Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Tim was frantically pacing around his room. He knew he should’ve taken the protein bars to his room, but he thought a quick stop to the bathroom wouldn’t have resulted in anyone touching what was his. Sure, his quick trip to the bathroom was actually closer to twenty minutes, but the point still stood. Twenty minutes shouldn’t have given anyone the idea that the bars were fair game.

Though he knew this was on him. Damian thought he owned everything. Why wouldn't that extend to unaccompanied protein bars on the kitchen counter? How could Tim be so stupid? Tim could blame the laxatives for kicking in at the worst time, but really, it was on him.

Before he could stop himself, he grabbed his car keys and made his way to Jason’s apartment. The man was the only one who would understand. At least, understand enough to not judge him.

That was how they were. They both restricted; they both had body image issues; they both felt a need for control in an often out-of-control way of life, even if their disorders manifested in different ways.

Jason thought he looked scrawny like Tim. He thought he wasn’t almost two hundred and fifty pounds of muscle, even while occasionally taking minor doses of Venom. Tim wished he could show Jason truly how muscular he was, and he was sure Jason wished he could do the same for Tim, but with how underweight Tim was.

While Tim wouldn’t really say he thought he looked like Jason, but more like the Penguin, if anything. He was short, which he oddly actually liked, despite his siblings teasing comments about his height. He also thought he looked obese. Like, he was also two hundred and fifty pounds, but not of muscle; of fat. Logically, he knew he was underweight, but that didn’t stop him from feeling more obese now than he ever did at his highest weight. It was ironic in a way. The more pounds he lost, the more his body dysmorphia tricked him into thinking those numbers he was losing on the scale were actually just going on his body. That wouldn’t stop him. At this point, he was sure only death could stop him. He was fine with that.

The drive wasn’t long. Thanks to a new highway, most people didn’t drive on the older highway anymore. Tim preferred the old road, even if it was full of potholes and the paint was barely visible.

Tim knocked on Jason’s door and began pacing in a circle soon after, waiting for his older adoptive brother to answer it. Two of Jason’s neighbors who were talking in the hallway looked at him like he was crazy. They probably thought he got this skinny due to coke, and now Tim was pacing due to a panicked withdrawal. He had contemplated doing stuff like cocaine or even Ozempic to lose weight. He had more than enough money to. He couldn’t. He had to set some hard limits with his eating disorder if he didn’t want to speed-run death. The only drug he would allow himself to take for his disordered habits was basic laxatives. That was it. Nothing that would boost his metabolism, cause him to throw up, or lessen his diet. Just laxatives, which were already bad enough.

Jason answered the door with a smile on his face before he dropped it as he took one look at Tim. “Thought you were someone else.” He huffed before he moved to the side, allowing Tim inside.

Tim stopped pacing in the hallway so he could walk into Jason’s living room and pace in there instead. Tim asked while pacing, “Don’t you check the peephole?”

“I do. Need to get your steps in or?” It was Jason’s turn to ask a question. Jason was aware of Tim’s pacing habits. He had witnessed the younger man pace exactly ten miles in the manor’s library once. It was Thanksgiving dinner, and Tim wanted to allow himself to eat for once. So he walked around the library for a couple of hours while Jason read a book on a couch while talking to Tim every so often.

“No. No, I’m doing this so I don’t bash my head into the wall.” Tim got more breathless as he spoke. Part of it was due to his increase in walking speed, but most of it was from his emotional state.

“Hmm… I wanted Roy, but I got a freaked-out Tim. I should not go gambling tonight.” Jason shook his head as he joked. He moved towards his couch, but he didn’t sit on it. Instead, he stood there and watched Tim pace around like his younger brother was the most entertaining thing in the world.

