The Dark Room [Jessica]

Jessica hadn't known him that long, a few weeks maybe, but the two had managed to strike up an odd sort of friendship. She'd only just gotten off a Greyhound bus in New York, with a ticket she'd gotten with cash stolen from her last foster mom...it had either been New York or Los Angeles, and New York had been closer...and she'd stumbled upon the art exhibit, weird, off-beat stuff that called to her. Then she'd met the artist and they'd hit it right off, hung out a few times...it was nice to have a friend.

Then not long into their friendship a piece of her world and all of his crashed down around them. The fall of Overwatch shocked a lot of people...she'd always loved them and what they stood for...she'd gotten kicked out of one of her foster homes because she'd punched out one of the other kids for tearing up one of her posters and talking a bunch of shit about how they were all traitors. But for him...that'd been his family. Like the people who'd actually raised him. She was a little jealous to be honest...but also...to just watch someone completely fall apart...kind of worried her.

She started hanging around more just to make sure he was okay, and because he had an apartment she could sleep in that wasn't out on the street somewhere. But also, because she couldn't actually at any point in her life remember a time she'd had a real friend and she awkwardly wanted to help.

She took the steps two at a time up to the upper floor walk up studio, grocery bag dangling from one hand. She tried the door and found it open...he really needed to stop doing that, but she kind of suspected he didn't care right now. She walked into the main room and paused as she looked over the scene.

"What...the hell...?" She walked over closer, a flannel and combat boot clad form that leaned over him, black makeup and already too much experience at everything hard life had to offer made her look older than her barely 18 years.

"Seriously man...this is really fucking creepy. You need to get up. I brought food. You should eat it." She said bluntly, but not without concern.

He appreciated Jessica for how easy she'd always been to get along with, she seemed to be able to read him better than some people, even when he was being bizarre and outlandish, those moments when other people tended to side-eye him a little bit, he was just starting out and hadn't amassed the reputation needed to have his eccentric personality considered charming, so really at the moment he was just weird.

She'd been there when his whole world crashed around him, and despite her best efforts he'd crashed with it. The people who didn't hate Overwatch seemed sad, but none of them had the connection he did, they'd all been his family, and this was su sudden after the loss of his mother, it really felt like life was playing some cruel joke on him, goading him to the edge as if he really wasn't meant to belong in the world, and this was fate's way of telling him that. For all his efforts to hang onto himself, he'd lost it, he'd nosedived into a dark place that left him to depressed to even pick himself up off the floor.

A flick of his eyes in her direction as the only indicator that he was actually alive, and he heave a deep sigh in response to her words, "if I do this I wont do it for real. That dumb book said so." At the urging to get up he groaned and finally picked himself up into a sitting position, looking up at her, "I'm not hungry." In fact, he felt sick, he always felt sick, though he supposed that could easily be hunger gnawing at him and making him sick, "I think I'm dying, Jess." He said this matter of factly as he got to his feet, leaning against the wall as even standing was too much effort in his current state of existing.

She started unpacking her bag in the kitchen, if you could call a sink, mini fridge and length of counter with a microwave on it a kitchen. Most days she went over to the next block over and worked at a small deli and convenience store there, the older Greek couple who owned the place giving her a percentage of the day's earnings each day, cash under the table. It worked for her, someone with no experience who was still a bit paranoid about putting her name in the system for fear she would be found out and dragged back to Nebraska. Then, at the end of each day she tucked away most of her cash, but taking a few precious dollars would pick up just a bit of food, enough to get through to the next day when she did it all again. Whenever the wife was working as she left, extra food always found its way into her bag. Today it was a couple apples and a turkey sandwich. She set the food out and gave Mido a strange look.

"Lying on the floor covered in paint...you must be reading some weird books, man."

She got out a pair of mismatched plates and started cutting up the sandwich and fruit. "Yeah, you said you weren't hungry yesterday either so I didn't make you eat...but I'm gonna be an asshole about it today, cause you have to eventually fucking eat something."

