Don't Break [Jess]

It was late, but it wasn't like either of them were keeping to any sort of normal schedule at all. Being freelance artist types it wasn't like they were great about keeping on a normal '9 to 5' type schedule to start with, but lately, with as shaken as they both were, it was worse.

She yawned and rubbed a hand through her shaggy hair...she was getting overdue to get it cut again, it was all growing out underneath...and came to curl up next to him on the couch. "You need to sleep is what you need to do." She countered in a bit of a murmur, partly because she was worried, she was pretty sure he hadn't actually slept much beyond light dozing and he didn't seem to want to drug himself to do it either...which she could respect...but a dark little corner of her brain half wanted to just put sleeping pills in his drink so he could finally get some rest.

Though...she had a feeling that would only make all this worse, he already felt like people were fucking with him without his permission...as worried as she was, she didn't watn to put herself on the 'do not trust' list by doing something like that. And part of her...didn't want to talk about all of this. Didn't want to admit they were vulnerable... *he* was vulnerable...and what this meant for them, their lives, their future.

Mido smiled when she came to curl up beside him, putting an arm around her and pulling her close, "I...Can't..." He looked down with a sigh and frowned, "Everytime I try I just...All the things in my head and knowing those thoughts aren't mine..." He swallowed hard and rested his head against her shoulder, "I can't shake these cobwebs and it's scaring me to death..." It was the not knowing anything that was bothering him the most.

He let out a tired sigh and shifted to lay across the couch, tugging her to lay with him so they could at least get comfortable, "I know I ought to...Just suck it up and take those sleeping pills..." He looked down and flopped his head against the couch cushions, "but I just...Don't want to wake up having lost time again..." He knew that his health couldn't hold up for much longer like this, lack of sleep could be a killer if he wasn't careful, he smiled though and took Jessica's chin to kiss her softly, "I'm really glad you're here though..."

She gently returned the kiss and tried to smile, but it didn't quite reach her eyes. She'd watched him tear himself apart before, she couldn't watch it happen again.

"I know...I understand why you don't want to do that...but you can't just not sleep either." She pleaded quietly. "If you're worried that it'll just be...until whenever you wake up...it doesn't have to be. Say, if you only want it to be 10 hours, you sleep 10 hours, then promise I'll wake you up and it'll only be as much time as you want it to be. I promise."

Another little bit of a slight smile. "I'm not saying it has to be right this minute. But I'm worried about you. It's hard for me to watch you like this, when I can't do anything to help."

Mido could tell that he was hurting her by doing this, and really he supposed it was silly, how likely was it really that he'd go to sleep in Harley's office and wake up who knew where? He swallowed and looked down, "It's...Like...When I sleep and get these...Dreams? I don't know what they are...I'm afraid they're going to make me do something else..." He looked up at her and brushed a hand over her cheek, "and I can't let you lose sleep just watching over me..." He let out a weary sigh and smiled, "but you're right...I can't keep doing this...I can't do this to you again..." He was well aware that she'd watched him go down a dark path once before, and even if it wasn't the same sort of severity this time, it still wasn't a good place.

After a moment he nudged her gently, "want to go curl up in the bed in here?" He chuckled, "probably easier to curl up and get cozy there..." They needed to talk about what happened from here on out, but he figured they could at least get comfortable first, "I'm sorry again Jess..." He looked to the side, "I know leaving you there wasn't my fault...But I'm still sorry..." He felt tears biting the corners of his eyes, "I'm sorry you had to be pulled into this mess..." He wondered if she regretted being with him knowing the danger behind his family's name, "I just wanted to live my life without my family's name haunting me, Jess..."

"So...we take turns sleeping. Then I'm not missing sleep...and if you start to do anything weird...I'm here and awake and see it before anything else can happen to you." This conversation was so bizarre, that they had to have it in the first place...and suggesting things like watching him while he slept and sleeping in cycles...she realized she probably sounded a little crazy herself. But she didn't know what else to do, anything she could to do to help. And she hated it.

