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He had made promises. Promises to his family. Promises to friends. Promises to a young girl who had needed the help. He had made them and had intended to keep them and yet after the last several days he broke. Run after run had been bad. Maybe it was the weather. Maybe it was the city. Or maybe it was him… maybe Death was just following him like that damn little light that haunted his patrols. Death and dying. Civilian or Squire. No rest for the wicked as it were. Not as a normal man or as a knight. So no one could blame him, he wasn’t hurting anyone but himself… and his liver. He was even helping the economy! Sinking good money on a few bottles of whiskey had to be helping the liquor store some right?

The man sat in the dim lighting of a park lamp, a bottle in his hand. It was nearly empty at this point with a second one within easy grasp. He had spent the last few blocks drinking from the glass bottle tucked into the paper bag and chose to sit for a spell. He knew he was drunk, not blackout but enough. The ground swayed under his feet but he could still walk. The hurt was blunted, as was the cold, but he still remembered. It was actually rather warm out for it being the middle of winter even as he absently blew warm breath into the air like a dragon blowing smoke. God, why is my life like this? He wondered silently as he took a swig from the bottle, grunting softly when the bottle emptied. He didn’t want to remember. It was already time to open the second bottle from the store? Where did the rest go?

With a grunt of disappointment the drunk redhead shook the bottle upside down and when not even a drop fell he tossed it in the trash can. “Might be smashed but not litterin’,” He muttered to no one in particular. He was a good little civil servant. A good little worker bee who had seen too much. A helpful man who only wanted to heal but even that was outside of his reach. He was always too late, not strong enough, not fast enough… not enough. Never enough.

He wasn’t drinking to have fun, he was drinking to forget. To forget what exactly?

Everything.

“Can take care of m’self,” Pat muttered even as he fumbled opening the second bottle of whiskey. “Even ‘gainst the cold.” His words were a little slurred but were still clear enough. “Sides officer,” He hadn’t looked up yet, “Not breaking no laws. See!” He shoved the bottle into a brown bag so he wasn’t carrying an ‘open bottle’ and looked up. “Well you not a ‘officer’.” It was said rather obviously. For a second he looked between the bottle and the knight, he knew he was facing a knight, before sticking his arm out. “Want a drink?” He jiggled the bottle a bit, sloshing some of the alcohol out soaking the bag.

“Come on…” He wheeled. “Its ********’ colder then a witches tits. It will warm ya up.” Pat squinted at the knight, trying to remember if it was one he had met before, or figure out what group they were with. It was harder to tell in the dim light but the other man looked like a renfaire reenactor so probably an Earth knight. “‘Sides with you here got some warnin’ if something shows up.” The redhead paused and mentally replayed the words before shrugging, he was clear enough. With the knight there they both should have some kind of heads up if anything chaotic showed up, that was the biggest threat with wandering in the city at night. During the day it was a lot of things that were dangerous but at night it was mostly chaos, and sometimes Pat wondered just why he cared all that much. Why fight? It wasn’t like it stopped anything. People still died. They still got hurt. They still hurt each other. Still killed each other. Still…

What was the point? Why was he fighting when death still happened?

“Not a cabbie,” Pat corrected before drinking, only to realize the acronym. It was something he saw a lot in some of the areas of the city that they ran calls on. When he had first seen it he hadn’t gotten it but it didn’t take long to get it. He understood why it was a thing but he didn’t know why this particular knight felt that way. So he eyed the knight and shrugged, “Not all them, just the sellouts.” He had worked with quite a few upstanding cops but as an EMT that was to be expected. It was the not so upstanding ones that definitely had him agreeing with at least some of that comment. He saw the way some of the cops treated people. Sadly it wasn’t exactly balanced in the ‘nice’ category but it wasn’t ‘all’ and that was something.

The man opened his mouth to argue, to convince this knight that not all cops, when a little floating ball of light appeared above the man in green. With a groan Pat closed his eyes and muttered, “No, no, no. That damn light isn’t allowed to follow me here. It can’t. It shouldn’t.” He shook his head, swaying more than he should have been as the alcohol sloshed out of the bottle. “Haven’t you been haunting me enough?” The redhead hissed, tossing a glare at the little mote of light. “Every damn time. Like a pest. A glowing little pest. Can’t I have one night without a… a…” He tried to come up with a word to describe the moat of light that seemed to appear every time he had gone patrolling the last while only to end up on, “pest.”

