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]

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.]

[banananpc]

[Is Ash nice to him and hangs out with him because he worries bad people will do things to him?]

[jadedlynx]

[ Nah. He'll be there if Michael needs him, but like he said before, Jessica being around really is going to keep most of them away even before they see the shot gun.

He's fun to hang with. ]

[banananpc]

[The world is very scary.]

[jadedlynx]

[ Yeah. It could be. But it was also all the things he thought it was before this happened.

Going outside, he turned the video on to show Michael the view as the sun set. It's pretty nice, huh? Ash liked to hang out here around this time. ]

[papalobo]

[Max will peek outside on him at some point, noticing he's not in the house, but looking out the door to confirm where he is is enough. Back to work, trying to get with the journalists assigned, to direct them. Being housebound sucks. He has half a mind to sue the government as if being housebound is to repress his journalism rather than because he really is a constant, repetitive, demonstrable flight risk.]

[jadedlynx]

[ Ash is close enough to hear the door open. After all, it's going to be a lot easier to keep Max in line if he's not trapped with no way to reach Ash. While he'll have to be left alone sometimes, it isn't now.

He mouths the word 'Michael'. If he wants, it's a chance to say hi. ]

[papalobo]

[Instead he just nods. He has work to get back to. He was just worried about Ash.]

[jadedlynx]

[ He expected that to be the reply; it's why he didn't say anything out loud.

Eventually, the call has to end. Ash makes Michael promise to call if he wakes up and needs somebody to listen. He's pretty nocturnal anyway.

It's only twenty minutes later that he's walking into Max's office, laptop in hand. He doesn't say anything and if not spoken to, he sits down and gets to work himself. ]

[papalobo]

[Max glances up. No, it becomes more than a glance. His gaze lingers, as if on the verge of saying something. But then, he decides to leave Ash to his thoughts after all. What Ash is going to write out takes a lot out of a private guy like him, used to it being only his problem for only him to deal with.]

[jadedlynx]

[ And so it would make sense for him to want to write this out in private. Instead, he doesn't. Instead, he wants to hear Max typing away and his steady breathing. He wants to look up and remember he's not with them, but with Max.

Ash hears every word they whispered in his ears, but not all of the need to make it to 'paper'. Some things do. Threats. 'Tell anybody, and it'll make every other story you've told seem like a lie. You'll be the boy who cried rape.' 'I want you to scream. Nobody can hear you.' Mentions of childhood rape. Talks of their favorite things. Their comments when he started getting sick. Things that showed their plans and patterns as well as other possible threats they might pose. Mentions that this was a job perk. Things that thought would be useful.

The descriptions of what they did is more clinical than porngraphic. He notes that they knew he was getting sick and made it part of their games. Their 'rectal exam', their 'oral thermometers'. It wasn't just that they ignored his systems. They lavished in them.

Max gets an email file two hours later. In addition to his testimony, there are pictures. They're the same bruises that Blanca saw the night before.

Jessica also gets an email around that time. It's the small exert about their comments regarding Ash as a child. He notes that Max has the full thing but in case they tried to insist, she needs to make sure Michael is never alone with them. ]

[papalobo]

[Max talks to himself as he works. Most of it doesn't make sense. But when talking to others, the journalists Peter arranged for him, he can be understood to be directing them to speak with Wu to see about finding any Chinese who might have been interviewed. It should be topical both for current affairs, and seeing if any of them had been taken advantage of, were possibly still in holding.

Knowing in the back of his mind that the 'terrorist' attack wasn't actually a group of French-Islamic rebels, he urges them to find anyone held for that too, trying to be made into a stool pigeon. Blanca likely didn't leave anyone alive to actually hold onto.]

[jadedlynx]

[ Ash has one, but he's not one the cops can talk to.

He's somewhat lost in his own writing. The sound of Max speaking in full sensitives surprises him so that's enough to break his concentration, but then it's right back to the story.

Until it's over. ]

I've just sent it side.

[papalobo]

Sorry. Putting you through this when you wanted me to be here to be a comforter.

[jadedlynx]

It's not hanging over my head. We both knew it was something I'd have to do.

[ Standing, he stretches, trying to work out the knots in his muscles. ]

But I'm hanging out in here.

[ He has headphones. ]