You Are My Sunshine (Joelay)

"I just can't do this anymore, Joel."

The man's girlfriend of a year and three months had sat him down with a sympathetic face and determined eyes. "You lost your job two months ago and still haven't even tried to get a new one. And I was understanding when your mom died last month, I really was, but you need to get over it! All you ever do is sit around watching stocks and complaining about the government!" She wailed, looking at the man in front of her, almost pleadingly.

"I just don't love you anymore." She whispered, biting her lower lip. She waited for Joel to reply, for the forty-two year old man whose life was crumbling around him to do something;  yell, scream, break something, cry, ANYTHING.

"Okay." He said simply.

The woman puffed out her cheeks angrily, her face reddening as she stood. "Over a year with you and all you can say is okay?! I will never understand your crazy mind, Joel Heyman!" She yelled, snatching up her purse. "I'll be back for my shit next week." And with that, she was gone, slamming the door behind her.

Joel only sat there, dead, weary eyes still set on where she last sat. He sighed heavily, raking fingers through his black hair, making it stick up even more than it normally did.

"Okay." He whispered again as he shoved his keys into his pocket; he left his now-empty apartment at a leisurely pace, climbing into his car and driving to the only place he knew to go, the only place he WANTED to go.

The cliff loomed in front of him and he parked his car, leaving the keys in the ignition and the doors unlocked; maybe someone would find it before the battery died, and it wouldn't go to waste.

He took slow, long strides to the edge, peering over into the grey water, speckled black with sharp, jagged rocks. Joel scrunched up his forehead.

People always described looking off a cliff as beautiful, but to him, especially with the clouds overhead, it just looked dismal; then again, he was dismal. It would only make sense that he died that way.

He removed his shoes, tossing them by the car for whoever found it, digging his socked toes into the earth at the edge.

He wasn't having second thoughts; no, that's not how he worked. Once his odd mind decided something, he was set, and it had decided to jump off the cliff.

His feet left the earth and he felt his heart jump to his throat, pounding painfully as air whisked past him, filling his ears and brain.

But that wasn't all he heard. He could hear a faint yelling, a curse even? And then he was colliding with something hard.

-

Ray flipped his long, maroon tail lazily, gliding through the ocean at an even pace as he slid between rocks. His dark hair flattened to his head as he broke the surface of the water, brown eyes scanning for any people on the shore. Seeing none, he grinned, stretching into the cool Texas air and looking up to the clouded sky.

A speck caught his attention and he followed it curiously, squinting to see what it was. A bird, maybe? No, it was too big.

He swam a bit closer until limbs came into focus and it clicked. "Oh what the fuck?!" He yelled, quickly swimming down to shoot back up, jumping into the air and wrapping his arms around the torso of the man mere feet away from a sharp rock. They slammed into the water meters away, the dark water smacking against their skin and stinging slightly.

The man went under and Ray dove after him, pulling him to the surface and holding him up by his arm as he coughed and spluttered. He waited until the man was done, resulting in over ten minutes of holding the shocked man, before turning to reprimand him.