Dan Howell is Alive * sequel to HIAKDH

2. I Should Have Not Let You Go

"I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix, angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night, who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat up smoking in the supernatural darkness of cold-water flats floating across the tops of cities..." - Allen Ginsberg, Howl and Other Poems

***

Home. One word that didn't seem to exist anymore. And yet, I suppose this meager accommodation I shared with PJ could count as a home in some other lifetime. The walls looked as if they could crumble at any second. The floors once stained wood, now laid dusty with our rough bootprints forever etched into their grain. Discarded plywood was boarded against the glass-less windows, to keep out the evening light that was bound to be a beacon for The Calvary.

PJ was sorting cans when I came to the apartment, only slightly winded from the steep stairs I took to arrive upstairs. Food was hard to come by if you were Rouge but PJ seemed to be doing just fine at finding tin cans full of peach slices in heavy syrup and barbeque beans. It was a misconception that angels didn't need to eat or sleep. We just didn't need to eat or sleep as much as humans. That had been the strangest part of The Procedure. That, and the wings.

"Hey," he said, not looking up from the food chart he was making with an old pizza box and dull Sharpie.

"Hey. Any signals?" I nodded towards the homemade radio we had built to keep an eye (er, ear) on the Calvary and government. We didn't need and surprise visits.

"No. It's been quiet all day. Where were you, anyway?"

"The Hall. Don't worry, I was disguised."

PJ scoffed. The Hall was an old park that held provisions along with wanted posters of all the Rouges, including PJ and me.

"I don't understand the obsession. We're doing fine without their help, anyway."

I didn't reply. I wasn't willing to start a whole-ass fight with PJ, because that would just get us killed easier. Instead, I mentioned what had been on my mind since I had walked away from Phil Lester.

"I saw him," I mumbled, lighting a cigarette slowly.

"I thought he's died," PJ said absentmindedly, stacking his cans in the metal shelves carefully. 

"Well, he isn't. Human now, though."

PJ smiled tightly. "So, where is he now?"

I blew the smoke away. "How should I know?"

"You just left him there?"

"Yeah. Yeesh, I didn't know you were in love with the guy-"

"He's gonna be eaten alive. I thought you were a better man than that, Lieutenant"

I squinted my eyes. "Guess you don't know me all that much, then, huh?"

"I guess not," he spat back, shoving the remaining cans into the cabinet and walking off in a huff.

So much for not fighting with PJ.