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They make a stop in their road trip not long after leaving Ash’s old home in Cape Cod, more to catch their bearings than anything else. Max makes some excuse about needing to get shit for the car, even though they had their whole time in Cape Cod to get everything the car needs. Shorter complains about his ass needing a break despite just starting what’ll probably be a weeklong journey, and Ibe says they should stock up on provisions.
Ash doesn’t say anything.
Eiji doesn’t say anything.
Ash almost wishes he would.
When they pull into the gas station, Max and Ibe clamber out of the seats, and Shorter hops out of the back of the truck.
“Snacks!” Shorter cheers, leaving Ash and Eiji in the relative illusion of privacy that the tarp over the bed provides.
Ash sighs, wondering if Eiji is actually avoiding eye contact or if it’s just Ash’s imagination. They both stay seated in the back of the truck.
Jennifer is dead, and Ash’s dad was shot. But there’s nothing Ash can do about that right now. Right now, he’s with Eiji.
Eiji, who heard ... more than Ash would have hoped he’d ever hear. From Jim. About Ash.
“So you know about me,” Ash says. Not a question. Eiji already knew some of it. Ash was pretty blunt about how he knew about Club Cod. Runaway kids like me, he’d said. That’s how Eiji guessed that Ash ran away when he was sent to his aunt’s.
“Ash—”
“Don’t bother pretending,” Ash interrupts, although honestly he’s not certain if Eiji was going to or not. Despite being the shittiest liar Ash has ever seen, he’s hard for Ash to read. “I overheard.”
“I do know,” Eiji agrees. And he’s not avoiding eye contact now, looking directly at Ash. Ash is the one who can’t meet his gaze. “And I’m sorry.”
Ash startles. “Why are you apologizing?”
Eiji tilts his head. “That was your story to tell, and I heard it from someone else. That should have been disclosed—or not disclosed, if you choose—by you, and on your terms.”
Smirking, Ash responds, “What, you think I care about privacy at this point?” Like he’s ever had the privilege of privacy since his days at Club Cod. “You think it matters to me if—”
“I think it does matter to you,” Eiji says. And it’s an interruption, a challenge even, but it’s gentle. “Shorter did not even know you had a brother. I think that there are some things you don’t want others to know. Some things you are afraid of them knowing, even if you don’t have to be.”
Ash swallows. His throat feels a little tight, and he doesn’t want to respond. He tries anyway, though. “What do you mean?”
“I think you are afraid of how people will see you, if they know the things that you have been through.”
The things I’ve done, Ash mentally corrects. What I’ve done. Not what I’ve been through. All of it was my fault.
Ash pulls at his shirt collar. Even now he feels the smell of cigarettes and wine permeating the air, permeating him. Choking even the oxygen out of his lungs until no part of him, inside or out, has been left untouched.
“I do not look at you differently, you know. You are a good person, Ash,” Eiji says suddenly.
That startles a laugh out of Ash. A good person?
No.
He’s a whore. Nothing more, and so much less.
“I’m—” But Eiji interrupts him again.
“I don’t like that laugh,” he says, frowning. “I want to hear your real laugh.”
Ash cocks an eyebrow. “Did I not just laugh?”
Eiji shakes his head. He shifts on the hard truck bed, maybe trying to find a more comfortable position. “You didn’t. Or—you did, but it wasn’t right. It was sour.”
Sour? “You mean bitter?”
“I’m not sure,” Eiji admits. “But it was wrong. I don’t like it. I want to hear your real laugh.”
“Why?” Ash challenges. “Why does it matter to you?”
But Eiji smiles at him. “I’m certain I would love it. Your laugh, if you were truly happy.”
My laugh? Ash thinks. You’d love my fucking laugh? Oh, Eiji. I love your every breath.
“I don’t deserve to laugh,” Ash mutters.
Eiji reaches a hand toward him, but it hovers in the air between the two of them without ever quite reaching Ash.
Touch me, Ash thinks. Just do it. Touch me however you want. It doesn’t matter anymore.
But Eiji drops his hand back into his own lap, and takes a slow breath. “It takes time, these things. Recovery, or whatever you want to describe it as. And you have not been given that time. You are still—in the middle of all of this, in so many ways.”
Ash shivers. Fucking hell. If only Eiji knew.
“It takes time,” Eiji repeats.
Time, huh? Then Ash wants nothing more than for those sands of the hourglass to fill his lungs, choking the life out of him like the cigarette smoke and cologne never could, until he can’t hurt anyone or be hurt by anyone ever again.
But Ash doesn’t deserve recovery anyway. This is it, for him. This—going on what might as well be a wild goose chase—going after the impulsive idea of revenge for Skip, for Griff, for his innocence—this is as close as he’ll ever get to escaping. He’ll die like this, or get thrown back to Dino somehow. Hell either way.