“When do you ever gamble?” Tim said quickly, letting out a deep breath before he spoke again. “I’m sorry I came over. I’m being stupid. You deserve better. I—“

Tim noticed Jason’s strong arms around his shoulders before he noticed the tears in his own eyes. The hug was comforting, even if it stopped him from moving, and it reminded him of just how fat his shoulders were. God, he was upset over protein bars, over food. He was acting so fat. No normal person would cry over their food being taken. He was supposed to be skinny, or at least acting skinny. Faking it until he made it. Why couldn’t his brain get the stupid memo?

“I’m going to stop you there. You’re more than enough. I’m sure without you, I’d be dead. Or running around the streets on some Venom bender. So just tell me what’s wrong instead of insulting yourself.” Jason's voice was deep, deeper than Tim’s. It almost always comforted him. Especially when his head was pulled up against Jason’s chest so he could feel the deep rumble that every little syllable drew out of him.

“I had three protein bars, which were supposed to my OMAD tomorrow, but Damian ate all three of them. Then he got mad at me when I got upset!” Tim exclaimed. He knew it was partially his fault for leaving them out there like that, but still. Did Damian have no self-control?

“I got protein bars,” Jason said initially before he thought about it a little more. “Maybe,”

He added before he looked down at Tim. “I’m kind of a food hoarder too.”

“I know.” Tim sighed. They both were food hoarders, though Jason was worse than Tim. Jason had shelves in his room dedicated to food, despite living by himself. The older of the two also kept buying more food than he could ever eat, which was saying a lot, given his bulking intake went up to four thousand calories some days. Some of the food he brought, he’d never end up eating because it was a fear food. Like most candy bars or greasy foods. They’d just sit there, collecting dust. It was almost like he viewed them as decorations rather than a perishable good.

Tim, on the other hand, mostly hoarded protein bars and coffee pods. He always made sure to use them before they expired, but that didn’t mean he’d have a hundred of them hiding in various spots around his room. Some were in his nightstand, under his mattress, inside his pillow, in multiple dresser and desk drawers, and on all sorts of shelves. He was almost certain not a flat square foot of his room went without having some sort of edible good hidden somewhere. Once he was almost convinced to start stuffing food into his floorboards after one came loose. Alas, his hard limits for his eating disorder advised him otherwise.

“Maybe you can have three for tomorrow, okay?” Jason offered. That meant a lot from Jason. The guy rarely shared his food. Tim wasn’t the only one who knew, as he heard Stephanie call the older man a food hog. Damian called him greedy when it came to food. Tim couldn’t blame him. Having an eating disorder paired with not having access to much food growing up definitely wasn’t a great combination.

“Thanks.” Tim snuggled into Jason. His older brother was warm, like usual. Those muscles made him like a damn personal heater. Tim loved it as he was often cold and shivering, even during a hot summer day or while under layers of blankets. He could never be warm, not until Jason was around.

Jason was also the only one who got to see Tim like this. Everyone else in Tim’s personal life would be concerned and try to get him to go to therapy. Though he considered talking to Stephanie when she opened up about her own struggles, he ultimately decided against it. She was looking to recover while Tim had no intentions of ever doing so. He also didn’t want to get super competitive with her. Some part of him thought that maybe his competitive side would be spared. All those thoughts went out the window the moment he began comparing the amount she was eating to him. She was in recovery, but she still managed to eat less than him, who was supposed to be fully disordered.

He didn’t compare himself to Jason; he didn’t have much to compare himself with anyway. He couldn’t ask for anyone more perfect. Jason would eat crazy amounts of calories, granted mostly protein, when he was bulking. Even when he was cutting, he was still eating at least a thousand-something calories, while Tim rarely ate above one thousand two hundred calories.

“Sit with me?” Jason asked, already pulling Tim to the couch before he could answer. He leaned against his older brother, who was still holding him, albeit more lazily since they sat down. This was nice. This was exactly what Tim needed. For someone to hold him and let all of his anxieties wash away, especially his food-related worries.