She started to get up to go join him in bed, but paused as he started speaking again, reaching over to take his face in her hands and turn him to look over at her. "Don't do that." She said, looking at him seriously. "Don't do that. Don't put this on yourself. You didn't do it...those sick fuckers out there did." She frowned at him. "So maybe it changes a few things. Maybe we have to be more thoughtful and careful going forward...but don't you dare make this your own fault, okay? We'll figure it out, we'll make it work...we always do, right?"

Mido relaxed a little at the idea, it was sound, though it wasn't something that normal couples ever had to do.He supposed if they had to take turns sleeping for a while, as long as they were BOTH getting the sleep, "that...That could work..." He ran a hand over his eyes, which were aching and strained by now, "I miss being able to paint..." It felt like it had been ages since he last did anything artistic and it was driving him mad. It was an odd thing to bring up, but he was also not in the most solid place, his thoughts felt all over the place, "sorry...I feel so scattered..." He let out a nervous laugh, looking surprised when she took his face.

"I..." His voice broke and he couldn't help the tears that trailed down his cheeks, "it's hard not to..." He smiled and put his hands over her's, pulling them from his face to kiss the tops, "b-but I'll try...For you." He chuckled, "I just feel bad that you ended up in this mess..." He pressed his cheek to her hands and breathed a soft sigh, "but I'm glad I have you...I-I don't think I'd of made it this far without you." He looked up at her with a fond smile, the first real one he'd managed since waking up here, "yeah, we'll figure this mental shit out, we've been together through worse storms than this, right?" He gave her a gentle tug, eager to get comfortable.

She wanted to say he was scattered because he was tired, he wasn't eating or sleeping or taking care of himself, and it was taking an obvious toll. But he knew this, and saying it again wouldn't help. "I know you brought some of your stuff...and we can get more. You can paint later if you want." It always did seem to help, when he got to actually make or work on things. He wasn't the sort to be good just sitting still doing nothing.

"I don't feel bad about being here. At all. I feel bad it happened...but not that I'm here." She reassured him, giving his hands a squeeze.

She stood up, his hands still in hers, and led him to the bed, sitting on her side, settling him on his where he could rest his head against her. She pulled a light blanket up over them, this place always seemed to have just a bit of a chill to it, then gently stroked his hair with one hand. She knew he wanted to talk, but she'd let him decide what he wanted to talk about, and when. Right now she just wanted to help him relax a little bit.

Mido yawned wide and smiled at her, chuckling softly and nodding, "mmhm, maybe after my head's cleared up a bit..." Right now he didn't trust himself to hold a brush still much less actually pain anything, and his thoughts were such a mess both from not sleeping and from what happened, he wasn't even sure which ones were really his anymore, it was a disorienting feeling. He did look reassured by her words though, nodding and letting out a soft sigh, "I'm...Damn I'm lucky to have you, Jess..." He laughed softly, stuffing his face into her hair as they walked to the bed, "I'd be a wreck without you..."

He was glad to be laid down in bed, glad to be close and sharing Jessica's warmth as he wrapped an arm around her, breathing softly as she ran her fingers through his hair, "I never thought we'd need bodyguards and all that stuff..." He sighed softly, closing his eyes as he spoke, "How are we ever going to go back home...I just want us to go home..." His voice was soft and had a slight waver to it, "but we can't...We can't have normal here...Not that we had normal before but...Where do we go from here?" He glanced up at her with a thoughtful expression, "the not knowing is driving me crazy..."

She was content to just lay there with him for the time being, happy to have him back, that he was okay...at least, physically, and that worse hadn't been done to him. This as it was was hard enough on them both. And for as much as he kept saying he was lucky to have her, she knew it went both ways. She was lucky to have him, and she'd realized just how much just recently, with that horrible, horrible couple of day gap when she'd had no idea what happened to him, if he was okay, if he was even alive, if he'd just decided to abandon her...she hadn't known, and it had been brutal. She snuggled a little closer to him with a bit of a shiver at the thought.

She listened as he spoke again, glancing down at him. "I never really thought it's something I'd ever need either." She admitted. But she'd never come from a family with a name that meant anything. She was the kid who was passed around like that stuff no one really wanted...but couldn't bring themselves to throw away either, so just kept giving it away and passing it around. There'd even come a point when her own mother had stopped bothering to communicate with her...but...this wasn't about her right now, it was just odd to stop and think for a few minutes how drastically different some parts of his life must have been, before she'd known him.

