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When Dick wakes up the day after, it feels like his insides were carved out with a plastic spoon.
Plastic. Not because it would hurt more, but because it would take longer.
He curls impossibly further in on himself. He wonders how long he could get away with laying here. Days maybe, a week might be possible, but that’s a stretch. The sheets feel like ice under him, sharp and cold and everything they’re not supposed to be.
Nothing is how it’s supposed to be. Everything is wrong.
Everything is wrong in a way that he can’t fix. It’s all off by mere degrees, barely noticeable. It feels like the world around him is tilted, like he’s seconds away from falling over even though he’s already laying down. He wants to throw up, it won’t make him feel better, but he’s pretending that it will.
He didn’t cry last night. He didn’t let himself feel enough to do so.
He let his consciousness fade into the background as the familiar feeling of dread filled the room, stuffing all of his senses with the effects of drowning instead. His lungs filled with sobs that never came, the ghost of the ocean encompassed his body as he fell asleep. The delusion that he was drowning helped him fall asleep from the small sliver of hope that he was actually dying. The want, the need, to never wake up again.
Everything was so quiet. He needed it to be louder.
He needed to shatter every nerve ending, overstimulate all of them at the same time until he could no longer feel.
So he drinks.
He drinks and suffocates himself in liquor, dry-drowning because he doesn’t have the strength to throw himself into the Gotham harbor. He shouldn’t even have alcohol in his apartment, he hid a few bottles hoping to forget about them because he was unable to throw them out. He should hate himself for it, but he’s never been so grateful.
When he gets sick, two bottles deep, he lets himself throw up and then drinks more. Washing down the taste of vomit with the burn of rum because he needs it.
He needs to feel the warmth. The ever-growing silence that comes with being drunk. The artificial affection that will dull his mind into a buzzing hum in the back of his mind. Like a faulty lightbulb you’re too lazy to replace, a quiet hum that you learn to ignore. He needs to dumb himself down to let that feeling take over every bone in his body. He needs to feel anything better than this.
He’s drinking bottled love now.
The third time he throws up comes with little build-up. Just a small ache that is immediately followed by the burn of it all coming back up. He lost track of if it’s still because of the alcohol or if it’s just the intense disgust he can’t stop feeling.
He’ll let this go on for today, he’ll ruin himself just for today.
It won’t go back to normal for a long, long time, but he can’t stay like this. He has people that he can’t let down. He’ll keep up appearances, he just needs this one day.
The day after is always the hardest.
He refuses to contribute to a national statistic because of one bad day.
Besides, this isn’t real. None of this is happening because he’s fine. If it was real he’d be reacting differently. He’d be angrier, he’d tell someone, he’d do literally anything other than this. He’d fight back, damnit! His whole brand is built on justice, that applies to him too.
He wouldn’t be sitting on the bathroom floor, dissociating and hammered out of his mind. He knows better than that. The world tilting around him is proof enough that this is just some nightmare, or fear toxin, or…or something like that.
He doubles over and pukes again.
He feels something in him shatter as he convulses with it, feels his face crack apart as his eyes burn. The tears gather in his eyes but refuse to fall. Stomach acid and alcohol light up his insides like a propane cocktail thrown on a house fire.
The pain hasn’t stopped. Why won’t it stop?
Guilt and shame and embarrassment tear at his skin, ripping it off to strip him of any dignity he has left. It leaves him vulnerable and itching to end it all.
But he won’t, because he can’t.
Too much of a coward to let himself fall into the permanent solution to his problems. The one that begs at him everyday, the one that calls to him anytime he’s too close to the edge of a building. The one that tells him not to grapple every time he jumps.
He slumps against the wall, curling to a ball as the sobs finally break through. He wails, wondering how he let this happen. He could’ve stopped it, right? He should’ve.
He didn’t.
It happened. He let it happen. He did this to himself. That’s basically the same thing as consent, right? That’s what she would’ve said. He could’ve stopped it. He mentored her, he was strong enough to stop it. He’s never struggled to defend himself before, why now? What would Bruce think of him? He wanted independence so badly and look where it got him. He wasn’t ready for this, and Bruce would agree, because of course he would.
