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All of Jason’s knives were dirty.
They were caked with copious amounts of blood, the liquid dried down to a dirty, filthy, burgundy brown, an indication that Jason had once again been indulging in his needs. His needs consist of his dogshit mental health and his inability to care about his physical well being. This may include, but not just the following: cutting himself way too often, slamming his head against the wall whenever he has a bad day (eh, most days), and screaming into a pillow with a few tears after he has to deal with his very emotionally absent father. The day a truck runs over him or when his plan to grab one of the knives and shove it straight into his beating heart works, is the day he will finally cry tears of joy.
Anyways, his knives were still dirty, meaning Jason has a job to do. Procrastinating any longer, and the high likelihood of a bat crashing at his safehouse and seeing his rather unattractive hobbies would bring a lot of unhappiness to Jason’s already depressing life. Yeah, he doesn't need the extra disappointment and disgust, he deals with that enough on his own already.
Jason ran a dirty, gloved hand down his face, groaning in exasperation when he counted at least two razor blades and five combat weapons he needed to clean. He doesn't even want to glance at his desk, where he knows lie unfinished raid plans and other miscellaneous emails he needed to send to keep his loyal dogs in check.
A full time job as the badass Red Hood, the crime lord in Crime Alley and being depressed Jason Todd part-time was enough to make anyone shoot themselves in the head. Of course, that was not exaggeration, as Jason had already tried to off himself and that didn’t work. Overdosing is futile, slitting wrists was just too painful, and a lethal injection is guess what? Not. Lethal.
God laughs at Jason Todd every time he comes up with a new way to kill himself, while the fallen angels in hell mourn the loss of another soul being taken away back to Earth.
Funny, isn’t it?
He’s sure that the eyebags underneath his unnatural glowing jade eyes are darker than ever, and the smell of rot and blood reeks from his flesh. Jason was used to this, almost feels normal when he’s like a walking corpse. The dimly lit bathroom, fitted with only a shaky bulb with questionable lighting, caught the smears of red across his cheeks. Sometimes blood would catch on his scars when he was only wearing his domino. First, ew, and second, it was like the universe was actually rubbing salt on his wounds, and really that just made him feel worse.
He sighs again, roughly swatting his matted light-colored bangs from his vision before grabbing his razors and turning the tap to let the cool water flow over the browned edges. Flecks of old blood and evidence of his pain disappeared down the drain, polluting the clear (as clear as Gotham water can get) pool of water.
It took Jason two weeks to have the energy to clean his blades, and only two minutes for him to finish the job.
He was really excited to use them now after he calculated how much fucking time he wasted being an absolute lazy dumbass.
It was almost peaceful as he reached to clean the rest of his weapons he normally used for patrol. His blood, some criminal's blood, innocent blood, all drowned in the drain until he finally finished cleaning the rest of them. It occurred to him how old he truly was after he felt the exhaustion seep into his bones and the itch to mutilate his skin only grew stronger. It was strange to think that he was now one of the oldest in his family, and he no longer had the privilege of acting like a kid, or god forbid, spend time with Bruce. A part of him screams, whimpering words that sounded like it’s not fair and he didn't even love me enough to stay. And to that, Jason takes a razor, and smoothly runs it over the scared parts of his forearms.
He tries not to think about the pain his father inflicted on him, and how he did die when the sharp edges of that batarang slit his throat and broke his heart. If he did, Jason would be a ghost rather than a walking corpse.
There were five incisions on his arm, now all weeping red and crisscrossing over his previous healing scabs. There was never enough clean skin for him to get a satisfying swipe, and that only fueled him to continue to make more cuts. Before he could continue indulging himself, he heard a ringing on his phone.
Jason only had a few contacts on his phone, and none of the ones he liked were available to call him now. He pressed lips together, dropping the razor on the sink’s counter and made his way to the kitchen, where his personal phone was screaming. He paid no attention to the dark red dripping down his arm, his self-injuries had never hurt enough to warrant immediate care.
A hesitant finger tapped the screen, lighting up with a dreadful name.
B. Wayne.
“...Hello?”
“Jason. Your presence is necessary at the Batcave immediately. We need to discuss the recent trafficking case.”
Jason paused, his lips downturning into the typical frown that was present whenever he heard that gritty voice. He felt vulnerable without the mechanical voice from his helmet and the use of his private phone instead of comms made his skin tingle uncomfortably.
