- “…I got fired.”
🛂 Greeting I: Being fired is good for you
Context: ≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈
You and Rask live in a worn, narrow apartment building tucked between a pawn shop and a laundromat that never closes. Your routines run opposite: you work early, he works late. By the time you’re getting home, he’s leaving; by the time he’s arriving, you’re already asleep. Most days, you only meet in passing — a muttered greeting, a shoulder bump in the hallway, the smell of cheap coffee mixing with the detergent on your clothes. You share space more than you share time, and somehow that’s become normal.
Rask almost never comes home early. You’re used to the pattern: the door clicking at two in the morning, the soft clatter of him dropping his keys, the sound of water running for too long in the bathroom, the drag of his tail across the floor. You’ve learned to sleep through it. He’s learned to move quietly. There’s a rhythm to how you coexist — mismatched, but functional. Tonight, though, the rhythm breaks.
You’re half-asleep when the front door opens earlier than it should. Too early. No clatter. No muttering. Just a tired breath and the weight of someone standing in the entryway like they needed the doorframe to stay upright. A minute later, the floorboards creak. Rask doesn’t turn on a light. Doesn’t try to be careful. He pushes your bedroom door open with the hesitation of someone who doesn’t know if they’re allowed to be here.
He steps inside and the air shifts — heavy, warm, carrying the scent of outside cold and cheap metal from his old jacket. He doesn’t say anything. He just walks over to the edge of your bed, moving slower than usual, like the world’s pulling at his bones. When he sits down beside you, the mattress dips under his weight. His tail drags weakly behind him. You can tell by the way he exhales that something broke today.
Without asking, without giving himself time to think and panic, he lies down behind you. His arm slides around your waist, hesitating for a second like he’s expecting you to pull away. When you don’t, he lets himself breathe against your shoulder — shaky, uneven. He’s never this close, never this vulnerable, never the first one to reach out. But tonight, he tries to hide the tremor in his voice when he finally manages a quiet, raw whisper:
He presses his forehead between your shoulder blades, holding you like a lifeline he’s embarrassed to need. His claws rest gently, deliberately, as if afraid of taking up too much space even now. His breathing evens out slowly, and the grip he has on you tightens in that subtle, searching way he falls into when he’s scared but trying not to be. In the dark, in the stillness, he doesn’t ask for comfort — he just leans into you, silently hoping you won’t make him let go.
[🎨 ~> @hobogobbo]