Tim let out an unsteady sigh before allowing himself to fully relax into the older man’s arms. Jason almost always knew just what to do for Tim. It didn’t matter if his older brother was on thin ice with half of the family. Tim always loved him as his brother. Well, besides when he first came back and was actually insane, but afterwards, he’s been Tim’s brother. Nobody could change that, not even Bruce. Though it wasn’t like Bruce was trying to do much legally, besides marrying Selina as soon as possible.

“Three protein bars, and you’ll be fine. No more hungry Damian.” Jason rubbed Tim’s back in slow circular motions.

Tim nodded and closed his suddenly heavy eyes. In another life, Jason could’ve been a masseuse, or so Tim was convinced, at least.

Jason continued tracing circles into Tim’s back while occasionally pressing into the firm muscle. After a little while, he spoke up yet again, “How many calories were in each, if you remember?”

“Mh,” Tim lazily hummed an acknowledgment. He would answer Jason, but it would take him a minute to do so. With how good his hands felt, he could barely think properly. He eventually answered. “Two hundred, two hundred and twenty, and three hundred and ten. So, seven hundred and thirty. My limit is seven hundred and fifty tomorrow. I’m doing one of those themed diets. It’s a Draculaura one.”

“Of course it is.” Jason sighed.

Jason obviously knew all about Tim and his themed diets. Tim was nearly obsessed with doing themed diets. He was never not participating in a themed diet. It didn’t matter the theme. Monster High, Sanrio, aesthetic themes—he didn’t care; he’d do it. As long as they weren’t lower-restriction diets. If they never dipped below a thousand calories or went higher than one thousand two hundred, he would ignore them and move onto whatever other diet was out there. He just found them fun, and they were an easy way to get him to get to his deficit. He also usually found at least one person online who would participate in the diet with him. Usually it was this same girl. She went by Diorrexic online. She was also crazy about doing diets. Granted, she wasn’t as crazy as Tim was.

Tim did get competitive with the people online, though he more so wanted a community that understood him. That didn’t mean there weren’t some things that his eating disorder didn’t try to ruin. The number of underweight people he could see, just by a few keystrokes, was definitely not a healthy convenience for him. Though he preferred to lie to himself and pretend like he could turn off his phone and delete his accounts if he really wanted to. In reality, he couldn’t. The problem was that he did really want to delete his account most days. Yet, he found himself continually scrolling, whether he meant to or not. It was just social media. It wasn’t that deep or serious, not to Tim. That was another lie Tim liked to tell himself.

“Wanna watch TV?” Jason glanced down at Tim while he asked. It didn’t matter what Tim would answer. The younger was aware that the older was just asking out of decorum, but he would turn his television on regardless.

“Oh, I heard that Jax has an eating disorder in that new episode of Vivid. He has the same one as you.” Tim informed Jason.

The two would consume eating disorder-related media together. They read a lot of books, some all about eating disorders, like Winter Girls, while others touched on it, like I’m Glad My Mom Died. That included movies and shows as well, which ranged anywhere from an eating disorder-centric movie like To The Bone to more episodic mentions like Skins and to a brief cameo like Girl, Interrupted. It didn’t matter how much of the media was about eating disorders. Sure, the more it focused on the topic, the better, but they’d rather stick to good media that barely covered it rather than bad media that was explicitly about eating disorders.

“Good, I’m glad mine’s getting more rep, and it’s no longer solely skinny girls who can’t eat more than 5 grapes or who vomit after every meal.” Jason sighed before he turned his television on, finding Netflix so he could watch the new episode of Vivid with Tim.

Tim felt for Jason. Men with eating disorders were rarely talked about and taken less seriously. That impacted Tim as well, but at least Tim still somewhat fit the eating disorder stereotype. Tim starved himself, which was basic eating disorder knowledge. With Jason, you wouldn’t even be able to tell he had an eating disorder unless you were knowledgeable about more than bulimia and anorexia. Nobody would think that Jason had an eating disorder, which Tim both envied and pitied.