"What was it like before?" She asked after a moment. "Your mom was famous before, there must have been bodyguards and protection and stuff, right? Did it all just seem weird and horrible and intrusive then, or, you know, is it something that can maybe be okay, if we had to do that again for a while?" She asked. "I mean...I wanna go home too, like you have no idea. Maybe...we can figure out something that works, but doesn't just feel like house arrest or something?"

He noticed her snuggling closer, and wrapped his grip tighter around her in response, an attempt to be as close as he could get to her in this moment. When he'd first woken up and realized that he'd left her back there he'd been terrified that she would hate him, that she wouldn't believe him when he told her what had happened, and now he couldn't believe he'd ever thought such a thing, he knew Jessica better than that, it had just been the stress making him irrational.

He closed his eyes and made a thoughtful sound at the question, chuckling, "it's a bit hard to put to words...But...It wasn't...Horrible?" He glanced up at her with as he tried to recall, "I remember that, as a kid, it always felt like I didn't get very much privacy I guess...But I was a kid...I got driven to school by bodyguards and I was always aware that they were there somewhere." He sighed, "it was other kids that made it awful...Because they knew mom and you know...A lot of people hated Overwatch..." He glanced down with a frown, "so I had to deal with kids...And even other adults...Even teachers telling me awful things about her..." He sighed, "so I suppose it wasn't the bodyguards and the protection that was awful...It was people knowing who I was and why I had them..." He looked up at her with a soft smile, "I think we can live with it...Just...Not sure about other people..." He let out a shaky sigh, "I already feel like I can't trust anyone but you and mom..." What would happen when they had bodyguards following them everywhere?

She nodded as she listened. "I think...maybe I get it a little?" She offered after a moment "I mean, not exactly like that...but kids are mean. And so are grown-ups sometimes too...and people don't think about the shit they say...or sometimes they do and that makes it worse...but they don't realize you're listening and you notice and you care..." How she'd grown up had been a completely different world from how he had, and yet that feeling of your life being in someone else's hands, and powerless to do anything about the things people said and did to you...it crossed all the lines that might have otherwise been divides.

"And...it's not saying people following us around has to last forever or anything." She paused, took a breath, looked up at him. "What do you want to see happen here? I mean...if we put aside the 'I wish it never happened at all' or 'I wish we didn't have to decide on this'...what would help make this easier for *you*?" She finally just asked. "I'm saying and suggesting all of these things but...I don't wanna just do a bunch of stuff that only makes you end up feeling more trapped." It seemed a lot of people were saying a lot of things to him lately, she wanted him to gt the chance to say what he wanted.

Mido gave her a meaningful smile and pressed closer, letting out a soft breath and nodding, "It's...Really nice...Having someone who understands..." He'd always been unable to address his own feelings, it was nice when Jessica could put them into words like this, "People either liked me or hated me...And it was never for ME...It was always just for my connections to Overwatch..." He went quiet after that, only looking up and speaking up when she spoke again.

"I..." He paused, looked down thoughtfully for a moment, then sighed, "it's hard...There's no easy way to make this easier for either of us..." He laid his head back down against her and looked tired, "I think we need to have someone looking out for us...Maybe not following us directly but...Someone there watching..." He chewed his lip, "I can't deal with people following me closely like that again...but if I can make myself forget that they're there..." It was weird talking about this, people had never asked him how he felt or what he wanted much, and he couldn't shake how whiney he felt talking about shit like this, "Sorry..."

"Okay, first?" She sat up a little to look down at him, her voice a touch sterner then it had been before. "Stop, okay? No more apologizing. Stop apologizing over feeling upset, over feeling confused and hurt and not sure about any of this...that's all super valid shit for you to be feeling right now, and you totally *get* to feel those things, okay? Stop apologizing for feeling things."

He only did it at his most low and stressed, but she always hated it, because he rarely actually did have anything to apologize for, but still seemed to act like him and his feelings were just an inconvenience. She hated seeing someone as smart and aware and considerate and as confident as he could be on his good days acting like he was just a bother. She looked at him steadily, making sure he was listening and paying attention, before moving on to talk about anything else.