Day 265 - Friday, September 12th

[papalobo]

[A Chinese man who is definitely a mature adult and not a teenager checks in to the Hyatt, one of their more exclusive rooms, along with his half-white half brother who is also certainly not a teenager and most definitely not the notorious gang leader wanted on suspicion of a September 11th New York City bombing in retaliation for an angry rogue sect of anti-American zealots.

The entire suite floor has been rented out, and it requires a special key card in the elevator and on the stairs to enter that floor. But they can rent one of the still very luxe rooms directly beneath.

A familiar white limo is in the car garage, though the opportunity to gawk or investigate is slim, between the security cameras and live guards.

There's still no contact from Max, but the Department of Homeland Security has become involved, and has begun to enter Ash's territory with intent to arrest any known figures within his gang to bring in for questioning.]

Day 284, Wednesday, Oct 1st

Comments

[jadedlynx]

[ Teachers can do it. Michael is right. Some of Ash's tutors were actual teachers and even those who didn't assault him knew they were teaching the victim of a pedophile. ]

It's good that you're taking time away until you're feel better.

[ Ash is glad Michael given that time. ]

And I'm going to sound like those guys who came to your class and talked about stranger danger, but everything I'm saying is based on science and facts, okay?

The people who've hurt me, they're because I didn't have somebody like your mom and dad in my past. My own mom took off, and my old man didn't want to be a dad at all so after my brother passed, I didn't have anybody. These people, they're cowards. They don't want to get in trouble. So, they pick people who they think nobody will care about. They don't pick the kid who has a mother with a shotgun or the dad who'll tear down the school with his hands. They pick the boy or girl who's sitting alone and has to walk home and school or never has anybody show up for a conference.

The people who hurt your mom, the guys who grabbed us, they're tied to that kind of past. The men who did this saw that past and thought they'd be able to do the same thing. They thought nobody would fight for me. That's why what your mom and dad are doing now is important. They're catching the bad guys, but it's more personal. They're telling the world that it's not true anymore. They're watching and if somebody is dumb enough to do this, they're going to make them pay too.

[banananpc]

It sounds like those kinda people are just everywhere. They're where easy targets are, and then they're there to get caught a lot even when there's someone to catch them...

I didn't know that happened to you a lot as a kid... And it just never stopped...

[jadedlynx]

That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying even though it's bad enough that even one can make you question everybody, it's not everywhere. It's why when something like this happens, it makes the news. It's a big deal.

I wouldn't tell you a lie to put you in danger just to make you feel better. You're probably one of the safest kids at that school. You stay that way by talking to the people you trust and making sure they stay visible, and I'm pretty sure you couldn't shake your mom off even if you had secret service training.

Until you feel okay again, how about I help with your homework? Your dad kept fighting to get out to get to me so he's under house arrest, but he's still trying to work so it'll give me something to do when he's writing.

[banananpc]

Mm... But, nobody helped you like you're helping me, and nothing happened to me. I wanna help you and Dad and Mom who wanna help you. But I'm just a kid...

[jadedlynx]

I'm getting help. Max spent the first few hours out of jail helping me before working on gathering information. Your mom is helping me a lot. Now, I'm asking you to help me, too. The best thing after being with bad people is being with good people. It might sound like I'm asking to do this to help you, but I'm being a little selfish, too.

[banananpc]

Mm. I know. I like being around you after Mom and Dad fight... So, I wanna help you, too. [He tries to hide his sniffling sound.]

[jadedlynx]

Then we'll help each other. And if you need to cry while we do, that's okay, too. Sometimes, you have to be strong, but when you're with safe people, it's okay to let that out. That's not something just for kids.

[banananpc]

Do you cry with Dad? Is he nice to you? Mom says he's not... very good with feelings besides mad.

[jadedlynx]

I did.

[ It's not the kind of thing he normally likes to admit, but how can he convince Michael if he verbally holds himself to a different standard?

To Michael.

About this.

Some situations are more complicated. ]

Don't worry. He was nice. It's true that he's good at mad, but he can do other emotions too. You see how excited he gets when he sees you. It's like that. He did what I needed him to do.