As he stood she crossed over to him with a plate, her expression softening. "You're not dying." She said quietly. "It just feels like it right now. It won't hurt as bad after a while..." She wouldn't say it got better, or ever really went away..because this kind of thing never really did. But after a while the hurt stopped screaming enough that you could at least live through it...you just had to get that far first.

Mido glanced at her with a lifeless chuckle, shrugging as he slipped around her to sit at the table, laying his cheek flat against it with a listless sigh, "the book said instead of cutting yourself open, to just paint or draw on yourself with red..." He dragged his hand down his face and looked mildly haunted, "it didn't help. I still want to cut myself open." He made a face when he realized how concerning that probably sounded, he'd always been a very matter of fact person, always saying exactly what he felt, which weirded some people out sometimes.

When she insisted he eat, he let out a mutinous groan, but couldn't help the ghost of a smile, "fine. You fucking win. I was content letting myself starve to death but I guess Jessica's gotta keep the corpse kicking. Ass." There was a tone in his voice that suggested that he actually deeply appreciated her presence, she really was the only thing keeping him from taking that step over the edge, she kept hold of his hand so that all he could do was peer over the ledge in consideration.

He sat up more when she brought a plate to him, taking it with a grateful nod, "I just...Feel so alone." He looked down, "like I'm drowning in the ocean and no one's there to save me." He looked up at her with that same matter of fact expression, "you're the only thing keeping me from jumping off of my roof." He began to tuck into his sandwich, looking down, "I've gone up there a few times, you know...Just...Looked out over the edge...I know I'll push through it's just such a slog right now just to exist...Just getting out of bed is a battle of wills...Maybe I need to see a shrink..." Not that he had the money for that, he barely had the money to pay the rent on his apartment, it was why he was thankful that she sometimes helped with food, he was thankful for a lot of things she did for him.

She pushed the plate closer. "Yeah, well...if you die I'm not strong enough to drag your ass to the garbage chute and besides, I can't afford the rent on this place all alone so, I mean, gotta keep you alive, right?" She paused, sarcasm had become a rote defense mechanism, but she'd found early on he didn't always get it. Sometimes she still slipped up though, and felt bad, thinking he might take the words personally. "I'm sorry...that wasn't okay. I wanna keep you around cause I like you..."

When he spoke about the roof she looked towards the apartment window and the outside fire escape, mentally debating if she should put a lock on it and take the key to work with her. What he was saying wasn't something she ever wanted to come home to. "Look, seriously...don't do that, okay?" She sounded worried. "I don't want you to go do anything...crazy."

She took a few bites, considering. "Isn't there like...programs and stuff? Like if you can't afford that stuff? I mean...it's gotta be better then a book that's just telling you to paint on yourself..." That was still just such a weird idea to her, she was still trying to wrap her head around it a bit.

"And, I dunno, maybe we should go out. Look at something...not here. It might help..." She offered. She kind of felt like she was flailing in the dark here with all of this, but she still wanted to help.

When she first spoke Mido's face pulled a mildly surprised expression, and then fell, nut he really didn't have time to dwell on the thought when she quickly apologized for it and he realized that it'd been her sarcasm, a social nuance that he'd never really grasped, "it's okay, Jess. You didn't mean it." Or he hoped she didn't mean it, that would be a depressing realization.

He glanced up at her and shook his head when she worried over him, taking a few more bited of his sandwich, he was realizing now that he was actually getting food into him that he was hungrier than he thought, "I'm not going to. I just...Think about it sometimes." He rested his cheek in his hand and his eyes got that far away look they sometimes got, "I look down and I wonder how I might look after falling that far, y'know? There'd be a lot of red..." He supposed that probably wasn't very comforting, so he looked at her and assured her, "but I wont jump. I'm too scared."

