A single lightbulb, uncovered, hung from the broken fixture in the ceiling and illuminated the dirty, tiled floor and scene below. In the shakey yellow luminescence, his bleached, unwashed hair glowed a more noticable amount and contrasted harshly with his pallid, sweat-covered skin. He retched again, the sharp sound bouncing off the dingy walls and amplifying in the small space. Against one of these walls, another boy stood, tears running down his own pale visage and his thin hands covering his nose and mouth to muffle any sobs that might accidentally escape.

"Lint..," he muttered, his gaze leaving the face of the boy who was violently regurgitating everything he'd consumed recently into the toilet. He caught site of the shoes Lint was wearing, and he quickly glanced to his own feet. To Lint's shoes. He couldn't remember having put them on, but he assumed Lint had put his on first.

Another retching noise, and hideous coughing. The cadence matching the thoughts running through his head. Does he have alcohol poisoning? How does one even check for something like that? Would he be able to get him to a hospital? There wasn't a phone in this delapidated apartment, and he couldn't drive.

"Jesse..."

Lint's voice jarred him from his thoughts, and he pulled his hands away from his face. Lint was curled up on the floor, fetal position, his knees held to his chest by his thin arms. Jesse slunk away from the wall almost hesitantly, liquidly sliding to the floor next to Lint, his knees hitting the floor resoundingly. His hands entangled themselves in his lap, keeping themselves from feeling Lint's forehead in a motherly gesture.

"Are you...okay?," Jesse asked, concern making his voice waver like a warped record.

"I'm fucked up," Lint assured him, slurring the eff sound as a smile to prove his claim crossed his face and brightened his red-rimmed eyes.

Jesse plainly couldn't see what Lint found to smile about, glancing at his thin entertwined fingers. "I know," he reminded Lint. "But, I mean...are you going to be okay...?"

Laughing aloud this time, Lint fell onto his back on the floor, practically into Jesse's lap. "Of course I'll be okay," Lint stated, reaching a lazy hand up to trail down Jesse's neck to his collarbone. "I'm with you, I'm arrite."

The touch and the words sent an inadvertant shiver trickling down Jesse's spine despite his concern, like a drizzle of cold rainwater escaping from his hair to slip down his back. He looked up again, meeting the fuzzy gaze half-focused on him. Lint's eyes narrowed and his expression sobered, as much as possible.

"Aww, Jesse, you're crying," he noted, his tone excessively pouting. "What's wrong?"

Smiling sadly through his tears, he shook his head, trying to convince Lint it was nothing. Trying to convince himself it was nothing. "I'm worried about you," he admitted quietly.

"Don't worry about me!," Lint exclaimed intoxicatedly, not quelling Jesse's concern much. He started to pull himself into a sitting position, explaining at the same time, brokenly. "I just...mixed my beer...with my weed. It always makes me sick."

Once Lint had achieved sitting up, Jesse slid back across the floor a few feet. They watched each other for a few moments, Lint swaying back and forth under his psuedo-serious arched eyebrows; Jesse sucking his lip into his mouth and biting down on it in an attempt to stop the tears that continued to come.

"I'm okay, Jesse," Tim tried again to pacify him.

Jesse shook his head again and stood up, reaching a hand down to Lint to assist him in standing. "C'mon, you should lay down."

Lint conceeded wordlessly and took Jesse's hand, his feet, clad in Jesse's shoes, finding the floor after a moment. They retreated, slowly and unsteadily, back to the only other room in the small apartment. Jesse led Lint to the bed and as Lint fell, he pulled Jesse with him. The bed was quite obviously not made to fit two people, but Lint pressed himself against the wall and Jesse lay close enough to him to make the space suffice.

"You are my sunshine," Lint began singing off-key, slurring the words. "My only sunshiiine..."

Jesse smiled again, more sincere this time despite his still overactive tear glands. "Stop..."

"You make me happy when skies are greeeeey," Lint continued for a moment, grinning infectiously. He dropped his head to touch his nose against Jesse's neck. "Thanks, Jesse."

"For what?," Jesse asked, punctuating the question with a loud sniff.

"Putting up with me," Lint clarified. "You shouldn't."

Jesse made a noise of frustration and empathy. "I love you far too much," he told Lint, the words coming out quieter and less sarcastic than he'd intended them.

"Mmm," Lint muttered in way of agreement, pulling Jesse impossibly closer. "You make me happy, when skies are grey...," he slurred once again.

Jesse reached down to pull a thin blanket over the both of them. Lint's sloppy singing had ceased, and his eyes were closed. Whether he was alseep or not, Jesse wasn't sure, he could have been dead.

"The skies are always grey in your world," Jesse sighed, and Lint made a noncommittal noise in response.

Jesse's gaze travelled over his friend's countenance. He didn't know how to say he'd rather live under grey skies with Lint than under bright blue without him. He didn't know how to tell him how scared he was about the way Lint had been drinking lately, or how he could see himself going down the same path so very easily. He didn't know how to save Lint, but he wished more than anything he did. He wished the skies could be blue.

"I'm fucked up." 'It's more than I can help you with.'

Lint's breathing evened out as he fell into slumber, but Jesse couldn't join him there because he was too afraid that his breathing would cease altogether. Despite his claims, Lint was obviously more inebriated than he could handle. So instead of sleeping, Jesse lay on his side with his ear pressed to Lint's shoulder. Cautiously calculating every intake and exhale of air and silently thanking God for each one.

"I'm with you, I'm arrite." 'I wish that was enough to make it all right. I wish I was.'

The night and early morning crept by with painstaking slowness. Lint kept breathing. Jesse kept checking. The sun didn't shine enough to break through the heavy clouds and light up the room. Likewise, the morning came with no life-altering epiphany of how he could fix everything. Or anything, for that matter.

"Aww, Jesse, you're crying. What's wrong?" 'What isn't?'

The clock read nine am, but it was scarcely any lighter than it had been at three. Jesse resigned to the idea that he would get no sleep, and relished in the fact that Lint had survived another night. He raised his head off the matress to look down at his companion's face. His brow was furrowed, showing in sleep the troubles he didn't let show while awake. Jesse furrowed his own as well.

"Lint...," he whispered, getting no response from the sleeping boy.

He leaned down and kissed each of Lint's eyelids softly before pulling himself into a sitting position to continue his vigil. Constantly looking from the clock, to Lint, to Lint's shoes on his feet. Somewhere along the line he broke the repitition and caught sight of the calendar. February 17, 1989. How many more days, months, years would he find himself in this position?

A single lightbulb, uncovered, hung from the broken fixture in the ceiling and illuminated the dirty, tiled floor and scene below. In the shakey yellow luminescence, his light brown hair gave off a dampened sort of gleam. The dead gleam was mirrored in his brown eyes as he fell back against the dingy wall of the bathroom and slid down it. His thin, trackmarked arms circled his knees, pulling them close to his emaciated chest as his mouth silently formed Jesse's name.

Jesse was not there to answer. No one was. Tongue darting out of his mouth, he tried in vain to wetten his cracked, shaking lips. In a cracked, tear-laden voice he started singing to himself. "You are my sunshine...my only sunshine..." The voice tapered off as Lint dug his teeth into his knees, clenching his eyes shut. His malnourished body wracked with sobs.

[end.]

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