And Back Again | Andmanda
A guy like him didn’t have many options.
Home was out of the question. It was too risky. They’d found him once, there, and he had all his wits back then, which meant he had no hope now. A hospital wouldn’t do - he never even went to the doctor before, though it was his own stubbornness that kept him. Now it just felt like crawling straight into a spider web. He couldn’t chance it with his wings clipped. The morgue, though familiar, was tied too closely to the government, the facility no doubt scrutinized.
He couldn’t remember enough to think of other options. His head ached, a pounding in the base of the skull, and nothing he did would turn it off. Andy wondered, idly, through fog, why he kept feeling like he was missing a sense, a dead limb inside he couldn’t move.
But some things came through in lightning bursts. He could almost taste something buttery sweet and colorful; he remembered the cords to a sad, twangy song; he knew his birthday but not his age. He hadn’t forgotten these things - there was just too much in his head to recall specifics on command.
At a pay phone, one of the few ancient relics left of the sort, with found coins he asked information for the vet. It took three minutes before the automation gave up on trying to understand his mumbling, and passed him through to a real person, who told him the vet was closed, but the animal shelter might still be open. Another part of him, a sleepy, lost part he couldn’t pull up, wanted to hurl curses at them for thinking that alternative could possibly help him, but instead, he just hung up, a metallic clatter in the vacant street, after they gave him the address.
It was dark and locked, no matter how hard he jostled the doors. The glass rattled when he hit, annoyed, forehead first, but he only noticed the softer sound that followed - paper rustled against it from inside, a scrap taped against the pane. In case of emergencies.
Andy knew the name. He knew how long it had been since he heard or saw it, roughly, give or take. He let himself laugh about it, in loopy chuckles, while he walked the nine blocks to the address it left, ruminating on strange serendipity and trying to get missing pieces of the connection to fall into place. If he didn’t try to think about it, his legs took him down streets he memorized back when he needed to.
He forgot to knock. The scenery distracted him. His head hit the door when he leaned forward to catch his breath, though, a thump louder than he’d anticipated.
“Jesus, Desmond. And I thought your old place was shit.”