Envied because if he was in Jason’s situation, he could get away with a lot more. Pitied because he understood the need to feel validated about having an eating disorder. It’s a lot more validating when even society agrees that you have one. For Jason, he could just pass as any other gymbro. Though who’s to say that any other gymbro Jason’s size also didn’t have an eating disorder?

“Hey, I used to throw up every meal.” Tim playfully pushed Jason. It was true, even if he said so in a teasing way. He used to force himself to vomit for a good five years until his teeth were ten vomits away from rotting, he developed an ulcer in his stomach, and he would throw up without even trying. Once his body was basically on autopilot with throwing up, it scared the shit out of him, and he realized he couldn’t fuck around with his more bulimic tendencies like he could with his anorexic ones. Not to mention that one blog post he read about a mother grieving her bulimic daughter who died by her stomach rupturing after years of bulimic abuse.

There was a certain respect Tim held towards bulimic people and their struggles. He understood the pain they went through and just how hard it was to stop once they started. It was almost addicting in a way. He used to be able to eat what he wanted without fear of gaining or maintaining weight. Though knowing that some bulimic people didn’t even lose weight despite everything was bittersweet to him.

At the end of the day, he didn’t want anyone to suffer the same way he did. When he heard about people hitting their goal weights, he was glad that they were happy, especially when they’d allow themselves to indulge in their favorite foods afterwards, but he was also sad as they were a step closer to another health issue and their eventual grave.

He felt selfish sometimes. For the fact that he wanted a community, even if just online, full of people who struggled the same way he did. He knew it wasn’t healthy or sustainable, but he couldn’t help himself. He had Jason, which was great for in-person stuff, but Jason never understood what it was like to liquid fast for days at a time, or to be frustrated at himself when the numbers didn’t go down fast enough, or to be constantly cold, constipated, and uncomfortable from lying down for too long. The people online understood precisely what Tim experienced, as they went through the same thing.

“I’m glad you quit. I would’ve smacked you with one of your barf bags if you hadn’t.” Jason joked. Tim rolled his eyes.

Tim had some barf bags when he did purge, but he always liked getting rid of them as soon as possible. He saw how some people would have dozens of bags stored in their closet. He always thought it was gross, but his disorder had caused him to piss himself on more than one occasion, not to mention the one time he accidentally shit himself in class. He had no room to judge.

Jason found the show and began playing it. Tim grabbed a blanket nearby and threw it over the two. Jason always kept his apartment cold, and depending on Tim’s mood, he either loved it or hated it. He loved it when he reminded himself just how many calories shivering burned. He hated it when he wasn’t anywhere near his honeymoon phase and wanted to stop feeling cold all the damn time.

As if Jason was a mind reader, he turned his electric fireplace on via remote. Tim snuggled into his older brother and mouthed a wordless, “Thank you.”

Jason wrapped his arm around Tim’s shoulder, pulling him closer. “Yeah, no problem.” He whispered back.

He finally stopped shivering and for a few brief hours, he felt at peace.

Chapter Text

chap 2

Jason was lying on his back on his bed. His hands resting on his stomach, fingers clasped and intertwined. He looked the same now as the day Bruce had buried him. He seemed just as peaceful too. Though his external expressions often didn’t match his internal dilemmas. Such as he felt in the moment.

Roy was always generous with his compliments, and for the most part, Jason didn’t mind. Sometimes, the redhead’s praise even helped, momentarily uplifting his mood. He didn’t mind the remarks about his cooking, his laugh, or even the way he snored. Those were harmless, oddly sweet, even endearing in their own way.

There were other compliments. Ones he could never bring himself to address. The ones that hit wrong, even if they were meant to make Jason smile. Praise about his scars, his body, how hot his abs looked, and especially the casually sexual comments Roy tossed out without a second thought. Those words didn’t soothe him. They scraped. He hated them. Yet, he said nothing.