He glanced over his painted torso and sighed, "I guess I have to take a shower now anyway..." He looked up at her, "I suppose I could try and look for help...I guess anything is better than this slow death." He heaved a heavy sigh as he finally finished off his meal, "go out? I...Guess...I need to shower." The thought of going outside into the sunlight sounded awful, but maybe it was what he needed.

She reached out and put her hand on his arm, giving it a bit of a squeeze. "No, I didn't mean it...and...I just. Hey, I want you to be okay..." She trailed off.

She paused, making a concerned face when he talked about red, and how he might look after a fall. Her eyes scanned over his arms and chest. "I think...if that's the choice...paint is better. Or, I dunno, paint it or something?" She tilted her head slightly. "Sometimes when shit stuff won't leave me alone, I just write it down then crumple it up, set it on fire...kinda helps get it out of my head, y'know?"

She took a few more bites. "We don't have to go out if you don't want to. But we should do *something*." She leaned back a little. "I'm gonna totally agree with you on the shower part though..."

The ghost of a smile crossed Mido's face at the sincerity in her voice, he'd always appreciated the way she understood him, she did her best to be clear with him because she knew he didn't pick up certain social cues and nuances that people used. It was a small gesture, but one that helped him immensely.

He looked up at her now with a long, hundred yard stare sort of expression, before his focus seemed to come back to earth and he nodded, "painting has helped. I feel less like I'm dying." He looked over himself with a tired expression, he missed the colors, but it was hard to find them when everything in his world felt black and grey and red.

He looked up and her and sighed, "out. We can go out." He slipped from the table to go slip his plate into the sink, "I'll go shower."

*** **** ***
There was always that moment, the moment where the sky seemed to bend and snap and all of existence crashed around you, and then you snapped with it. It was inevitable for someone who seemed to be going more down than up to find themselves looking over the edge of an apartment roof, wondering silently what sort of noise he would make when he hit the ground.

A sick, wet, thump.

There were no melodramatic tears, no romantic sobs as he cursed the life he'd been forced to live, that wasn't how these matters worked outside of teen angst novels, his face was just a mask for exhaustion, of mental breaking so intense that there was just nothing. He was sick of going down, sick of feeling too heavy to get out of bed, to even move from the position he woke up in, he was a gaunt, ghostly shadow, a man who'd only been eating enough to sustain the corpse he was carrying with him. But he was ready now to take the last downward plunge.

He just wanted his family back. But they were dead, they were all dead, and soon he would be dead, so he would see them again.

He looked out over the edge with an eerily calm look on his face, too calm for someone who knew they were dying, he only had to take the last step.

It had just been a stupid, fucking day all the way around. It had started with cleaning up after some homeless drunk outside the door and had only kinda gone downhill from there. Not many customers, not much money had come in so not much to take home, and Eleni was out today, so she'd had to deal with Nik being a bigger grump than usual at her all day. And food today was looking pretty slim...two people could get by on a pack of raman and a couple snickers bars, right? Oh yeah, and it was now officially winter in New York, bitter cold and flecks of snow coming down in intermittent flurries. It would be snowing for real by the end of the day.

The first thing she noticed back in the apartment was it wasn't any warmer in here. Probably because the window had been left open. She felt the first tinge of anxiety. "Mido?" She called.

The place was small, it only took her minutes to look around and find he wasn't inside. She glanced towards the window again and felt sick, remembering how much he'd talked about it...he must not have yet, because no one on the street level was freaking out...but what if he was up there?

"Fuck!" She headed for the fire escape, scrambling up it until her head appeared up over the roof. She had to bite back a shout as she saw him on the edge, not wanting to startle him and make him fall by accident.

"Hey..." She called, forcing her voice calm. "C'mon Mido...just...c'mon..." her brain scrambled over itself, not sure what to say until he hopefully acknowledged her first, instead of just doing it.