“Why?”
There’s a part of him that feels grateful his father called him to discuss this case. Despite their differences, Bruce knows how much the kids within Gotham and Crime Alley mean to him.
“There is new evidence that…” A pause, rare for his father’s usually carefully crafted speech. “Scarecrow is involved. The gate is unlocked, don’t forget to lock it when you come in.”
A soft sigh and pause, then Jason hears the dialtones fade into nothing.
Well, doesn't that just make his night spectacular and amazing?
A familiar mix of rage, exhaustion, and frustration lead Jason to grab his razor and make one last deep incision. It should’ve hurt, but Jason felt nothing, only the slight panic as more blood than he expected splurged from the wound. The razor sliced through the top layer of his skin, the edges ripping apart like elastic before revealing a pool of blood. It was alarmingly easy to cut through all that scarred skin, which Jason usually tried to be careful with. Although he had never been caught, the bats were detectives and were not stupid to distinguish battle scars from self-made scars.
As he struggled to control the drops of blood on his grimy bathroom floor, he heard a rustle from his window, before quiet footsteps followed.
“Jason?”
Oh, he was so fucked.
Jason was too fucking tired to bring the bandages he meant to grab into the bathroom from the kitchen. So now he was shirtless, holding his white tanktop on his open wounds, and failing to realize the fact that red does stain white and now he had an increasing red tanktop on his arms.
“One second!”
He hoped the intruder didn’t hear the slight tremble in his voice, or the frantic shoving of his blades into the cabinet. Through his panic, footsteps entered in front of the door.
“Uh…you good in there?”
Jason wrapped the tanktop around his arms tight, attempting to wrap it as a makeshift bandage.
“No, I’m taking a shit. Ever heard of privacy?”
The footsteps didn’t retreat like Jason had hoped.
“Egh–okay just– hurry up, okay? Alfred said that he was making cookies and I wanna get them while they’re still hot.”
Jason tied the last knot over his arm and checked himself in the mirror. A slight sheen of sweat covered his forehead and his pupils were blown wide with anxiety. Jason splashed cold water on his face, in an attempt to wake himself back up. See, it was easy to hide his alarming thoughts and emotions when he got himself back into his “Red Hood mode”. Once he saw the fear in his eyes recede into a stoic blankness and his signature scowl etched into his lips, he swung open the door to greet the intruder.
Tim Drake stood in front of his bathroom door impatiently, dressed in his full Red Robin suit. A few rips on his skin-tight suit and the slight disheveled state of his hair indicated he had just finished patrol. The bored, and almost curious look as he gazed at Jason’s left arm was almost enough to make him shove his arm behind his back like a little kid hiding something naughty.
“Well I’m here Timbo,” He brushed past his younger brother to grab his suit lying on the living room floor and shoved his limbs into the skin-tight polyester, ignoring the screaming of pain when he inserted his left arm. “Why’re you even here? Did Bruce finally lose the budget to afford the Batmobile?”
Tim snorted, and pulled out his phone to check the time.
“Nah, your apartment is close and I don’t want to spend my energy grappling over to the manor.”
“So you’re here to use me?”
“You would literally do the same to me, Jason. And besides,” He glanced cautiously at Jason as he slotted his helmet on and grabbed his jacket. “What even happened to you?”
Jason knows that he was being sloppy with hiding whatever was wrong with him, but he was just so tired. A part of him wanted to drop to his knees, beg Tim for forgiveness for all his sins and for someone to finally notice his pain. The burdens of the scars, countless excuses for odd wounds, and the numerous lies he told to hide the days he spent rotting in his misery was so tiring.
Instead of giving in to that little hope etched in his heart, something leftover from his days as Robin, he squashed it and shoved it back into the darkness.
“Some bastard got a lucky hit on me, gave ‘em hell for it though.”
The deception in his words rolled off his tongue easily and naturally.
Tim raised a singular eyebrow.
“Why…is there no cut on your suit then?”
Jason froze, ice filling his veins.
“It was when I was off suit dumbass.” Jason growled, shoving past the baby bird to grab the keys to his motorcycle. “Don’t get all detective on me, pretender. Lock the door or I’m leaving you here.”
He slammed his apartment door shut, walking far enough to hear it open again with a creak and Tim’s annoyed grumbles.
It was so tiring being Jason Todd.