Jason knew deep down that he should say something. He was self-aware enough to recognize that real and uncomfortable honesty was better than silent resentment. Roy would listen. Hell, he’d probably stop the moment Jason asked, no questions, no hesitation. Jason knew that. Knew that Roy cared more about his boyfriend’s comfort than his own pride.

Though every time that ecstatic smile formed on Roy’s face after one of those compliments, it made Jason hesitate. It was the kind of smile that made it feel like the words had done something good and right. Almost enough to make him believe he could live with the discomfort, just to keep seeing it.

Almost.

What set Jason off this time wasn’t anything dramatic or crazy. It was just pizza and a cheap horror flick on the couch. Something they’d done a dozen times before. The kind of night that should’ve been easy.

Then Roy leaned in, grinning, and gave Jason’s bicep a playful squeeze.
“Guess I’ll be fine with you around,” He joked. “These muscles could take on a dozen masked killers.”

Jason didn’t respond. He only gave a fake and short laugh, like the echo of something real. Roy didn’t seem to notice, or maybe he did and chose not to press. He was better at reading people than most others gave him credit for. Jason knew that sometimes Roy’s silence wasn’t ignorance. It was restraint.

That didn’t make the comment any easier to stomach. No matter how casual the tone or how loving the intent was, Jason felt that familiar pant in his heart. And once that feeling started, it didn’t stop for a long while.

The mention of his muscles made Jason quietly set the slice down. He hadn’t even finished half of it. It was his first slice of pizza in months—months of strict control, clean eating, discipline. He didn’t know what made him think he could just casually indulge tonight, like it wouldn’t matter. Like he wouldn’t feel it crawling under his skin afterward.

Two slices. That had been the plan. Only two. But even that felt like too much now.

Roy’s compliment should’ve felt like affection. It was supposed to be harmless, and even sweet in a way. All it did was sharpen the edges of Jason’s self-awareness. It reminded him of the standard he’d set for himself. Of how easy it was to fall off track. And in that way, it helped. A bitter form of help, but help nonetheless.

He could still fix this. He could get back on track. He hadn’t gone too far. At least he only ate half of a slice, instead of a full one, or the two he had planned on eating.

So why did he feel even worse afterward?

Misery was nothing new, just background noise, a constant hum ever since he’d clawed his way back from the grave. This felt heavier, more sharper. Like something was rotting just beneath the surface, not unlike him a couple of years ago. He felt like he needed to hit the gym immediately. Like he needed to bench press until his arms shook, until the panic dissolved under weight and repetition. As if one indulgent moment had undone everything, made his body foreign again. Made his shirt feel too tight as if he simultaneously gained twenty pounds.

What made it worse was that he couldn’t even pretend he was fine and swim in a pool of his delusions. Not fully. Not convincingly. Not like Tim. Tim could lie to himself with terrifying consistency. Wrap his issues in facts and science and numbers until even he believed them. Jason didn’t have that luxury. He saw the disorder for what it truly was. While at the same time, he still let it control him. Even if some part of him clung to it like a lifeline. Knowing all of that, being aware of his illness and still surrendering to it, only made everything feel so much worse.

Jason was grateful for his self-awareness. It grounded him. It let him recognize when he was hurting, when people were afraid of him, when a relationship wasn’t fit for the long term. It kept him from lying to himself, even when that truth cut deep. Though that same awareness made his eating disorder harder to cling to.

He couldn’t pretend it was working. He couldn’t convince himself that skipping meals or overtraining was some fast track to the body he wanted. Not the way Tim could, with his meticulous denial wrapped in data and rigid control. Tim could just stop eating and somehow thrive on it. It was almost like he turn starvation into some sort of unethical science project.

Jason wasn’t wired like that. He had basic needs. He got hungry. He got tired. He couldn’t detach from his body like it was some malfunctioning machine that needed recalibration. Not eating and still pushing himself in the gym weren’t compatible strategies. It took more than pain tolerance. It took denial, delusion, obsession.