He could’ve stopped it.
He didn’t.
He’ll have to face the consequences of this alone. He deserves to anyway.
He could’ve stopped it.
The sobs leave him gasping for air. He’s drowning again. He doesn’t know how much longer he’ll be able to keep pulling himself out of the water. He doesn’t know how much longer he’ll want to.
His face goes numb when the cries don’t slow or taper down. He lays his face against the tile floor, the immediate cold shocking him into silence. It feels so much better than the raging fire in and outside of his body. The burns make his skin more peelable by the second.
He’s never been religious a day in his life, but he prays he won’t wake up as he finally gives in and passes out. He prays the alcohol was enough to kill him for real this time.
It would be his fault, he can’t claim it as an accident or feign ignorance. It would be completely his fault, and it would match the whole situation to begin with. But at least this would be intentionally his fault.
At least he’d have control over this one thing.
-
He never told anyone about the day after. It had passed as quickly as it started.
Things go back to normal, the world stops tilting. He can breathe again. The harbor still calls his name but it gets easier to ignore with each passing day. He jokes to himself about it even. Never out loud, never to anyone else. Just inside jokes that numb the pain a tiny bit more.
He never got help, never needed it. She goes to jail for unrelated reasons and it’s enough justice for him. He avoids touching people for a while but the craving for physical affection eats at him too much for the aversion to last long.
He keeps a bottle of whiskey tucked away in the cabinet though.
Just in case it gets bad again.
He doesn’t tell anyone about that either.
To his family, he’s been sober for three years. To Roy, he’s been sober for two and a half. To Wally, it’s been two years even.
To himself it’s been fifteen months.
But that’s okay because things are better now. Jason’s back, Damian’s warming up to him finally, he and Bruce are getting along again, and so on and so forth. There is absolutely no reason for it to get bad again. All he has to do is stop thinking about it.
Which’ll be easy.
He’ll keep it to himself like he always has, it’ll never get brought up, and he can ignore it forever.
It doesn’t matter how much he’s decaying from the inside out. It will go unnoticed and he’ll cover it up as much as it needs to be. There is nothing nagging at him to tell people, and even if there was he would never in a million years listen to it, because that is the devil on his shoulder talking.
Nobody will notice. Not because there are no signs, but because nobody cares. Dick is a hypothetical stone pillar, he is there as solid support, he does not need support. Nobody will notice a few cracks in the concrete exterior.
It’s just looking up from here on out.
Things will get better.
-
So Gotham wants him to kill himself apparently.
He gets a very pleasant “Fuck you!” from the sky as it proceeded to rain for the next three days straight, some storms blowing in from the east coast or something like that. Which is fine. Totally fine or whatever.
Dick just proceeds to bury himself in his apartment for the next three days.
Which is fine.
Well it’s fine until it isn’t.
The first two days were easy enough. He kept himself busy. He deep cleaned the entire apartment, watched eight different documentaries on seals, researched random topics until his brain was fried, and slept for twenty-six hours.
It was the third day that fucked him over.
The rain never faltered, just got heavier and meaner with each growing second. He tried to ignore it, but his skin itched so strongly. He was cracking more and more as the hours ticked by. He ran out of things to keep himself distracted.
Well, except for one thing.
Buried in the kitchen cabinet.
He shouldn’t. He can’t. It’d be a whole other low. He promised himself it wouldn’t get bad again. Everything was going just fine. It doesn’t hurt as bad as it did the day after, he really has nothing to complain about. There’s no need to get drastic now.
He shouldn’t.
But he really wants to.
So he waits.
He waits approximately thirty-nine seconds before he gives in. He pulls the bottle out of the cabinet with frantic, aching arms and sinks to the floor. Perfectly in view of the window as the rain comes down harder, almost as if it’s daring him to do it. The dim lighting makes him feel dizzy as he stares down at the glass bottle, his knuckles turn white with how hard he’s clutching it.
He shouldn’t.
