turps

This isn't what you were prompting at all I'm sure, but it's what my brain latched on to. Also a double drabble as I'm a big cheater that cheats.

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Letter clutched in his hand, Ghoul folds himself down. Knees drawn up and back against sun-warm metal, he lets out a breath and hopes. Not wishes, he knows wishes can’t happen, but he clings onto tatters of hope.

Close-by, Kobra’s staring off into the distance, his anger pulled close. “He won’t see it.”

“He might.” Ghoul thinks about words scrawled over paper, torn through and the ink running in places. “He knows that it’s here.”

“All the more reason to stay away,” Kobra spits out, newly bitter in a way Ghoul hates to see. “It’s pointless.”

“No, it’s not.” That Ghoul has to believe, he’s already lost so much, his home, his identity, even his name. He can’t lose this too. “You have to have hope.”

Kobra shrugs, says simply, “My hope disappeared when he did.”

There’s no words, Ghoul’s tried them all, and each one has failed -- but this, this he can try.

“He’ll see it.” Ghoul stands, knees aching and skin pulled tight as he opens his hand and lets go of the letter -- and hopes.

Hopes as he walks to Kobra and, together, they leave. The postbox behind them, standing sentry at the side of the road.