Gotham Nights (featuring Jason Todd!)

Drugged Nights

Leukaemia.
Apparently its like a blood cancer or something. Messes up your blood, which messes up the rest of you.

She'd been sick for a while. We knew that much. Experiencing pain whenever she moved, constantly feeling dizzy, vomiting, possibly other things that she didn't even tell us about.
I had thought nothing of it. She just has a bad virus, it'll pass.
I never thought in a million years she'd be diagnosed with cancer. Especially one as bad as this.

She's starting treatment immediately, tomorrow. But apparently it's grown quickly and has already entered one of the late, and critical stages.
But Dad has faith that she'll make it, he has to have faith. So should I. But I don't.
I can't.
I can't give myself false hope.

I lock my door behind me. I've left my parents in the lounge with a group of their friends, they just told them about my mother's predicament. I couldn't handle the dourness, the sad faces, the cries that accompany hugs of false reassurance.
Its bullshit.
Life's bullshit.
It's a joke and we're the punchline.
It's unfair,
it's sad,
it's cruel,
it's broken,
it's dishonest,
it's sad,
it's demented,
it's cruel
it's screwed,
it's relentless,
it's fucked,
it's unfair,
it's punishing,
it's relentless,
it's full of shit,
it's broken
it's dishonest,
it's demoralising,
it's depressing,
it's tiring,
it's cruel,
it's crippling,
it's depressing,
it's sad,
it's bullshit.

It's too much. There's too many thoughts. I can't do it. I can't handle it.
I need to leave, get well away from here. I need to escape from the world and my mind and my mother and her cancer.

I reach down beneath the bed into my hidden compartment. I then pull out Danny's medicine.
And it all stops. The words, the worlds, the sad things, the bad things, the things, things, things. It all disappears and I'm able to think, actually think. Clearer than I've ever thought before.
I lay down in my bed, I think its my bed, I want the comfort of sleeping without a worry, without a cancer or a Zassac or even a Robin. Just sleep that is a sleep. A nice sleep. A sleep sleep. Sleep. Sleep. Sleep. Sleep. Sleep.

I open my eyes.
Above me is the ceiling. My bedroom light is on so the dusk must've turned into night. I'm not in my bed. I'm in a blanket on the floor underneath the window.
My hands move up to my eyes. The light in my room is too bright. I need dimmer bulbs. Something more suited to being high.
Wait, who turned on the lights?

That's when I see the red figure, sitting on the bed, he has the special bag in his hands.

"Ro-Robin?" I rub my eyes numerous times to make sure he's really there. He is.

"So you're a junkie." He states, staring down at the bag.

"Uhhhh," whats a response that won't ruin a three year friendship. "Kinda?"

I see his grip tighten on the bag. His eyes stay focused on it, like he's trying to destroy it with his mind.

"I thought you were better than this." He says angrily. "You're meant to be better."

I don't think I've ever actually heard him use that tone before, especially not when he's talking to me.
I'm taken aback, I try to talk but I can't. The words get jumbled up and alls I make is an internal 'ehh' in my throat.
It must've been audible though, because Rob lost his shit.

He jumped from the bed and stormed toward me. I actually ended up shuffling backward further into the corner.

"Why?" He kneels and shoves the bag in clear view of my face. "Why!" He repeats. When I don't answer, he throws the bag away, it's contents spill all over the floor. He continues. "Do you think they help you? Do you think your life is better because of them? C'mon Isabella, I thought you were smart. Or at least smarter than this. Do you even understand the issues that this crap could cause? The brain damage, the addiction. The unemployment line. No one wants to hire a drug-addicted junkie! You want to spend the rest of your life unemployed and ruined? You just want to become a lousy beggar who wastes every cent they get on more crap like the shit you're taking? Or would you rather go to prison? Cause thats where you're gonna end up. Right next to the freaks I take down night after night. Is that what you want? You want to become a frea–"

At some point during his rant, I begin to remember why I took the pills in the first place.
Mother, leukaemia, bullshit. Mix it in with abuse from my best friend.
And I cry. I probably cry as much as I did on the night of my attacking. Or the nights following. I just bow my head in between my legs and let it flow, theres no suppressing it. 
My sobs immediately put Robin to silence. I feel him looking down at me.

I don't dare look up at him. I don't even dare move anything but my lips. But I tell him. I tell him why.

"My mother has cancer."

The air immediately becomes stiffer, stuffier, I almost can't breathe it.
It's a scary minute of silence, no sounds but my sobs, until I feel Rob's body sit next to mine. An arm begins to wrap itself around my waist.
I lift my head from my legs and look at him with watery-eyes and he pulls me close to him. I comply and my head falls on his shoulder as his arms completely embrace me.
He lets me cry on his shoulder. My tears turning his suit darker, like it was when he was injured. He doesn't offer any words, just his warmth. And thats enough, it's all I need.

"Thankyou." I whisper, close to his ear so he can hear.

"Thank me by staying of the drugs." He also whispers.

"It's not that simple."

"It will be with me here."

"But, they help. They help with it all." I defend.

"I used to think that too." He states. "And then they killed my mother."

I move away from his shoulder to look him in the mask, his arms stay tight around me.

"While I was outside protecting her from the filth my dad angered. She was inside killing herself. I walk in one day, and she was on the floor. Gone. Overdosed." He pauses and I watch as his bottom lip quivers. "And I come here tonight. And I see you on the floor. Gone."

I didn't think it was possible, but more tears begin to leak from my eyes. I wrap my arms around him and hold him as tight as he holds me.

"Take them." I order him. "Take them and get them far away from me. Burn them. I don't care. Just as long as I don't have them."

"I'm going to help you deal with your mom. Okay. You don't need to rely on those things. You have me. I promise. I will always be here."

"You better be."

"I will be."

I once again rest my head on his shoulder.
I'm not sure how long we sit there before I drift off to sleep. Maybe an hour, maybe two. But I wake up in my bed, the blankets all tucked in around me. Its morning. Robin is nowhere to be seen.

I sigh heavily and eventually make my way out of bed. I walk across the hall and knock loudly on Danny's door. As soon as he see's its me, he swings it open and greets me.

"Izzie, hey, I heard about you're mother. Terrible news. But I'm sure she'll pull through–"

"Cut me off." I interrupt him.

"Really? Are you sure?"

I nod.

"You–you're not going to attack me again like last time are you?"

I shake my head.

"Okay." He smiles. "I just hope this one lasts eyy."

I shut the door on him and go back home.
I'm starving.