He unscrews the cap with shaking hands.
And as if the world was punishing him more, the window slowly slides open. He flinches with the sound, eyes darting up almost immediately. The liquid sloshes in the bottle as his hands refuse to stop trembling.
Jason isn’t supposed to be here. Why is he here?
He never visits, why now?
He climbs through the window with practiced ease. Red Hood gear replaced with just a hoodie and cargo pants. He closes the window behind him, but has yet to actually look at Dick. He distantly wonders if he has enough time to chug the entire bottle before Jason turns around.
“Hey Dickhead, you haven’t patrolled in a few days and Timbo was getting worried so he sent me to check on….you…”
They lock eyes and Jason just freezes. He drops the metal cap of the bottle and it hits the floor with a sharp clatter. It takes all of Dick’s strength not to start crying as his brother's eyes process the scene in front of him.
“What.” He starts, nearly stuttering the word as his tone drops. “Are you doing?”
Dick can’t even think of an excuse. Actually, he can’t think at all. There is nothing that comes to mind, nothing he could say. This is quite possibly the worst outcome of today. He’d rather go outside and literally drink the rain than be here right now.
Jason slowly walks towards him, as if Dick were a stray animal that would easily startle. He crouches in front of him, gently pulling the bottle from Dick’s hands and grabbing the discarded cap to twist it back on. He sets it to the side and fully sits down in front of Dick with his legs crossed.
Jason lets out a slow exhale, almost a sigh but not nearly as disappointed as Dick anticipated.
“Alright. I’m not good at this, but let’s talk.” He says quietly.
Dick still has yet to say anything at all, staring at Jason the same way he had when he found out he’d come back from the dead. There’s nothing to say, his throat is suddenly so dry that he almost chokes. Each breath he takes is slow, measured, it’s the only thing stopping him from teetering into full mental detachment. It’s a miracle he has the ability to breathe at all.
“I don’t- this isn’t-” He tries, each word raspier than the last. “I…am fine.”
“Of course you are.” Jason says earnestly. “This is just a mistake. Which is fine, by the way, mistakes are fine.” Dick’s never seen him this anxious, cautious even.
Dick nods. “Uh huh. Just a,” He clears his throat, christ, he sounds awful. “Just a bad day.”
Jason shrugs one shoulder, an awkward smile on his face. “We all have ‘em. Nothing wrong with it.” He pauses. “You, uh, you wanna tell me why though?”
No.
Absolutely-fucking-not to be honest.
There is no way in hell that Jason is the first person he tells about this. Jason has been through so much worse and yet he manages. Granted, he desperately needs therapy, but he’s never needed anyone to piece him back together like this. Not to Dick’s knowledge at least.
Dick’s supposed to be the older brother. He’s supposed to be the person that people can come to when they’re struggling. It shouldn’t be the other way around. It’s never been the other way around.
He was doing so good.
There’s no need to be dramatic about this, there’s no need to cry or give Jason some kind of sob story. He’ll stick to the basics.
“I hate the rain.” He says.
Jason just nods, like it’s that simple. Like it was reasonable for Dick to almost relapse over the weather. He never openly told Jason that alcohol was a problem for him, Jason just kind of knew. Dick doesn’t know how, but he figured it out.
“Does anything help?” Jason mutters.
Dick just shrugs. “Keeping my mind off of it.” His eyes flick towards the bottle for half of a second.
Jason frowns, Dick can’t quite place the emotions that are present on Jason’s face, but they’re all bad. His eyes sting. He doesn’t want to do this, he really doesn’t.
This isn’t the day after, it shouldn’t hurt this bad again. It was supposed to be a one-day thing. This was supposed to be something he’d never have to worry about. It’s been over a year, that one day should’ve been enough. He let himself fall apart, he let himself grieve. He did what he was supposed to.
But it still rains.
As long as it rains it will still hurt.
