What's Up With Nightwing

Chapter 7

"Jay, I'm fine." Dick kept distancing himself from me, though he was still fairly disoriented from his crash. This was the last straw for me as I grabbed him around the waist, picked him up, and sat him in the counter top and stared into his eyes with an unmatched amount of intensity flowing from my expression. Sat might have been a better term than what I did, I threw him onto the counter all at once slamming his back on the upper cabinets,

"What is with you?" I yelled, more like screamed,

"Jason, let go, please. I told you I'm okay!" He flailed his arms before I gripped his wrists pulling them in front of me while he whimpered from the pain of my hold,

"You're not, you've stopped eating, you're not taking care of yourself!"

"Jase-"

"Why aren't you eatin-" this seemed to be the last straw for him too as his face reddened and his fists clenched,

"Why do you care so much?" He shouted. Before I pushed him into the cabinets again,

"Because you're my-" I stopped, I was crying, "because you're the closest person I have in my life, and recently you've been really far. Dick I care about you!"

"Then why did you start drinking again?" He spoke leaving me wide eyed, "I worked so hard, I gave so much time and effort to getting you out of your addiction and you started back up like all I did meant nothing to you."

"Dick, I thought you were gone."

"So? If I meant anything to you, you would've stayed sober...for me, whether I was here or not. Because that was important to me, you, not wasting your life, was important to me. I stayed up countless nights with you, put up with countless fights from you, and never once gave up on you." His tears fell from a heavy heart. And I felt like the biggest failure, the worst friend, and the screwiest screw up,

"I'm sorry, Dick." I hung my head, "I messed up, you gave me so much and I ruined it all." I admitted, "Truth is this is what scared me most. That you would come back and see me like this, a drunk...i promise I'll stop." I pulled my hands off his wrists as he eased his tension and rubbed where I had held,

"Jason, I'm not in the mood for empty promises and lies." He said dropping his eyes to his knees,
"Lies?" I felt that anger burn bright red on my face again, "and what about you? You're the one who keeps running around saying you're fine and nothing's the matter. Dick, you freaking passed out at the gala, tonight!"

"I am fine!" He raised his voice looking me straight in the eye, "I'm fine." He softened his gaze and his voice,

"No, you're not. You've been through hell."

"I don't want to talk about it."

"Fine. But tell me, why aren't you eating?"

"Don't you think I'm not trying?" He uttered, "I-I- just can't seem to." The look in his eye told me he wasn't lying. I gave it a minute before speaking again,

"Look, Dick, I owe it to you to stop drinking and you owe it to yourself to start eating, so please."

"I know...I'll try." He shook his head that was downcast. Bruce suddenly popped into the kitchen with a look of stress and concern. He brushed past me straight to Dick,

"What happened?" He asked softly,

"I just got dizzy and lightheaded." Dick spoke lowly and meekly, shying away from Bruce who tried to put his hand to Dick's face,

"Dick, you're shaking pretty bad,  are you sure you're okay?" Bruce stepped back giving Dick a little room,

"Yeah, I'm fine."