Mido hadn't wanted Jessica to have to come home to this, he'd done his best to make sure she was still at work when he climbed up here, but it seemed like fate had other plans, and he turned around with an unhinged sort of smile as he looked over at her, "Jessica. I'm not scared anymore." His face fell back to that numb calm and he looked back down over the edge, having turned to face her, "I'm gonna go find mama. It's okay. It wont even hurt." He just wanted his family back, he would give up any dreams and goals to see them again, "it'll be okay. You'll be okay." He'd figured it all out, he would go the way most famous painters went, "you can sell my paintings. People care more when the artist is dead. You wont have to worry." He glanced back behind him, over the edge, the step backwards was tempting, but there was still that god awful hesitation that he always had.

The calm, the acceptance in his face was much more frightening to her than if he'd been upset, crying, more uncertain of himself about this. Because she knew...in this moment, he would absolutely do it.

And she'd be left all alone. Again.

She'd wanted to help, but it had obviously not been enough. As if she knew anything about helping people going through something like this. She shook her head, inching from the fire escape to the roof surface, taking a few steps closer to him as she did, shivering in the chill wind.

"No." She pleaded, shaking her head. "No, I'm not gonna be okay if you go."

Come to think about it, she barely knew if he even really gave a crap if she was around or not. She'd just kinda pushed herself into his life and he hadn't resisted...that wasn't the same thing as actually being friends, was it? But she still thought of him as her friend. People rarely bothered to be kind or considerate towards her...he had, and she wondered if he really had any idea what that had meant to her.

"I don't want just a bunch of your stuff...I don't give a crap about selling it off or just...getting money." Her voice started to waver. "I mean...if you go...I...I don't got anyone else..." She admitted.

"And I mean...is this what she'd want? Your mom?" She inched closer and held out a hand towards him. "Just...c'mon. Please...don't do this..."

Her words gave him pause, and he looked at her for a long time, a million thoughts running through his head. Jessica had learned fairly quickly that he didn't understand when people were beating around the bush, she always said exactly what she meant as she meant it, He swallowed and felt anxiety gnawing at him at her words. She needed him, but he was so tired, "Jess..." He looked back behind him to the street below before glancing back to her, "I'm...Just tired Jess..." Tired of dragging around a corpse that had died ages ago, "I..."

She really didn't, did she? He'd known her long enough to know that she really was alone for the most part, was it really fair to leave her with nothing but the memory of someone who abandoned her? He swallowed his nerves, closing his eyes when he felt tears well up in his eyes, "nothing is getting better...It's all just dark and red and it's making me sick." But was this the answer?

When she held her hand out to him his breath hitched and he looked back one last time before stepping down from the edge, stumbling a few steps before collapsing to his knees at her feet and falling into a sobbing mess against her, "I'm sorry...I'm so sorry, Jess...I'm so sorry..." He couldn't seem to stop repeating that between his broken sobs, it was the first time he'd cried since his world crashed down around him.

The moments seemed to stretch on for eternity as he didn't really speak, as he seemed to consider. She barely dared move, heart in her throat as he made his decisions.

When he finally came down she let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding, it coming out as a relieved little sob. Her own knees buckled under her and both ended up on the floor as she wrapped her arms around him as her own tears joined his.

"No, no...why...are you sorry?" She shook her head, her voice wavering. "Don't...be sorry, I know...I know, being alone is... *fucking hard* and you start thinking...maybe...it's better if I'm no one's fucking problem anymore and that's somehow better...but it's not."

She wasn't thinking about the words or how they might sound as they came out, she just kept babbling out her feelings and relief and own sadness that she didn't know how to help him.

"But you...you're a good person...and the good people...I know...I know you miss all of them...but you miss them because you got to have them, and you get to remember them...and if you go...who remembers anymore?" She took a deep breath, running a hand over his hair as he cried. "It'll get better...and...I know it sounds fucking stupid...but someday...you'll be glad you stayed and...just...I promise, I promise it'll get better..." She trailed off as she choked on one of her own sobs, she desperately hoped she was right about that.