Jason sighs. “Alright, here’s what we’re gonna do.” He says, starting to stand up. “We’re gonna tell Tim that you’re fine and that I went home. I am going to stay here until you’re physically strong enough to throw me back out that window, which we both know isn’t gonna happen tonight.” He mutters that last part, reaching out a hand to Dick. He doesn’t pull him up immediately, he waits for Dick to take it, waits for him to want help. “And we’re gonna do whatever you want, sober, that makes you feel better.”
Dick takes his hand, letting him pull him up finally. Jason slowly places both hands on Dick’s shoulders, giving him enough time to pull away if he wanted to.
“Nobody has to know anything is wrong if you don’t want them to. I’ll keep quiet until you want to talk to somebody as long as you promise me you’re not going to drink that the second I look away.” He mutters, looking down at the bottle still on the floor.
Dick swallows thickly. “I promise.” He rasps.
“Good. That’s- that’s good.” Jason mumbles.
They just stand there for a few seconds, staring at each other as Dick desperately tries to stay present. Jason must notice because he drags him over to the couch and makes him sit down. Once he’s certain that Dick won’t pass out, he walks back over to the kitchen and puts the whiskey in the first cabinet he sees. Doesn’t matter where it is as long as it’s out of sight. Dick doesn’t stop staring at the adjacent wall the entire time.
When Jason comes back and sits down next to him, Dick can’t help but start rambling. He needs anything to fill the silence, anything to make this feel normal.
“I’ve, uh, been watching a lot of seal documentaries.”
Jason snorts. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Tell me about it.”
And so he does. Rants on and on about different facts he managed to memorize. He doesn’t mention that he was inconsolably sobbing the entire time he watched them. He manages to talk for a while, never running out of interesting seal facts, until his head starts to get all hazy. Everything slows to this single moment in time, but he keeps talking. Regardless of if he can hear himself or not, he keeps talking.
And Jason just listens, the entire time. He asks a few questions but keeps them simple. Just lets Dick talk his ear off, he stays interested because he knows Dick needs this. Dick stops being able to see Jason, his sight replaced with static as his voice drops to a mumble.
Jason doesn’t call him out on it. If he wants to talk more he can, if he wants to drift he can do that too. He’s safe here. Jason’s not going to make him do anything he doesn’t want to.
He’s safe here.
When he comes back to himself, there’s a different seal documentary playing on the TV, and Jason’s still there, except Dick is sort of leaning on him now. He has one arm wrapped around Jason’s, pulling his forearm closer to his chest. He doesn’t remember when he did that, he just knows that it must’ve been him because Jason refuses to touch him without Dick’s conscious approval.
“You’re so right, these are so interesting.” Jason whispers, eyes glued to the TV.
Dick lets out a noncommittal hum, finally paying attention to what’s playing. It’s still raining outside, but he doesn’t seem to mind it as much anymore. It’s just background noise to this depressingly domestic scene.
Dick finally lets the tears spill over, burying his head into Jason’s shoulder as he weeps. Jason doesn’t say anything, just adjusts so they’re leaning at a more comfortable angle. Jason doesn’t care when the tears eventually soak his shirt, he doesn’t care that it doesn’t stop for a while. He just sits there and stays there for his brother. When Dick clings to him tighter, he cautiously lifts a hand to pet through his hair. It makes Dick cry harder but he would rather jump out the window than have Jason stop.
“It’s okay, big bird. I hate the rain too.” Jason says quietly.
Dick almost laughs. It’s such a simple yet comforting sentence. But it’s so sweet, Jason hasn’t called him by that nickname since he died. And it almost hurts with how much Dick has missed this, missed his brother. He just melts, he lets himself feel all the things he denied himself on the day after. He lets himself realize how bad it really was, now with the knowledge that he doesn’t have to be alone.
“I was raped.” He whispers, his voice wavering with sobs. “Outside. In the rain.”
Jason freezes. His body tenses ever so slightly. He doesn’t say anything for a long time. But when he does, it’s not mean or judgemental. He believes him instantly, that much is clear. He doesn’t tell Dick that it was his fault, he doesn’t sound disappointed or disgusted. He just sounds sad.
“I’m sorry.”
And that’s all Dick ever needed to hear.