(AN: I've had several people emailing me for a year now to keep writing this. It's been in the making since last August. You're welcome???? Enjoy!)

Andi was walking down the street when the woman bumped her shoulder and walked off without apology. As an afterthought, Andi turned to call the woman back--and realized her pocket was sans wallet. Typical, she thought. "Hey! Excuse me! Hey, lady! Wait up!" Wasting no time, the woman started to run, knocking three other startled street walkers and nearly unbalancing a watermelon stand. Andi followed in her wake, muttering hurried apologies at the disgruntled passers-by as she sprinted, soon easily catching up to the woman and plucking the wallet out of the would-be pickpocket's hand. Without saying a word, she bopped the woman on the forehead with her knuckles and ran off, not stopping until she'd blazed through two alleyways and scaled a fire escape, sitting on her haunches outside a third-story window. She wasn't Spiderman, though she did harbor a few of the legendary Parker's traits, namely the short, messy brown hair and the photography obsession--along with the willingness to help people in need of help.

The difference between Andi and the Marvel superhero was that she tended to help those whom no one else paid any notice to; for instance, the guy she'd found four alleys over about a week ago. He had been sitting in the dust, tears streaming down his gaunt cheeks, yet with a crazed smile tearing his face apart as he studied his fingers. On closer inspection, those fingers contained bits of glass. She'd forced him to look at her, immediately recognizing signs of addiction and deeply contained sorrow. She understood that look, so she did something she normally wouldn't do and gave her cell number to him on a piece of onionskin paper. Now, leaning against the balcony of the fire escape landing, she wondered if he was okay... and dismissed the thought with a sudden overwhelming sense of hunger.

She was prone to bouts of dizziness due to food deprivation. She didn't have much money to buy food in the first place, and hadn't really enjoyed food much for several years. Eating was overrated after certain occurrences... but she did still like one particular snack.

Walking away from the little silver food truck on 35th and Industrial, she was about to dig into one freshly baked cheese bun--the other three safely in a paper bag in her hand--when her phone buzzed from her pocket. The number was blocked; payphone, maybe. She accepted. "Hello?"

The voice on the other end was male, baritone, and rusty with disuse and the scrape of depression. "Is this Narcotics Anonymous?"

She suppressed a laugh. "No, I actually smoke periodically, but I can direct you to the nearest NA number if that's what you're look--"

"No!" He (assumingly) cleared his throat. "Sorry. No. Not what I'm looking for. I woke up with this piece of really thin paper in my fist, with this number on it, about a week ago. Who is this?"

She sighed, whether out of relief or exasperation, she wasn't sure. "Hi. That was me, leaving the paper. You probably don't remember me. Where are you right now?"

A pause on the other end. Static from other payphone lines. "31st and Industrial. Why?"

"Good. I'll be there in five minutes."

"How do I know I can trust you?" God, the hurt behind that voice. It was making her eyeballs itch.

She huffed. "I have food." The line clicked dead. She took that as an affirmation.

Six minutes later, she was in the alley off 31st and Industrial when a tap on her shoulder made her whirl around. It was the smiling dude--only he wasn't smiling now. The tattered hoodie and old jeans gave him an aura of homelessness, but as a person accustomed to reading more than skin-deep, she knew there was something else, and maybe a lot more things.

She tried for a smile. "Guessing you're the friendly voice on the phone, huh?"

His shoulders bobbed up, then down, once. "My name is... Cas. I think." He hesitated, then stuck out a hand apprehensively, almost as if she were going to bite him.

She took his hand and shook it gently, but firm. "Call me Andi." Holding up the paper bag of cheese buns, her smile grew. "See? Food."

They were sitting atop a closed Dumpster, she with her legs pretzeled, he chowing down his third cheese bun. She looked sidelong at him. "So. When was the last time you ate?"

He shrugged again, his words slightly garbled by the soft bread. "Four days? Food is hard to do when you're hyped up on pills."

She nodded. "I get the feel. Food is difficult for me too. This," she waved half a bun in the air, "is one of the only things I eat, alongside the occasional orange chicken or fresh organic veggies. Eating is overrated in my opinion."

He frowned at her, dark brows furrowing together worriedly. "You're kind of a sprout. You are so thin. Shouldn't you be eating more?"

Shrugging, she took another bite. "Fast metabolism plus traumatic experiences do not equal great food consumption. So, if you don't mind my asking, what got you started?"

"I'm assuming you mean the drugs. I had a..." he cleared his throat. "A friend. He was taken from me by powers that I have no control over. I loved him dearly. I like to think he felt the same toward me. He was something of an angel for me... he helped me to fly, I suppose. And since he's been gone, I guess I just found something else to fly by."

Andi leaned her head back against the brick wall of the old building they were stationed in front of. "Some kinda special friend, huh?"

A small smile crossed Cas' face. "Yes," he murmured, so soft she could barely hear, as if he were in a memory or dream. Suddenly, he seemed to register the present again. "So," he continued, "what's your kick?"

She coughed, not used to answering this question. "I. Um. Aha, well..." She laughed wryly. "Hell, I may as well just jump right in. I mean, who are you going to tell, right?" He shrugged. She continued, pausing, the trace of a well-trained anti-stutter in the back of her throat as she unintentionally quickened and slowed her pace of speech. "Well, it's been a lot of things. Currently it's the avoidance of food, and the occasional cigarette. I'm twenty, see. People would say I have a lot going for me. I host art galleries every once in a while for my photography. I do a lot of things that most people would categorize as surrealism, but it's all real. Just nature and what I find in the city that seems to have misplaced itself. So my kick has been art. It's been playing the cello. It's been writing self-absorbed poetry and going to obscure coffeehouse poetry slams, hanging with the crackheads and the art school dropouts who have turned to other, more illegal mediums to satisfy themselves. When I was fifteen, I met a guy. I was never really even into him, but who was I to resist a friend, right? He was three and a half years older than me. Turned out to be a total asshole, sexually assaulted me while we were sitting on his couch watching comedy spoofs and eating pizza. I lived, obviously, but I guess I changed. Tried to drown myself, in more ways than one. So for a little while there my kick was sex. I'm aromantic, you see. So it was no-strings-attached. I hated myself. I still kinda do, but a little less than I used to. Anyhow, I got out of the entire thing, cut the strings between myself and my family--after using a local anaesthetic, of course--moved, changed my name so that dick couldn't find me again, and started working in humanities. Though really I don't work, I volunteer. I freelance. I also dabble in the great and mysterious underworld that is street art."

She shrugged, like shifting out of a jacket whose shoulders were slightly too large for her. "That's about it. Sorry for rambling."

Cas shook his head. "No, I don't mind. It's nice to listen to someone speaking to me. Someone who's not..." His words faltered and he looked over at Andi, who nodded. "Someone who's not in your head. I get it."

The shadow of an expression passed across Cas' face. It seemed almost as if through his body's forgetfulness, his mind was trying to smile. Andi saw, of course. She always saw. And she was relieved, a little. The itch behind her eyeballs lessened.