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Who: Signless and Artemis
What: A pair of hobos who have done things they regret talk about feelings.
Where: An alley somewhere
When: Now-ish? Around June 20th.
Warnings: none atm, will update if necessary

There was a time when the main reason Artemis would ever hang around in an alleyway was to keep an eye out for criminal activity. Of course, that's not to say she isn't looking out for that now, it just isn't really the main reason anymore.

She makes her way down the street, weaving between pedestrians for a while and then slipping between two now-familiar buildings, dropping into a crouch with her back to a wall and starting to reach toward the external outlet that she's been very grateful for the existence of these past few weeks.

Then she notices she's not alone. She freezes, bright yellow eyes widening with alarm, and pulls her hand away like she totally wasn't about to dismantle a power outlet and siphon electricity from it, because she is absolutely a human and not a robot. Nope. Nothing synthetic going on here.

"Uh- sorry, I didn't notice you were here." What is proper procedure for entering an alleyway and finding someone else already there? She has no idea. Crud.

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There is no spoken hobo code on the matter, that's for damn sure. In this case, though...it doesn't seem like he may be initially listening.

The Alternian is curled up on his side in a pile of newspaper and bundled in the dirty cloth of his over worn clothing. He doesn't even look up until Artemis speaks, and when he does it is listless and empty.

He shies away from her, shuffling across the ground a bit. He looks down.

"I'll go."

She startles a bit upon noticing the grey skin and red eyes - she still isn't quite used to the whole "aliens" thing, and is never quite sure how to react to them.

But then she notices the look on his face, and the way he shifts away, and shakes her head. "No, don't- don't worry about it. You were here first."

She tilts her head a little, examining him curiously, thanks to his behavior as much as his species. Then she realizes that might be rude, and glances away. "Uh... sorry. If you want I could leave, actually." And if he doesn't tell her to go she's staying right where she is.

He shakes his head, curling his arms around himself. He still doesn't look up. He just makes sure that she has the confirmation that she is allowed to be there, and stays where he is.

He genuinely doesn't mind her presence. He just feels like an unwanted obstruction to the world around him.

Artemis is quiet for a moment, looking down at the ground. Then she looks at Signless again, hesitates, and makes a decision. She's tried to be pretty selective about under what circumstances she talks to people here, and this seems like something she would feel bad about not selecting later. "Are you alright?"

He finally looks up at her, and his vividly red eyes glimmer slightly in the dimness of the alleyway. He watches her silently for a while longer, before gradually shifting himself into a sitting position.

"No," he says, and though he wants to say more he can't get the rest out.

She frowns at the brief answer and shifts to sit down herself. "...what's wrong? If you don't mind talking about it, that is. It's... not like I have anywhere else to be," she adds, in case her interest in this random stranger's emotional state seems weird.

He is looking down again as she asks, though he stirs very subtly at the opportunity to speak.

"I have no place in this world," he says softly, his words a little awkward and accented with Alternian. English is harder for him now, than it was before. "I should not be alive."

"...Oh." Now she's frowning even more. That doesn't sound good. "But you are. I mean, that's got to mean you're supposed to be, in some way, right?"

He falls silence for a while. The only terms he's thought about destiny in have been bad ones, recently. Like him being destined to suffer, or destined to be imprisoned. He hasn't really considered any positive reasons for any of this.

"Do you think a force governs these things?" he asks her, looking up to meet her eyes. His question is sincere.

She hadn't been entirely sure what she meant by that, herself, but now she considers his question for a few seconds. "Maybe. I can't say I've ever put a lot of thought into it. But that's certainly one way of approaching things."

He looks down at his hands, fidgeting between his knees.

"I haven't been able to see any reason that I should be around anymore. I thought I might have had some higher purpose, sweeps ago. But...I don't think that's true."

She looks at him, then down at the ground; something about this is starting to sound kind of familiar. "Then maybe you could make a purpose for yourself. I mean, it's one thing to be given something to do by an outside source, but you can't always depend on that - and it's frustrating to suddenly feel like you're not needed, or even like you were wrong. But all you can really do is... try to keep moving, I guess. Make your own life."

He stares at his knees. A distant part of him feels that her advice makes sense, even if it feels so unapproachable right now.

"There are things I want to fix. But I don't know I can. I wish I could stop being like this."

"...yeah, some things... can't be fixed. Or undone. But if you can't do anything, then... you just can't. Over-thinking it won't help." She had to figure that out pretty quickly, herself.

She fidgets with the zipper on her sweater and stares at her hands, then looks up at him again. "What do you mean, 'like this'?" Worst-case scenario, she's concerned he might just mean being alive at all, but she hopes that's not it.