Pat grunted, easing back from his look and reaction as the light disappeared. He had been followed by one for the last several weeks and he was tired of the thing. It was like a puppy, always around. Always bouncing. Always getting into things… It drove him nuts. It also made him feel horrid when the damn thing seemed to get its feelings hurt. Pat had his own feelings to deal with. Not wanting to face just how messed up he was for picking on a little mote of light, the redhead took another swig of whiskey.

He opened his mouth to answer the blunt question but stopped as something screamed in his head. Even with everything fuzzy, softened and loose, he knew better. Or at least he should have known better. So he sat there gaping at the knight, trying to come up with some kind of answer, before spitting out, “Democrat. Why? You, Republican?” He was about to take another swallow when it occurred to him, “OH… you meant cop? Nah. Not a cop, just an EMT that has seen too much s**t… Too much s**t,” The repeated words were said not to the knight but to the bottle in his hands. Hands that had blood on them just hours ago. Hands that had held crying family members back. Hands that tried, and failed, to save lives. He wasn’t thinking of all the times he had actually made a difference, just the ones where life had slipped through his fingers like water. Dark thoughts.

“Why? Not like anyone is there.” Another swallow of booze, things getting fuzzier. “Not like anyone cares.” That was patently false but he was too deep in his own thoughts to realize that had any of his family heard him he would be in a world of hurt after sobering up.

“Wrapped around a pole, eating a bullet, taking a long walk off a short pier,” Pat did indeed know how such thoughts ended. Sometimes just with liver damage but others were much more permanent. “Sometimes I wonder,” is it worth it? What would happen if I didn’t fight? If I just let go. He trailed off even as his thoughts took a much darker turn. Purple eyes latched on to the earth knight, and after a moment Pat passed him the bottle thinking the outstretched hand was asking for it rather than giving him a hand up.

With the bottle out of his hand the redhead leaned back, his head tilted up to see the dark sky. There were no stars to see there, the city blotted them out, unlike on Tortuga or when he went camping out west. Shame really. “You know, I always wanted to help people. Always wanted to fix things and make them better, safer, healthier. But I am always too late. Too slow. Not good enough. Not strong enough.” He sighed, “Never enough.” He might have thought he was coherent but something likely was lost in the haze. He was warm, he was tired, so very tired, so what would it hurt to just close his eyes and let go? “I’m the odd one out… no kids, no spouse, or even a pet. Just me and my apartment. No one to worry about me. No one who cares if I’m there or not. Blood on my hands, can’t really blame them.” Why was he saying this? It wasn’t like the knight cared either.

Would the little light finally go away if he did? Did he want that? “Do you like it?” Pat asked the knight suddenly, sitting up straight and looking right at the Earth knight. “Do you like the light?”

“Uh, no. I meant like a little ping-pong ball light.” He tried to clarify, frowning while trying to wrap his head around another description even as he processed the pretty sound advice. So stop being a sad sack, Pat mentally noted. Logically he knew the knight had a point but it was still hard to make his head do so. It wasn’t like he had anything to bring him joy lately, except maybe training that little chibi. But even that was far and in between and this week had just been so damn hard. A strange thought hit him, something his work mandated therapist suggested, “What do you think happens to the light if you disappear?” Did the light just move on? Or was it somehow tied to him now? Did he have a pet now? His therapist did suggest getting a pet like a fish but a little light that didn’t leave him alone was definitely not what the therapist meant.

The red head was about to ask another question, or maybe just to elaborate, when his phone started to ring. It took longer than it should have but he finally fished the phone out of his pocket and answered it. “Yeah?” There was a pause as the caller talked. “Hold on,” Pat muttered and turned the volume up, “Can’t hear s**t. Say again.” This time the caller could be heard asking where Pat was, there was quite a bit of interference from their end but the question came through clearly. “Just lookin’ at the stars, all warm and fuzzy.” Pat’s words were still a little slurry and definitely had the cadence of someone who had been drinking.

“Where are you?” The question was asked with a bit more force behind it, “I know the funeral is tomorrow but right now isn’t the time to go camping!”

Pat shook his head, even though the caller wouldn’t have seen that. “Not campin’, just lookin at the stars and contemplating.” There was a muttered curse and then the question asking him where he was exactly, “Don’t know, some park. It's nice here. Quiet. Warm.” It was freezing but he definitely didn’t feel that anymore. “I’m gonna take a nap, you talk to ‘em.” He tossed the phone to the knight before leaning his head back again, and this time letting his eyes drift shut to the distant shouting of his friend.

“Pat! Pat! Don’t you dare go to sleep! Where are you? I’ll come get you! Pat?”

FIN