papalobo | Day 265 - Friday, September 12th

I'm not sure how much I can imply you're a 'societal drop out' while planning to spend the night in your luxurious and tasteful New York City adjacent private island beach side mansion. But you seem to humor us well.

[ Standing, Ash allows for a large stretch to ease some of his cramped muscles.

They're still on his mind. The touches. The tastes. It's heavy, suffocating. ]

We'll sleep downstairs.

[ A hand frisks up his spine as he does, the same way a man might absently pet a dog who comes to sit next to him. ]

Tense.

[It's a test; in the past, Ash would flinch from him after an assault, but Blanca's suddenly now in an inner circle which may be immune to that reaction. Or maybe not. He'll find out.]

[ Ash doesn't even realize he's being tested, but Blanca passes. He feels safe around him now. Before, he knew he had the capacity to be safe around him. ]

Neither jail nor a hospital was very relaxing.

[Likely before even Ash can realize what's happening, the touch to his back has looped around his stomach, pulling him backwards and into his lap, with a smoothing set of hands drifting to settle with a firm grip on his shoulders, as if to assure some professionalism even if the only reason he's offering said skill is for less than platonic reasons.]

I'll draw a warm bath for you shortly.

[ But even if he doesn't draw away from the touch, he does move away from the hold. He's not ready for that much yet. He's been in enough laps the last two weeks. ]

A bath sounds good.

[ Ash trusts he doesn't have of explain. ]

[Fair enough, he can stand up and give a good squeeze to his shoulders just as easily, a pre-relaxation.]

Do you want to pick out a change of clothes yourself or shall I fetch them for you?

I'll grab them.

[ There's only so much his pride will allow when it's obvious he's in a downed state. ]

[Another good grip, a push on a knot he promises to fully defeat by the end of Ash's bath before letting him go.]

Something very unfair happened to you. There isn't anything wrong with letting me unfairly spoil you now, you know.

You cleaned my house, made a 5 star meal, and are drawing me a bath. Don't get confused.

[ There's another smirk. ]

Spoil me all you want.

[A finger hooks under his chin, urging him to look up, leaning in close with a smoldering look; anyone would anticipate a kiss, and down he leans... only to whisper hotly, hungrily enough to feel on his lips without a connection.]

I'll take you up on that.

[And then, releasing his chin with a light tap, he's off to the bathroom with the most luxurious bath to start drawing it for him.]

[ There's no part of being with Blanca that comes guilt free, is there?

If he'd asked for Blanca's help with Wu, he wouldn't have been raped. Max wouldn't be in prison.

He's a dangerous drug, but one that's not so easily predicted. Blanda rarely, if ever, helped to help. There was no money exchanged this time.

Ash falls back onto the couch, hand over his full stomach. A bath will be good. He'd been washed in the hospital but that wasn't the same. ]

[If Ash hasn't headed upstairs within five minutes to fetch his clothing, Blanca's going to take the initiative on that, too. After that time, he'll announce to Ash that his bath is ready.

There are no bubbles, in case he wants to sink down and soak without stinging his eyes at first, but there is some sort of woodsy and warm scent in the water, in the air, meant to relax him, meant to be different from the sterilized smell of a hospital's bathing procedures.

Blanca's changed into a bathrobe, but there are a pair of loose training pants on, as if to assure him the change is only so that getting wet is less of a bother as he tends to him, there's no intent to join him and make it something to feel (more) guilty over.]

[ Within five, he's entering the bathroom, clothes in hand. A part of him anticipates the bath. Pain medication did well to relieve some of the worst injuries, but his muscles still ached.

Ash drops his own clothing to the floor. The bruising is light, but with Blanca's attention to detail, they were possibly easy enough to see. He's even seen them on Ash in the past. Finger-shaped bruises mar his thighs and hips; one even manages to remain on his right arm. The most unique one was a thin line going across his stomach; bent over the table seemed to be their favorite position for him.

Knowing that Blanca isn't Max and won't go nuclear over the sight, Ash steps into the water and immediately sinks down. ]

[Rather, if one didn't know Blanca, they could think he didn't notice. One could certainly think they didn't affect him at all, that moving in to settle at the edge of the tub and begin with a slow, soothing rub at the back of his neck is just a matter of being a consummate flirt, or a merely dedicated masseuse.

His inside is hardly so glib. It's enough to surprise himself, even if it isn't enough for any over the top reaction. Ash doesn't need his pity nor his sentimentality, and stoicism has been trained into him so thoroughly that he knows full well any attempt to express it beyond this service would seem staged. Even why he's doting this much is likely written off by Ash as Blanca's typical over the top nature.

