#the wolf;patrick

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"Not to make statements that might arise some... suspicions with aids of the local law enforcement," Patrick starts with all the guilt of a person who very much intends being suspicious, even if only to drag some amusement out of the situation, as he barely avoids smiling with a twitch of his lips, and even then a corner of his mouth succumbs to it.

Considering the stark difference in age, you'd think he wouldn't be the one trying to act cheeky.

But if there's one thing he's learned about Nakamura Suki - other than details of her past he now regrets trying to look into - is that his having the time and lack of ambition to waste in these mindsets is a luxury he can take, whereas hers is a life worth being serious about, within the frame of a certain sense of alive he still admires her for.

You'd think someone like her would have gone mad by now.

"But someone owes me a favour," and if he looks sort of expectant, sort of proud, while he avoids looking at her directly and instead stares up at the museum façade towering before them, he's more human than he recalls. "And if you want to stay after hours and have a look around without any limitations, you can do that. It would be perfectly legal, mind you. I am obligated to mention that you cannot steal or break anything."

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Patrick seems to be in a relatively good mood. While walking through the many tables of the bistrot - or wannabe bistrot, because all respectable bistrots are in France - one of Patrick’s pale hands reaches out. His index swipes over the top of a cake sitting all too invitingly next to the plate of a client he had seen walk to the toilets only moments prior.

It's always the kindest that foolishly bury themselves as deep as they can push their arms into soil. A fitting image, watching someone roll their sleeves up and go elbow-deep. Soil brown enough does remind him of the colour of dried, forgotten blood. Or maybe the easy association of earth with burials does it.

No matter.

He's lived too long to pretend he doesn't understand why people... pretend. He's made an art out of it, almost. Could hold a few lectures on it, navigating the variables of sounding pretentious or cartoonish in his declarations.

It doesn't usually bother him when people like Calum do it. When they so very visibly trudge on like walking corpses, pale, tired, dragged along by the force of habit of heeding obligations than the wind in the back of those who find it easy to stomach to be alive in the first place.

It doesn't bother him because it's none of his business. And because he wants to lead by example, to be left alone in turn. Every person for themselves. Calum is an adult. A father. A medical professional. With all implications of capabilities that come with each status.

But if Patrick were good at making these decisions and sticking to them he wouldn't be here in the first place, now, would he.

If he believed any of those things. If it wasn't clear how much Calum tried. And how unjust it is, to always have to be strong.

It's not as difficult as some may assume to determine the likeliest place for people to be. A general grasp on perimeters and radius usually provides more than enough to work it out. Having met a someone in an area improves chances significantly of meeting them there again.

And it's easiest, and this is crucial, if you think about it a lot.

Patrick can almost see the lead to have substituted Calum's tongue. The weight of it, forced to move in an uncooperative space, words lodged somewhere far back to slumber and let the mind rest, shutting away from the needless burning brightness of existence as a whole.

With how ill he looks, be it from something in his flesh or something insidious in his mind, Patrick's fingers almost don't contrast against the skin of his jaw.

Honestly, if it weren't for the sight of him, Patrick wouldn't have approached him at all. Whatever vague interest he's trying to squash regarding Calum can be satisfied with the mere confirmation that he still exists. Sometimes that's enough. It's nice to know, in other words. He's out there somewhere.

He's fine.

But he's not.

And here they are.

Patrick removes his hand with the gentleness of someone who is releasing something likely to fall if not freed carefully, just a forefinger hovering beneath Calum's chin like part of him expects his head to fall forward if he fled as he'd like to.

"You look unwell," he assesses, stupidly. But it's important to say it out loud. Patrick would bite the head off of anyone who tried the same with him. Which is why he knows how important it is. Or believes it to be, at least. Pointing it out, it's more difficult to hide the blood once it's been acknowledged.

However valiant Calum's attempt is to throw a rug over the spot.

"Do nurses subscribe to the notion of 'a doctor's worst patient is themselves', too?"

Despite the timing and placement, it's not intended as a joke. Part of him sounds genuine, though he doesn't care much for the answer. It's simply an easier phrase to acknowledge than the finger he's sticking between Calum's mask and his skin.

@rubiesintherough | CARING FOR THE SICK PROMPTS.

What's your secret, someone might ask when they start counting the years Patrick is only counting in centuries as to how long exactly he's had to perceive the world from different, and yet simultaneously painfully human, perspectives.

The secret is not having a choice in the matter.

Not having a choice in any matter, frankly.

On most days, it's just the mortality that is bothersome. The lack thereof of true mortality. Of biting the dust and not awakening something over a decade later to pick his teeth back out of it.

On some days, he wonders why even bothers not offing himself when he remembers why he would.

"That is-" inhaling as deeply and poignantly as he does would be considered impolite in most spaces, arrogant and childish to assume he's important enough he can just let everybody know how annoyed he is. And if there's anything he'd presume with a certainty for accuracy about the man he's unfortunately glued to, is that he appreciates a level of decorum.

Either that, or he's swallowed a series of books that teach him how to talk like one.

