He's just tired. He's just sick of this. He runs a hand through his hair, rubs his eyes. ]

I'm not a hero. I can't save anyone. All I can do is have faith.

[ This sounds familiar - that's right, he's said this once before, to Darkness in their final duel. Has he changed since then? Does he still believe it? ]

Just surviving's not good enough.

[red_handed_jay]

Faith? Faith in what?

[Like Juudai, the anger's drained from Jason's voice, leaving it just bare, bleak.]

There's nothing left, Juudai. Fucking nothing. We're just used, broken, and then thrown away, and then expected to struggle along afterwards. [His face hardens again, a bit of that anger coming back.] Going back to what used to be isn't an option. So I look forward, I take what I've learned, the lessons carved into my flesh, and I move forward. I don't pretend to myself, don't try to go back to something that I'm not.

And sometimes, Juudai? Surviving is all you have.

[sternitfortem]

You don't know me. [ He's sick of being told he's trying to go back to the past - he's not. ] You don't know what I did, and you don't know who I was before that.

I am moving forward. But I'm not gonna do that by pushing everyone around me away. I'm not repeating my mistakes.

[red_handed_jay]

And you don't know me. You know hardly anything about what I've done, what I've been through.

[They're just going around in circles now, and this isn't going anywhere. Quietly.]

Fine. Fine. Pull them in close, keep them there. Maybe this time around you won't kill them.

[sternitfortem]

[ Audible on the line: a single hitched breath, nothing so dramatic as a gasp but within the same family. ]

Good. I won't.

[ It's an obviously poor retort: defiant, punctuated, and underneath it, hurt, hurt, hurt. ]

[red_handed_jay]

[He can hear the hitched voice, and it strikes him how very badly he just hurt Juudai. He was furious and hurting and wanted to make the other man hurt, but. But.

He almost regrets it. Almost. But...He can't apologize. Not just now, not right after he said it. He sighs, low and soft, and doesn't bother to reply, just hanging up with a quiet 'click.']