It would be a problem for Ash, more than anything, if he contemplated too much on the fact that Blanca isn't as aloof and unwilling to assist as they both know he should be. He can't actually be such a defining feature in the life of a boy in love with and seeking normalcy with another man.]

[ Before Blanca's able to begin the massage, when Ash's hair is moved out of the way to begin his work, he'll discover one more bruise that was hidden by the platinum strands. In spite of skin so pale as to almost be porcelain, Ash doesn't bruise from a simple touch. Like a canyon can be carved by water over time, rough and consistent treatment had left bruises dark enough that they were taking days to fade. Some liked to hold him down by his hair, some by his neck, some by his hips, some by threat alone. Some liked him on his back, some on his knees. No matter the position, the implication is clear: there were enough someones to do this when bruising was never their intention. These were men who really thought their misdeeds would go unpunished.

Now, Ash is a legal name in yet another system, photos of bruises and blood-stained thighs added to some file. Medical records use words like 'internal tearing' and 'infection caused by'. Psychological reports will mention the delirium and outbursts. All of it was legal and had practical purposes, but none of it can capture the way it feels to be so helpless and in the hands of men who want to harm you.

A bath is nice, and Blanca has taken enough of the burden from Ash's shoulders that he can relax. Nothing he's done is for naught. But none of it erases that ball of disgust or pulsating pain from Ash's body. Still, they're all steps forward. ]

[Ash is just as helpless in the hands of a man who doesn't presently wish him any ill will. The agency and normalcy and sense of self, something that can't simply be given back is taken when that happens, something that, by Blanca's initial calculations, Ash should have long enough been out of that such a thing was no longer a risk or a threat. Something that it was pointless to allow to grow back. Now he was here trying to foster it by tending to his body, as if he could reach beyond the skin to the intangible feeling stored somewhere not so physical but that feels undesirably real just the same.

If Ash's actual lover didn't exist, or more precisely if guilt over a monogamy the other man was himself supposed to have freed Ash from but still lords over him with his own self destructive actions, then maybe he would be able to reach further, maybe he would be able to matter just a little more here. He was able to once, when Ash had thought the man dead.

And look where that lead them. Blanca's quite happy with the outcome, but if time were to turn back, Ash would, without a doubt, undo it all.

To think back then he thought Ash would grow past even wanting to undo his childhood and find it all a worthwhile struggle to stand where he should have. Truly, Ash was determined to make his own way.]

Ah.

[ The soft sound is one of satisfaction. He's been in the kind of life that didn't always afford him a bath so it's not as if he doesn't know the sensation, but it's easy to forget how good a long-awaited bath can feel. ]

I should've done this sooner.

[ It's easy to assume Ash is already moving past it. It's a traumatizing situation that should have left him unwilling to be touched at all. It isn't realistic to expect anyone to function after such abuse no matter how strong they are. Ash didn't when it happened to him the first time. Even after, when Marvin and his men grabbed him, he wasn't bouncing back immediately.

Still, as he told Jessica, he never had the luxury of time so he learned how to keep functioning even through the pain. ]

Next time I get out of interrogation, meet me at the car with a portable bath.

[But now that there's no functioning left that he can do at the moment, it only piles up, like dirt to be washed away.]

I'll have to stalk you to know, but if you insist.

[Still, he's not of a mind to let his hands lose even to the hot water and aromatherapy he'd prepared. A gentle nudge urges Ash to lean forward rather than backwards, rolling up the bathrobe sleeves enough to begin working lower along his spine, to ease the arch, the muscles abused and compensating for internal tearing, likely having cramped in pain lately around his waistline.]

[ The intention is good. If Ash could allow it, it would even be useful, but he can't. He reaches to catch the hand, shaking his head. ]

I can't, yet.

[ He'd had so many hands on his back the last two weeks. ]

I can reach your back from the front if that's better.

[Though he certainly doesn't mind massaging Ash's front.]

Not yet.

[ The less touch on his back, the better. ]

[Likely, working at his hips directly won't go over very well, either.

No matter. He reaches for the hand that, not that long ago, had had a knife through it. Having been the one to have stitched it up, much to Ash's confusion at the time, he runs a thumb over the shockingly already near invisible marking, lightly feeling out how said hand has been recovering on the inside.

Ash's body is a wonderland he can play in for hours no matter which sections of the park may be closed.]

It's a lot better.

[ He trusts Blanca enough that his eyes close. Naked and with a man who could easily overcome him, Ash knows that he's in good hands, not in danger of being a victim yet again. ]

It'd have been annoying to lose the ability to use it.

[And yet, some part of Ash would be tense if he were to touch him in the same places.]

You've a knack for understatement.

[But he had thought the same thing when treating him. He had decided not to reveal himself, and yet, back then, he had determined even at the very real risk of blowing his identity, that hand had to be saved.]

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