He even occasionally caught himself wishing he had a different kind of disorder. Something more visible, more recognizable. Something people would take seriously.

Maybe then he’d be believed and make some sort of progress. Maybe he would finally feel like he had some sort of control.

People rarely questioned the validity of the people who starved themselves, or the ones who purged, or abused laxatives, or followed every textbook symptom of a restrictive eating disorder. Those disorders had names, clinical definitions, awareness campaigns, and support groups. They were tragic, yes, but understood. Hell, even binge eating got more empathy. People could wrap their heads around emotional eating, the loss of control in that aspect. It was messy, yet inherently human.

What Jason had?

No one talked about it. No one named it. No one believed that building muscle, obsessing over macros, examining calories with a certain precision while chasing an impossible ideal could be disordered too. Especially not for someone like him. He was supposed to be a big, angry, intimidating vigilante. The picture of health, not dysfunction.

So he mostly kept quiet, notably around non-disordered people. Because when the world only recognizes pain that looks a certain way, it was easier to let his pain go invisible.

Jason knew what it was called. Muscle dysmorphia. He wasn’t ignorant. He’d read the articles, seen the studies, ticked off the symptoms like a damn grocery list. He knew others were obviously aware of it too. Though awareness wasn’t the same as understanding. It wasn’t the same as validation.

How could anyone take it seriously when even the people who had it didn’t? Most treated it like a punchline, gymbros laughing about skipping meals when cutting and bragging about two or even three-a-day workouts. He even saw some mention limiting water consumption for a better mirror picture. It also didn’t help when even the serious lifters, the ones who lived and breathed this stuff, rarely admitted it was a problem. It was just discipline. Just grind. Just aesthetic goals.

When someone on the non-disordered side of the internet did talk about it, it always came with similar comparisons.
“At least you're not starving yourself.”
“At least you're eating.”
“At least you're healthy.”

It made his disorder look like a joke. A lesser evil. A vanity issue. That’s how people treated it, as small, superficial, ridiculous. To Jason, it was all-consuming and it hurt just the same.

Most people assumed working out is nothing but a positive hobby. That it could only be a healthy outlet, a mark of discipline and strength. Never did they ever stop to consider the extreme end of the spectrum. The end that had Jason spending hours in the gym every single day, his routine as demanding as a full-time job.

People would regularly shame anyone who counted calories, labeling them obsessive or unhealthy. But those same people praised those who tracked macros religiously and prioritized protein above all else, treating it like the gold standard of fitness. It was definitely some sort of double standard, but Jason didn’t have the resources to say anything productive about it.

When those same people looked at Jason, well, they didn’t look, it was more like a quick glance at best. That one quick, dismissive glance was all it took for them to peg him as the definition of health and strength. The ideal image of fitness. In reality, it couldn’t have been further from the truth.

That was the cruelest part of his disorder. It was what he both loved and hated about the illness. How effortlessly he could hide behind it. How easy it was for everyone to accept the lie: that his obsessive behaviors were just “normal gymbro stuff.” A badge of dedication, not a red flag.

Although because of that, no one took him seriously. His past attempts to get help were dismissed, brushed off as unnecessary or overblown. They believed he didn’t need it. To them, he was already where he was supposed to be.

Jason turned over on his side and pulled out his phone. He used to never use it, but now he was practically glued to it. His disorder had a part to play in his tripled screen time.

He’d never cared much about social media before, but now he found himself endlessly scrolling through Instagram, watching buff guys one after another post their workouts, their meal plans, and maybe their daily stats if he was lucky. It was the best kind of motivation for him out there.

Sometimes, he’d slip into the more obscure corners of the internet. The sides with those toxic forums and pages where eating disorders were glamorized, where control was worshipped and self-destruction was disguised as strength. It was dangerous, but it felt like a place where his pain made sense. A place where he felt a sense of belonging and comradery.

