#wough...

drunken angel.

his forearms rest on the ledge. rooftops have grown taller over the years, but that hasn't stopped him yet.

he hears a footstep, then two, behind him. the kind of footstep that announces itself. the kind that wouldn't be heard unless the person on the topmost end of it wants it to be. the kind he committed to memory so long ago to identify the owner of said specific hitch and gait. he doesn't need to look away from the crowded-teeth cityscape to know just who found him.

yet, a few breaths later, his head turns just a quarter of the way over his shoulder slope. the city still screams and growls and stinks below. seeing andy, though, its orchestra fades from their sharp hungry edge to something duller and more distant.

when i make a promise, she says, i keep it. and it falls between one long throb of mutt's heart and the next that he realises, or perhaps remembers, the breadcrumb trail he had left for her. for them.