[banananpc]

Mom says right now it's okay to be mad. I'm mad too. You're good and nice and tried to help them find terrorists...

[jadedlynx]

She's right. I'm mad too.

[ Not that Ash hasn't been angry before... ]

I don't like it either.

[ How it feels. Ash isn't going to put much on Michael, but talking through it with him might be helpful. ]

[banananpc]

Adults are perverts.

[jadedlynx]

Not all of them. You've met a lot of adults in your life and didn't really run into this until now.

[ Until me. ]

Some of them are.

[banananpc]

I'm sorry.

[jadedlynx]

Thanks.

[ Something tells him that Michael wouldn't be comforted if Ash told him that he always rebounds pretty quickly.

From there, he tries to shift into normal conversation. Did Michael want to do some work now? Ash won't say as much, but if he does, he turns out to be a pretty good teacher. It helps that he understands things on a deep level. ]

[banananpc]

[Michael tries, but Ash can tell, for a normally smart kid with fast uptake, he's distracted and has poor retention, struggling to hold on to and apply new knowledge, or keep up with stories he's reading.]

[jadedlynx]

[ So, he'll be patient. He never actually had to struggle in school, but he'd seen classmates who had. Math was easy. He'd bring it back to baseball. The game had been pretty cool. Michael hit one. Ash remembers the first time he hit one, too. He'd been a little younger than Michael so he hadn't really handled it as well. The kid was too old to be into addition, but he'd spin it around to baseball scores and distance.

Reading? After the first few times, Ash scribbles a picture of the scene they just read. Then ask Michael to scribble the next. He can do that, back and forth, until they're done.

Science? That's for experiments. The cats can help if it's physics base.

It might also be loud enough for Max to hear depending on the experiment. ]

[banananpc]

[Michael is pretty good at drawing. His shapes don't look very peopley but he has a sense for how to make use of space, instead of just drawing in the middle or to the side.

Max is too busy to care if Ash is talking to Michael; Michael isn't getting revenge for Ash.]

[jadedlynx]

[ It doesn't have to be artist quality. As long as be can tell Michael understood the scene. If something important is left out, he'll ask where it should go.

After this, he has to write about weeks of gang rape. Ash is in no hurry.

Eventually, if Michael seems to be more engaged, Ash hides little Michael, Jessica, or Maxs in the pictures. ]

[banananpc]

[Michael exitedly informs Jessica in the background that Ash drew her.

Jessica is understandably dubious about this, but Ash is in good boy mode today.




She still doesn't feel bad about suspecting Ash was gonna Ash, even after trauma, though. He's just such a good bad boy.


She and Max end up unconsciously synched across the continent in their rage at what happened to him.]

[jadedlynx]

[ It's a fair assumption. Ash hasn't suddenly become a saint, but he's working with Michael and honestly, he doesn't have the energy to fight back. It's stupid to start arguments you can't finish, and even if he'd find the energy, he has more important uses for it.

Since Michael seemed to like it, they show up in the photos more often. ]

[banananpc]

[Partway through, Michael ends up crying. Ash is too good. Why did he have such a bad past? Why wasn't his childhood filled with nice people who protected him? Why did Dad let bad people get Ash again? Ash is a good person. Why did they have to pick on a good person?]

[jadedlynx]

[ Ash doesn't tell him not to cry, but he does remind Michael that it's not on Max. Max fought against people who could've really hurt him to get to Ash. A lot of his injuries come from getting to Ash. Enough that he feels bad about it even if Max tells him he's stupid for feeling bad about it.

He had some good childhood stuff too. He'll talk to him about Griff. About some of the games they used to play. He mentioned Jennifer a few times. She'd cook him nice meals sometimes.

Max helped him find his grandparents recently. They'd adopt him if you could adopt an adult. ]

[banananpc]

[Why did he have to have a Jennifer instead of a Mommy and a Griff but no Daddy? It's not fair. Why couldn't he have his grandparents as a kid? Old people die so he wouldn't get to know them as long. It was all bad.]

[jadedlynx]

[ He'd trade a Griff for a thousand dads. And even if he doesn't get to know them long, he's happy he gets to know them.]