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The cat met the dog long before the bird did.
That was the annoying part.
The dog liked to act as though the bird had discovered him half-dead in an alley like some tragic fairy tale, but the truth was the cat had already been feeding the mutt for months before that.
Not consistently.
Cats weren’t built for consistency.
But every now and then the cat would leave food near the alley dumpster pretending it had “accidentally” fallen from the fire escape. The dog always noticed. The dog always wagged his tail like the cat had personally delivered a five-course banquet.
Embarrassing behavior.
Absolutely humiliating species conduct.
The dog loved everybody.
That was his problem.
The cat liked rooftops because rooftops didn’t ask questions.
You could smoke on rooftops.
Bleed on rooftops.
Fall asleep for fourteen hours straight on rooftops.
Nobody bothered you.
The dog, however, bothered everybody.
The cat would return from a bad night to find the dog sitting beside strangers offering emotional support with his entire face.
Once, the cat watched the dog comfort a crying little girl for forty minutes after she dropped an ice cream cone.
Forty.
Minutes.
The cat sat three rooftops away eating stolen french fries and reconsidering the evolutionary purpose of dogs altogether.
“You know she’s gonna survive that, right?” the cat called eventually.
The dog looked genuinely surprised.
“I know.”
“Then why’re you still here?”
The dog frowned slightly, as if the answer should have been obvious.
“She’s sad.”
That was it.
No deeper explanation.
Just: She’s sad.
The cat hated how much sense that made.
The bird arrived during winter like somebody had fired a flare gun directly into the city.
The cat noticed him immediately.
Everybody did.
The bird moved too fast for the eye to fully understand him. Red blur. Sharp laughter. Feathers scattering across rooftops like sparks from an exposed wire.
The cat’s first thought was:
That thing is going to ruin somebody’s life.
Then the bird landed beside the dog.
The dog looked up at him like sunrise had personally stopped by to say hello.
The cat nearly groaned out loud.
“Absolutely not,” he muttered to himself.
Because the cat knew birds.
Not literally.
Metaphorically.
Birds were beautiful creatures right up until migration season. Then suddenly the sky mattered more than whatever loved them on the ground.
The bird was all motion and nervous joy and restless wings. The kind of creature who talked with his whole body like standing still physically hurt him.
The dog fell in love almost immediately.
Idiot.
The cat tried warning him.
Subtly at first.
“You know birds leave, right?”
The dog tilted his head.
“Sometimes.”
“Most times.”
“But he comes back.”
The cat stared at him for a long moment.
The worst thing about the dog wasn’t the loyalty.
It was the hope.
Hope in a dog became nearly impossible to kill once it latched onto something.
The cat had seen the dog forgive cruel people for scraps of affection. Seen him return to hands that shoved him away. Seen him curl beside locked doors waiting for owners who moved out months ago.
The dog didn’t understand temporary love.
Every kindness became permanent inside him.
The bird had no idea what kind of creature he’d landed beside.
For a while, though…
The cat almost believed it might work.
The bird started staying longer.
Started sleeping beside the dog instead of vanishing before dawn.
The dog laughed more around him. Actually laughed. Tail thumping against rooftops while the bird talked too fast and stole food from street vendors and somehow convinced the dog to dance in the rain once at two in the morning.
Disgusting.
The cat watched from a nearby chimney pretending not to smile.
The bird noticed him eventually.
“You always lurking around?”
“You always talking?”
“Usually faster than this.”
“You sound exhausting.”
“You look divorced.”
The cat liked him instantly.
Against his better judgment.
That made it worse later.
Because the bird did love the dog.
The cat could tell.
Birds didn’t preen creatures they didn’t care about. Didn’t return over and over to the same rooftop. Didn’t curl themselves against somebody’s chest while half-asleep.
But love and staying were different things.
And the bird still flinched every time the dog looked too happy.
Like devotion scared him.
Like being needed felt too much like a cage.
The cat recognized that look too.
Creatures that got abandoned young either clung too tightly or learned to keep the exit visible at all times.
The dog and bird had become opposites of the same wound.
The night of the fight, the cat heard them from three rooftops away.
“You make me feel trapped!”
Silence.
Then quieter voices the wind almost swallowed whole.
The cat closed his eyes.
There it is.
The moment the bird confused love for expectation.
The moment the dog confused waiting for patience.
The cat didn’t interfere.
Some disasters were too old to stop.
After the bird left, the dog waited.
Of course he did.
The cat started spending more time nearby after that.
Not close-close.
Just… around.
The dog got thinner during winter.
Still looked toward the skyline every evening.
Still perked up at red headlights and cardinal wings and anything fast enough to resemble hope.
The cat wanted to shake him.
“You know,” he muttered one night beside the alley fire escape, “you’re allowed to be angry.”
The dog looked puzzled.
“At him?”
“Yes, at him.”
The dog thought about it carefully.
“He was scared.”
The cat nearly hissed.
“And what about you?”
The dog didn’t answer.
That silence made something ache behind the cat’s ribs.
Because there it was again.
The terrible thing about dogs.
They always understood everybody else’s pain better than their own.
Then winter cracked open with a streak of red.
The bird returned like a lightning strike.
The cat watched from above as the two of them collided in the snow.
The bird looked wrecked.
The dog looked relieved.
Same as always.
The cat should’ve been annoyed.
Instead he just felt tired.
The bird buried himself against the dog’s neck like somebody trying to crawl home after getting lost.
The dog held him without hesitation.
Of course he did.
The cat lit a cigarette on the rooftop edge and looked away to give them privacy.
“Codependent idiots,” he muttered fondly to the snow-covered skyline.
Then, after a beat:
“Hope this one learns to stay.”