Work Text:
Jake saw a familiar figure in the background while rushing back to his place-
Oh. It was Rig. Standing there talking to someone as if nothing ever happened between them, as if he already moved on..
He wanted to approach Rig, talk to him after 3 years of loneliness, 3 years of thinking that maybe he'd come back for him someday. 3 years of waking up, eat, work, drink, pass out, repeat. (He even forgot to eat sometimes because of the sheer loneliness)
3 years of being a fool..
He stared for a few seconds and practically sprinted away to avoid remembering memories he tried to bury deep in his mind by working extra late, even if it wasn't necessary and drinking until he passed out.
He got back to his apartment, loosened his tie slightly. He was gonna drink and pass out again, his average day but a voice stopped him—
"Hey Jake, we need to talk." Lime said sternly which was odd since she was always nice, she sitting on his couch. Nevertheless, Jake sat down next to her, confused but also eager in a way?
Before Jake could even speak about what he saw this evening, Lime interupted.
"What really happened between you and Rig?" Lime asked and Jake's indifferent,blank expression turned into a frown hearing Rig's name. He was hesitant to give an answer since this was a sensitive topic, Rig was a sensitive topic for him.
After seconds of just staring, he gave an answer: "We fought.." A long pause before he continued, "And yeah, we split up after that." It was a short answer but their relationship was too complicated to explain everything so he didn't. Left it at that, but Lime wasn't buying it.
"Really? Thats it??" Lime tried to fish for more information but Jake didn't budge. He just sat there, spacing out. He didn't move until Lime gently touched his shoulder.
Jake tried to make an excuse to get out of her questioning saying, "I-I need to go back to work." but Lime cut him off.
"No, you've been working too long nowadays and I won't let you." Lime blocked him from getting out of this situation. "Don't lie to me Jake, I know something happened between yoy and I'm not gonna judge."
Jake was getting slightly nervous now since this conversation was getting too personal.. But it made him wonder, how long ago was it since he'd actually took care of himself instead of getting dragged by Lime? How long was it since he'd stopped drinking?
He recollected himself and answered calmly, too calmly, as if it were rehearsed. "We were childhood best friends, that's all." He left it at that, didn't explain further. And that made Lime suspect that wasn't all though she didn't push for more information for Jake's sake.
They both sat there in silence, until Jake broke the silence by politely asking Lime to leave him alone, and she complied with his request. Not wanting to upset Jake further.
He got up from the couch, undid his tie unbuttoned two buttons from his dress shirt and just.. Sat at his kitchen counter, drinking again. His usual routine.
But instead of rambling until he passed out, he just stared. Stared with his empty dark-green eyes into nothingness.
He got up to turn off the lights and to throw the empty bottle in the trash. He found it calming being engulfed in the darkness of his apartment, where he can just sit and talk to himself.
He took out a cigarette from his pocket and lit it with a lighter, the small orange flame making him able to see better in his dark apartment but not completely. He usually didn't smoke because he found the smoke the cigarette produced and the ash it left behind annoying but in this moment he didn't care. He had bigger things to worry about instead of stupid cigarettes.
He put out the cigarette, with a sizzling sound, cigarette ash falling onto his kitchen counter but he just sat there. No worries clouding his mind, he was in pure euphoria.. He closed his eyes slowly, his eyelashes fluttering.
He woke up in the middle of the night, it was hard to see since he closed the lights a few hours ago. He had passed out again.
Though he barely remembered anything, he usually remembered everything when he passed out but this time.. His memories were a blur of time.
He tried to remember but couldn't.
He rubbed his face and instead of turning on the lights, he sat there. His dark-green eyes without a hint of emotion behind them. He went into his bathroom and turned on the bathroom light to look at himself in the mirror, dark eyebags surrounding his eyes from working overtime again. He needed to take more care of himself but he just couldn't bring himself to do so. Not because he was lazy, because he felt undeserving of such. He thought his work was his only destiny, so he kept going. No matter how hard his life got, it was still: Eat; work; sleep; repeat, over and over.
He was tired of this stupid loop that would keep repeating until he either couldn't take it anymore or died, but he just couldn't bring himself to stop. No matter what he did he couldn't bring himself to stop. It was taking a toll on his mental health but he didn't care, he didn't care about anything else in his worthless existence except his work.
He was worthless without his work, he was just a stupid nobody without work he kept assuring to himself to make him feel better about being obsessed with his work but in reality, it only made him feel worse. He kept convincing himself this state of depression was just temporary, that it'll all be over someday but that was years ago. He couldn't remember the exact date but he knew that promise to himself was years ago.
He barely recognized the man (more so, the failure) staring back at him in the mirror. His brown hair he usually kept neatly was a mess, his dark-green eyes without anything behind them, with eyebags beneath them, his white dress shirt unbuttoned slightly and crumpled at the waist and his black tie resting on his shoulder.
God, he was a mess. An absolute fucking mess.