He didn’t relate to the vast majority of content there. That was Tim’s territory. The classic eating disorder scene, the starvation, the purging. Jason’s struggle was different but also in its own way.

Still, there were a few openly disordered gymbros who shared their battles, and he followed every single one that popped up on his timeline. He’d sometimes engage with the rest of the eating disorder community. Usually that went as far as him liking a meme about body dysmorphia here or retweeting a harm reduction thread there. However he mostly preferred to lurk.

What mattered most was the thread he’d kept alive for three years now, updating it obsessively with his stats, macros, and workout routines. He had started it to keep himself accountable and to stay on track. Though now he viewed it as a record of his progress, his control, and maybe, in its own quiet way, a way to feel less alone.

He barely had any followers, right under three hundred, most of them fellow gymbros or the occasional bot. He still remembered the shock he felt when he first found Tim’s account. Tim had two thousand followers back then, and now he was almost ten times that number.

The surprise faded quickly, though, once Jason realized most of Tim’s followers were lonely teenaged girls, drawn to any male who lived in that corner of the internet. Jason had even crossed paths with a few of them himself. Although he always ended up blocking them. He knew they weren’t there for solidarity or understanding. Most wanted male validation, and Jason wasn’t willing to play that part.

Not to mention the nightmare he lived for a week when someone had screenshotted one of his bodychecks from his massive thread and posted it publicly, calling Jason a “hidden gem” on edtwt. The thought of being exposed like that again, of being dissected and judged for a second time, made him feel just as uncomfortable as when it happened.

Fortunately, Tim caught the post before it blew up and warned him. Jason immediately privated his account. Which helped garner sympathy for himself as people rallied around him, harassing the original poster until she took it down.

Even so, every time Jason considered engaging with the community, that incident flashed through his mind. Nine times out of ten, the moment he started typing out a funny joke about his disorder, a post reaching out for some support, or even just a simple reply on a random post, he’d save his words for a draft that he’d only ever be the one to see.

Jason continued scrolling, liking every post of a guy he wished he looked more like. Tim had once called his feed a “gay dream” because it was nothing but buff, shirtless men. Jason might’ve taken offense if it came from anyone else, but since it came from Tim, he laughed it off. After all, he was secure enough in his sexuality not to care. Not like he was exactly straight. Especially with whatever him and Roy had going on. Their on and off relationship was the definition of a typical gay relationship.

When he stumbled across a post about a guy talking openly about starvemaxxing, Jason couldn’t help but chuckle softly. The guy was clearly struggling, just like him. Instead of accepting the reality of his mental illness, he slapped on an unserious label, trying to make light of the disorder.

A thought flickered through Jason’s mind that maybe he should do the same. The possibility that if he started using this kind of language around his friends and family, they’d finally realize he wasn’t some poster boy for perfect health.

However, he knew that they’d think he was joking and wouldn’t take him seriously at all. Why would they? He wasn’t starving himself like Tim. He still ate three meals most days and he didn’t look malnourished or sick like those with anorexia or bulimia often did. So, to them, he was doing just fine.

Jason rolled onto his back and rested his phone on his chest. He knew he should feel grateful that he wasn’t malnourished and that he wasn’t at risk of hair loss or heart failure. That he wasn’t living on the brink of death like so many others out there.

Though, deep down, a part of him wanted those things. At least then, in his mind, he’d feel more valid. Well, probably not the hair loss symptom. Going bald in his early twenties was a hard pass. He’d prefer to keep his hair as it currently was.

His phone suddenly buzzed, breaking Jason from his spiraling thoughts. He took a peek down at his phone to see a message from Dick. His older brother was inviting him to join a workout session in an hour since Wally was busy watching some geeky show. He scoffed quietly but still tapped a thumbs up emoji, silently confirming Dick’s plans.

If only Dick knew how much he was hurting Jason. Maybe then he’d take him seriously.