Okay, you should know who this is unless you don't read who writes what fic. So, I've been writing such happy & exciting crap so much that I think I should try writing something sad for a change. I'm propbably gonna cry doin' it. I'll try not to do that though. Before I start, you should (already) know that:

I own nothing. The Almighty Larson owns it all.

This isn't right. It's not right in the least. This shouldn't be happening. Come to think of it, nothing that's led up to this should've happened. None of it. Now all my friends are gone. All except one, but he's not gonna be around for much longer though. I hate to say it, but it's true. He's gonna die and, pretty soon, it'll just be me. Just Mark. We were supposed to be together forever. We were supposed to be happy. We were supposed to open a restaurant. If there was actually a 'we' anymore. There'll never be a 'we' anymore. My friends are gone and, no matter how hard I try, I'll never forget how they left.

First it was Mimi. After about a year and a half after we'd lost Angel, we were all surprised (and slightly frightened) when we found out that Mimi had owed her ex-drug dealer, The Man (as he was better known), a hell of a lot of money. Apparently, he'd given her smack with no up front payment for two years straight as long as she promised to pay up later. And by 'later,' he meant when ever he asked for it. She'd told him she didn't have the money, apologized at least thirty or forty times, and then went to work. At around 12:00 a.m., an hour after Mimi's supposed to be home from work, a detective came to the loft.

He asked if we knew Mimi Marquez and, as soon as that name escaped his lips, everyone expected the worst news possible. And that's what we got. Mimi had been brutally raped and then murdered. The news hit us all hard, but Roger couldn't take losing another girlfriend. Tears fell from everyone's eyes for days, but not mine. My eyes wouldn't let me cry.

Months passed as Roger tried to cope with what had happened to Mimi. He and Collins would go to the cemetery everyday together and visit both Angel and Mimi. They were buried right beside each other. Though it looked like Roger was dealing with everything pretty well, he most definitely wasn't. First April, now Mimi. Who else would he lose? Thinking about this made him start using again. He thought the high would make him happy. And it did . . . for about a minute or so. He wanted the sadness to go away forever so badly that he decided to make it.

Collins had a bunch of old science books that he liked to read when he was bored. There was a red one he showed us that had the mixture of chemicals used for lethal injections. Roger took the book, stole the chemicals from a hospital, mixed them together in his room, and that was that. We found him the next morning dead on his bed with the needle still in his arm. More tears were shed, but my eyes forbade it.

Benny and Joanne died the same way, at the same place, and at the same time. Benny had gotten into some legal trouble and desperately needed a lawyer. Though she was against it 100 percent, Joanne agreed to be his lawyer. The case had gone on for weeks before the jury reached a verdict. Not guilty. Benny and Joanne were happy, but the plaintiff was pissed. He took a gun out of his suit pocket, which I'm still not sure how he managed to sneak a gun into court, and shot them both until he felt they were dead. Again more tears, but none for me.

For a while it was just me, Collins, and Maureen. Everything was fine. We visited our friends (and their lovers) on a daily basis and, as a bonus, Collins wasn't getting majorly sick. The fineness of our lives started spiraling downward when Maureen was diagnosed with breast cancer. She fought so hard to beat it, trying to keep up her normal perkiness. It was a battle that she had lost. Collins demanded to see her as tears poured out of his eyes. When every single doctor told him he couldn't, he used his anarchist ways to push his way past (that includes picking up and throwing someone) every single person that stood in his way, throw the doors of Maureen's room open, run over to her, pick her up, and hold her close as he sobbed and threatened anyone who tried to make him leave. Tears for him. For me, nothing. I wanted to cry, but I couldn't.

Then it was just the two of us. Collins tried to keep the thought of sadness out of his mind, but he failed a number of times. There were just too many memories of everyone everywhere. We stopped going to the Life Cafe. We stopped going to Life Support. Everything was just . . . quiet. That is until Collins caught the flu. I was worried, but he told me not to be. So I wasn't. That is until his flu turned into pneumonia and he was rushed to the hospital. Days went by and his condition got worse and worse. Yet, he never complained.

Now I'm sitting next to his hospital bed. I'm not crying. I'm not moving. And anytime he coughs I barely breathe. I just stare at him. I hate watching him waste away. He's been here doing just that for weeks. I can tell he wants the pain to go away. The suffering to stop. I wanna help him. I wanna take the pain away. But, the only thing I can think of doing is . . . no. I can't do that.

"You alright?" he asks in a raspy voice that sounds somewhat helpless. I simply nod. "You don't have to stay here, you know. You can leave. I'll be . . ." He's cut off by a series of violent coughs. I practically jump out of my chair. He motions for me to sit back down and I do so. Slowly. "It's alright." He coughs again. "You can leave if you really want to."

"I wanna be here," I tell him. "I don't wanna leave you. You could . . ." I don't finish.

"Die?" I nod. "That's my fate Mark. That's been my fate since the little piece of paper said positive. You can go."

I shake my head. "I wanna stay," I say. He shrugs, lays down, and closes his eyes. Seeing a man as strong as him in a hospital bed, hooked to an oxygen tank, and barely clinging to life is . . . terrible. Not only that, but it's sad. Terribly sad. And yet, I don't cry. Even though I have eight reasons to.

1) Angel

2) Mimi

3) Roger

4) Joanne

5) Benny

6) Maureen

7) Collins (pretty soon)

8) It really is the end and I am alone.

That was depressing to write. :( I'm thinking about continuing this, but I let reviewers decide if I actually do. So review and decide. Mistakes . . . left out or misspelled words . . . sorry.