Work Text:
No matter how long you’ve been here, Fridays never get better. Sure, it’s the end of a long work week and the start of a very short weekend, but you already know that those measly two days will never quite be enough for you to recover from, well, anything. You’ll be able to catch up on some very much needed sleep, but, before you can feel the tangible effects of a good night’s sleep, your alarm will blare and you’ll be back at it, going through the same drill for the day, the next day, and the days after that.
Knowing that, your way back to your house is never as freeing as you think it should be. This isn’t helped by the fact that you, once again, missed the chance to clock off early and just like every other person who had the good (or bad, depending on how you look at it) fortune to work in New York, you immediately run into a tidal wave of people. You don’t have to look up to know what kind of look they have on their faces. The same blank look of people who have resigned themselves to their fates. The faces of people who know that, despite the slight reprieve they will experience for the next 48 hours, they will be back soon enough in the same place, at approximately the same time, squished against another batch of total strangers after they finish a grueling day of mindless labour.
Fridays are hard that way.
After thirty minutes of you scowling your way past people standing in front of you, you eventually end up at your place. You’ve only been here a few months, so there’s something in you that balks at calling it “home.” This isn’t home. This won’t be home. It’s too small, too cramped, too unlovable. The only thing that it is is affordable. You earn enough money but that’s all it is–enough. Enough for you to have a roof over your head. Enough to enable you to eat relatively healthy. Enough to scrape by.
Bag drops to the floor, shoes are kicked off somewhere into the corner (you will, inevitably, scramble to find them after you wake up a little later than usual on Monday), coat is tossed on top of your bed, and you sink into the chair in front of your desk. Staring at the various notes containing information of varying importance cluttering your desk, you sigh.
This wasn’t what you had in mind when you first got here. Oh, this is never what anyone dreams of when they first arrive to the city of dreams. They come here, eyes twinkling with curiosity, bubbling with an energy that stems from the hope that enthusiastic optimists wear on their sleeves, those who are determined to succeed. They won’t be like the others who grow weary. They’ll stick around long enough to see their dreams come true. That’s what they all thought. That’s what you thought, too.
Now all you want to do is nothing. So much of your time is spent into doing things that you care so little about, when you finally muster the resolve to finally tackle the Thing you really do care about, the Thing you’ve always enjoyed doing, the Thing that brought you here in the first place, the Thing you swore would be what grounded you in the world around you, it feels like the Thing has disappeared. It is no longer within your reach. That which used to come to you so easily now evades all of your desperate attempts to reconnect. You find yourself drowning in the banality of the life you tell yourself you must live to keep yourself afloat.
Which is why all you can do is sit in front of your desk and stare dully at the wall in front of you. When even that becomes too much, you feel your head drift downwards, as if gravity wants it to sag. Then, as you plant your forehead on your desk, hoping that this will somehow root you to something, anything, you swear you hear something.
A faint, squeaky voice. A voice that seems to be emerging from nowhere, as if it is a voice that you shouldn’t actually be hearing. Your forehead still resting against the hard, cold block of wood in front of you, you furrow your brow and concentrate. The room is never completely silent, there’s a reason this place is called the unsleeping city, but that tinny little voice still manages to make itself be heard.
“Rat Jesus loves you.”
Almost imperceivable.
A string of words that you never thought could be used to form a coherent sentence–let’s be honest, who ever thought that the words “rat,” “jesus,” and “love” could ever be used together like that?--float through the air. Before you can really register what happened, before you can decide whether you want to laugh or sigh, you swear that you can feel something touch your hand. A light touch. Something that you wouldn’t call a human hand, it’s too small for that, maybe it could be a paw of some sort, rests on you for the slightest of seconds. You open your eyes for a moment to look out of the corner of your eyes. Stare at the place you’ve been living in for the past few months. Close them again.
Well.
You choose to ignore the fact that you think you saw something scuttle into the darkness. You also choose to ignore the urge to call that something a juicy cockroach, because why would cockroaches be juicy?
You don’t need vermin ruining what could be an okay day.
Feeling the vestiges of that small paw lingering on your hand, you breathe.
Hey.
If a little paw on your hand and a voice telling you that a rodent loves you is all you’ve got, sometimes that is all you need.
Maybe tomorrow you’ll make some time for yourself.
Tackle that passion project.
Do what you came here to do.
Let yourself dream.
Let yourself be loved.
Even if you feel like there is no one in the city looking out for you, at least you know that Rat Jesus loves you.
You feel the corners of your mouth twitch.
You think you want to smile.