He inhales anyway. Silently, through his nose, until he's filled his chest to maximum capacity. He releases the air quieter, through flared nostrils, clenched jaws. The elbow he's trying to dig into Aedus' stomach is half-hearted, an attempt at subtlety, until he slips and ends up holding onto his shoulder instead.

No sense of propriety to be found there, in the way he clutches the fabric of a suit worth more than a one-way ticket around the globe, in the way his vision blurs through a glare directed at no one except maybe the one person who gave enough of a shit to notice he wants to be buried alive right now.

Why did he have to do something about it, too?

A minimal effort, a show of strength, a weak attempt at it, to shove at Aedus' shoulder.

"Would you consider," he starts, trying to straighten his back to level Aedus with a stare he hopes toes the line between barely polite and detached disapproval efficiently enough he won't dig the softness of ailment out of it. "Would you consider perhaps giving me some space? I appreciate-" a pause.

He frowns. Like he heard his tooth chip and can't tell what he'd bit on, or more accurately, like he's acknowledging the headache growing between his temples. The feedback of the inherent warmth wafting from Aedus' body causes when combined with the heat scratching through his arms is making it worse.

Serves you right for thinking what is a curse can be useful to someone else. What do you need superhuman strength for, anyway, if you're incapacitated the moment you let go? Burned from the inside out?

"On a lighter note," because nearly anything that isn't the reality of circumstances unfolded to deliver Patrick to his doorstep works as a lighter note, "I had the opportunity to do some districtual travelling, so to speak, since we last spoke."

Van is letting some light in for once. It brightens his living room and illuminates all the corners that look softer than a person his status might get away with nurturing. But what can he do? What's the point of a place to let victors and avoxes breathe, if he styles it chrome and grey?

No, chrome and grey are for... out there.

Warm, late summer colours. Even if they do a tragically good job at highlighting the lines in Patrick's face. He looks... older. Or perhaps his age. Or perhaps a crude mixture of both... and tragically younger. Something terribly youthful about being forced to be smaller. Or taller. Or anything that requires pulling limbs and crushing bones.

"I didn't know District 3 had libraries," he muses, stopping from the small detour to retrieve a book and return to Patrick.

&. 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐛𝐞𝐚𝐫 𝐬𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐬. | @stillresolved

Why is he here again?

You'd think he's a child with the way he stands around, abandoned, and so blatantly obvious in how misplaced he feels in a space in which such a scenario could come to be.

There are next to no physical or otherwise circumstances in which Patrick doesn't feel ever so slightly to the left of things. He looks the part, he can most definitely and with a not insignificant rate of success play the part, but lupus canis will always look out of place, no matter how big and threatening the dogs around him are.

And more importantly, he'll always make it a point of feeling out of place.

The smile to slam itself onto Patrick's lips lurches with the speed and ferocity of a puncture from a needle guided by an unkind hand. There it is, suddenly, uncomfortable and out of his control.

"Brooklyn seems lovely this time of year."

There's an edge of Americanisation to the accent there. He's trying to remember where he is, and how to use it to his advantage. New York. He's seen it come together and gain notoriety throughout decades from different viewpoints all across the globe. It became a source of disinterested acknowledgment, a common ground among non-Americans counting it as one of the few 'American things' they could name with confidence.

And all the other things Americans will enforce you knowing.

There's got to be something to that, right?

Or maybe it's just easier to think about the history of the Big Apple than the person offering him whatever.

Sustenance, Patrick, to consider it from a morbidly scientific angle, don't you know some people show kindness by keeping you full? How starved are you, anyway?

They're different sides of similarly forged coins: social chameleons who adapt for drastically different reasons. Every time Calum adjusts his energy to navigate his surroundings parallels to every time Patrick adjusts his energy to get out of surroundings.

Adapt to co-exist versus adapt to non-exist.

The altruism of someone who talks as if the whole world deserves a chance, compared directly to the selfishness of someone who doesn't even want to save himself, and would do anything, bite as fiercely as it takes, to never decide whether he wants life or has had his fill of it.

There's a physical juxtaposition as well, if they smiled next to each other, Patrick's cover would blow faster than he could turn his head to stare at the warm cup of tea he's standing next to, and figure out how to make a break for it.

He blinks. He doesn't clear his throat, but he swallows the dryness coating the inner walls of it, and tilts his head.

"If you're hungry or fancying a cup of coffee, let me treat you to somewhere outside."

SpongeBob SquarePants  {Sentence Starters} | @enchcntd

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Patrick seems frozen to the spot. Confused pale blue eyes can’t decide where to keep their gaze, on the bowl before him, or on his husband standing not too many feet away. His left hand, holding the fork ready to plunge it into the godly food below it, has stopped as well, now stuck just kind of hovering in front of its owner.

He doesn’t know whether that outburst was a line in regards to a train of thought the other was having, that just kind of slipped out and became vocal and has nothing to do with him, or whether perhaps it was a way to get him to not try the potato salad like he was clearly intending to.

He’d get both, considering he’s the kind of being to do the former, and he understands if he wasn’t meant to try it considering it’s meant for dinner later that day, and not for his sneaky wolf paws to grab and savour before that.