Day Off

C's rest was stopped short by loud banging at his front door. He glanced at his clock: 5:58, right before 6.

"Police, open up!"

The yell made C jump up. He ran down the stairs and forced himself to stop; he heard relentless giggling from the other side of the door. He walked somewhat heavily towards the door, and opened it slowly.

"You guys made me think that an ax murderer was holed up in my house." C said sarcastically, though with a slight irritation to his voice.

Outside of his front door was Fredrick, along with a non ex-police officer, Joseph. The two went inside, without as much as an invitation.

"You're still dressed the same as yesterday?" Fredrick asked, noted, and remarked all at once.

C glared at the two of them, who were still giggling at the incident just moments ago.

"Why are you two here so early?" C barely mumbled.

"I bumped into Fredrick while he was on his way here. So we decided to pull a prank while we still could." Joseph answered, in a rather straight-forward manner.

"Let me rephrase the question." C said, pausing for a moment to get his mind in place, "How are you two here so early?"

"I set my alarm to five." Fredrick said, "Yours is still set to six, probably."

In a perfectly timed manner, C's alarm went off, forcing him to go upstairs and turn it off.

"And I'm sure yours was set a day late yesterday." C said, with a rather grumpy tone when he walked back downstairs, "What's next, you two're gonna ask me for some morning coffee as if this whole incident never happened?"

Fredrick let out a quick laugh, "We'd never do - Hey, can you share some coffee with us?"

C almost let out a chuckle, before saying, "You still didn't answer the question Fredrick. Why are you here all of the sudden?"

"I wanted to hang out before our first day at the job." Fredrick clarified, "Just the three of us, goofing off all day. Doesn't that sound like fun? More than office work, definitely!"

"You make office work sound like the end of the world." Joseph said, taking the place of C, who was now emptying his cabinets for a box of coffee filters.

"Being a policeman was interactive at least." Fredrick stated, "Infinitely more so than filing papers and typing on the computer. You can't say anything either; you're still a policeman!"

"Oh shoot, speaking of which." Joseph took out his watch, and noticed that it was nearly six o' five, "I need to start walking now if I want to make it on time."

"You're leaving already?" Fredrick asked.

"You two have fun. Make sure you don't do anything that will send me to the area."

"We'll try not to." C responded.

In mere seconds, Joseph had walked out of the door and disappeared from view. C busied himself in making coffee - now only for two - and Fredrick tapped rhythmically on his phone. A couple minutes came and gone, and C put down two coffee cups on the table near Fredrick. He then took a couple of eggs out of the fridge.

"Overeasy or scrambled?" C asked.

"Sunny side up." Fredrick answered.

"Overeasy it is."

C then proceeded to cook, and served up two plates of sausage and eggs.

"Maybe we should of had water instead of coffee." C realized, remembering that he was out of work for the day.

The two had barely walked past a block, when Fredrick pointed out a small book store.

"Alright C, I think that's the shop I saw it in."

The two entered through the glass door, into the slightly spacious interior of a bookstore. A few people browsed through the shelves, but otherwise the store felt lonely. Fredrick guided C to a selection of books near the back.

"These are… Olodonese mythology books?" C asked, looking through the small assortment.

"Yup, they just came in recently." Fredrick exclaimed, controlling his voice to not disturb the others in the shop, "Lucky you."

C quickly opened the book, looking through the table of contents. He pinpointed a title, and flipped to the page titled "The Skies." He skimmed lightly through the section, with Fredrick peering around a nearby shelf. C closed the book after a short skim, and told Fredrick that he will buy it for later. Fredrick picked out his book, the cover revealing a horror novel.

"You'll get nightmares again if you read that." C warned.

"I told you already, it isn't the books that give me nightmares."

The cashier put the two books in a paper bag, and C payed with his card. The two then left the store, and headed off towards their next destination. While eating breakfast, Fredrick had told C that he wanted to head to the park after showing C the "surprise." C wondered why at first - as Fredrick is not usually the type to pick tranquility over action - but realized that it was Fredrick allowing C a much needed break. 

The park was in an opposite direction to the book store from C's house, allowing the two to drop off the books beforehand. The park was less crowded than C expected, although it was a workday in the middle of the week. Apart from the occasional joggers coming through, the entire park was free to roam. Fredrick let C rest on a park bench, while he went to a nearby store. In a couple of minutes, Fredrick came back with a loaf of bread. He untied the front and opened the wrapper, soon ripping the slices into smaller bits. C lounged backwards on the bench, still observing the entire loaf that Fredrick bought.

"They'll start attacking you again if you feed them too much." C warned, "Remember last time you did this."

Fredrick tossed out a few pieces of bread, ignoring C's warnings, and watched as a sizable group of pigeons came swooping down to feed.

"Still can't believe we quit the force." Fredrick said, after a few tosses of bread.

C looked over at Fredrick, then back to the sky, "The job just never let up. Recently, it seemed as if every other month I was sent to another life-threatening incident. 'Yeah, just hold off these armed thugs alone, C' or 'You'll be fine, just keep that military-grade APC pinned down, C.' The time I spent in the force was the first time I had ever quarreled for my own life. Then you joined in and made that worry double."

"You always worry about me too much, C." Fredrick noted.

The two sat down in silence afterwards. Fredrick ripped open the bread bag, and placed it on the ground for the pigeons to swarm over.

"There's nothing else to do… let's head to your place, I guess." Fredrick said.

The two sat rather lazily at C's house, with C filling out paperwork for his next job at the office. Fredrick cycled through the internet on his phone, and looked at C from his chair.

"So… that's it for the day, huh." He said in a lower, almost disappointed voice.

"I told you already," C answered, "If we were able to quit earlier, than we would have had more time to plan and do stuff."

Fredrick got up from his seat, "Are you gonna work on that stuff for the rest of the day?"

"Not really. The rest of the day will be ironing out my suit, memorizing my shifts and areas, and going through the online part of signing in for the job."

Fredrick sighed, "I guess I'll be going home then and doing the same. See you later, business man."

Fredrick stretched his arms out, and made his way to the door.

"Fredrick," C said suddenly, grabbing Fredrick's attention, "I know that this may just be empty words to you, but I'm sorry for having you give up on your wish to save others."

Fredrick smiled, then chuckled to himself as he walked out of the door.

C sat there staring at the paperwork. He spent the rest of the day filling out more of the paperwork and preparing folders for both himself and Fredrick. Afterwards, C started his account creation. In a couple of hours, the sun was setting, and C had just finished ironing out his clothes for tomorrow. By ten, C was locked in his thoughts, and had realized that he stayed up too late and immediately headed for bed.