Only Talon! Dick one-shots

57. He's gone pt 2

Sorry for not updating these in a while, I get overwhelmed by simple things

It was a hellish sight to see the once marvellous and upbeat Dick Grayson reduced to a bed, barely awake most of the time. When he was awake, he barely spoke much more than a few sentences and conversations were repeated plenty of times as he drifted between sleep and consciousness. He was exhausted from those brief interactions but they made sure to always catch them. They dreaded to be in his place yet they'd switch in the blink of an eye if it meant Dick would go back to normal. Progress was slow but they still held out hope that he'd push himself over the hill and get onto coping with a life without Wally. A life they knew he never wanted to experience and hadn't prepared for in the slightest.

"What do we do?" Tim asked at yet another dinner without Dick at the table. It'd been three weeks since he began his stay at the Manor and none of them really expected him to join them but it was still disappointing when his chair was left empty. Alfred would hesitate for a moment before climbing the stairs to his room with his dinner for the night. Often, he would come back down with it not long after with a frown and inform them that Dick had refused to eat. In those instances, they made sure to force him to eat his breakfast.

"About?" Bruce prompted in return. He knew. It was just hard to admit that he didn't have a clue about how to go about it. 

"About Dick. I know he's upset and exhausted but sometimes it feels like he's not even trying to get better," he continued with a frown. "Maybe Barbara should come over? Hell, I think even Connor could be of some benefit. We're lost in the sauce emotionally speaking. That was always Dick's department." Bruce let out a long sigh and rubbed his temples as he contemplated the idea. They weren't the most emotionally available of people. It didn't mean they didn't care and Dick always seemed to roll with the punches that were loving his family but right now he was tired. He was grieving. Bruce never really had to deal with that before. Once Dick was free from the Court of Owls, he knew that he was upset about his parents' deaths but he didn't have much emotional range back then. He didn't understand how he felt so he dealt with the hurt and even now, none of them was sure that he'd actually addressed how he felt about it aside from acknowledging it. 

"I suppose it couldn't hurt to have her come over, but if he's asleep most of the time, I don't see much of a point," Bruce replied.

"B, I think he's faking doing that. Have you ever noticed how he's always facing away from the door even though he always sleeps towards the door?" He had noticed. It'd been bugging him but he'd tried not to get annoyed about it. When you lose your world, it made sense you wouldn't want to talk about it. Especially when you were better at dealing with other people's emotions and not your own.

"I'll give them a call," he responded. Tim nodded and turned to see the stairwell where Alfred was once again bringing down a plate of barely touched food. Neither of them missed the sad frown placed on the old butler's features. It was weighing on him far too much. "Maybe they'd know what to do."

To say Dick wasn't doing well was an understatement. He wasn't sleeping, at least not enough to feel any better. He pretended to sleep whenever he heard someone coming to check on him even though a conversation sounded quite nice he just couldn't bear to navigate it. His stomach growled at him whenever food was close but he always refused it. Eating sounded so tiring. Going to the bathroom was exhausting. Showering was a chore. Existing was hard. He'd never felt like this before and at first, he'd been concerned about that. Now he was numb to it. The last time he'd felt this close to desperately numb was when he first left the Court. Every moment was spent pondering all the blood that stained his hands and dripped through his fingers with his newfound sense of self. He knew what he'd done was wrong all along but now he was in a new environment where people who displayed his behaviours were thrown in prison and rightly so. It took what felt like forever to be able to live with the souls he'd taken. All of that was coming back as he realised that had he done things differently, Wally may still be alive. He'd promised years ago to never kill another person and yet here he was with red all over him. Was everyone wrong about him? Had he actually changed? There were other questions he had that he tried to push away but they always seemed to have an iron grip on them. Why did people who loved him die? Why was he allowed to be loved when he'd done horrible things? Was any of this fair when he'd spent his childhood abused? Wally, Jason and his parents were all gone not to mention the countless number of lives he took. He'd probably taken away someone's Wally, someone's Jason, someone's parents. A thought popped up that frightened him more than anything. An eye for an eye, a life for a life. His brain shut down every time he had it. Conflicting orders and loyalties. He'd wake up later and acknowledge the thought but never really address it until he'd spent too long without sleep. The static wasn't sleeping but it was a break from reality that sleep usually provided. In some horrible way, he'd accepted this as his normal. He accepted and even liked the ache from deep within his muscles from hardly moving, he accepted the claws of guilt ripping him to shreds and worst of all, he'd accepted that Dick Grayson wasn't meant to be loved. Funnily enough, this was the easiest one to accept. How disappointing.