“Ash?” Eiji asks. Shit. Ash hasn’t said anything in a while, has he?
“What do you want?” he snaps, gazing up at the tarp above them. His fingers dig into the denim of his jeans.
“Just checking in on you,” Eiji responds softly. Doesn’t even seem angry that Ash just practically yelled at him. “Are you okay?”
Ash glances at Eiji, and finds only genuine concern in his face. Shit.
“I’m fine,” Ash growls. “You shouldn’t be worrying about me. You’re the one who’s most in danger in this whole fucking mess.” God, Ash never should have agreed to let Eiji come with.
“I know that I am the baby here,” Eiji says. He’s frowning now. “But—”
“I don’t want to talk about myself anymore,” Ash interrupts. “I don’t want to be myself anymore,” he admits, quieter. He clears his throat. A moment of weakness, here. A confession. “Can we focus on you?” Now and forever. I want ‘us’ to mean ‘you.’
I hope that when people look at us together, they only see you. They only see the good in us.
Ash shakes his head at himself. He can’t think like that. He and Eiji ... there’s no such thing.
There is no ‘us.’
Eiji’s frown deepens, but he nods. “Whatever you want, Ash.”
Ash almost laughs again. “What I want doesn’t fucking matter. It never has.”
“It matters to me,” Eiji whispers. “I care about you.”
He’s lying, Ash’s mind provides.
But honestly? It doesn’t even matter to Ash if Eiji is lying. Because ... somehow, Eiji is worth believing in either way.
Fuck.
He smiles at Eiji, and it hurts. “When I couldn’t find myself, I found you instead.” He closes his eyes and leans his head back, breathing out slowly. “I look better next to you. I am something when I’m next to you.” But Ash tarnishes Eiji’s shine. His light.
“You are someone on your own,” Eiji protests. “Whether you are next to me or not. You are someone. Someone wonderful.”
Eyes still closed, Ash throws an arm over his face. He grins. “I’m not a someone at all. Not a person at all. Thank you though.” It’s nice to hear sweet lies sometimes, instead of bitter ones. It feels like a dream, almost. Like back when he was nine, and he would dream about Griff coming to save him. Griff, or the police, or a nameless savior—anyone.
He never expected to run out of pain. He never expected to dream without sleeping. Only nightmares, before Eiji.
“There’s more for you than this,” Eiji insists. “There’s more to life than what you have been through. You have purpose, meaning. You deserve better.”
“If there’s ...” Ash swallows. “If there’s a purpose—if there’s a reason—why hasn’t it found me yet?”
Eiji is silent. Of course. Even he can’t answer that.
“It’s fine,” Ash whispers. “If love is war, I never even made it to the battlefield. And I get a little bored of this sometimes. This—pretending to be someone.”
“You are someone,” Eiji says again. “Ash, can you look at me?”
Slowly, carefully, Ash sits up, drawing his arm back from his eyes and looking over to Eiji.
Eiji doesn’t look away. Looks right at him. Can stand to look at him, somehow.
“You are someone. Someone I love, I think. In some way. And that love—it is not war, to me. It is easy. It is painless. Like love should be.”
Ash desperately searches Eiji’s face for the lie. How does this kid have a better poker face than ruthless criminals and gang leaders? Why can’t Ash find the fucking lie? Why isn’t it there?
He crosses his arms and looks away, unable to keep staring at those eyes. “You can’t love me,” he says. “Fucking asshole.”
Eiji laughs, and the sound is light. Even. Easy.
If this is love, let me out, Ash thinks. I want to fall out of love and into—something. Something so much worse. So much less painful.
Arms already crossed, Ash wraps them around himself instead. Where the fuck are the others? Why hasn’t anyone come back yet? He doesn’t want to be alone with Eiji anymore. Doesn’t want to hear these lies anymore.
“Maybe you have awful people as your yesterday,” Eiji says, never giving Ash a chance to recover, “but maybe I can be your tomorrow.”
“I’m my own yesterday,” Ash mutters. “All this shit—I did it to myself.”
“Do you really believe that?” Eiji asks gently.
Ash is silent. Of course he does. Why wouldn’t he? It’s the fucking truth.
“I will have to show you otherwise, then.” Eiji sounds resolute, and Ash is a little surprised. How can he pull such lines without laughing? This is ridiculous. Eiji really is one of a kind.
But Ash almost, almost ...
“Eiji—”
“Damn!” Shorter yells, pushing the tarp open and climbing in. “They didn’t even have any of that rainbow sour shit. What the fuck am I supposed to do without my gay candy, Ash?”
He tosses a shitty Hostess cupcake at Ash’s face. Ash catches it with one hand and immediately throws it back, catching Shorter right in the forehead and knocking his glasses off.
“Asshole,” Shorter mutters, but he’s smiling, and so is Eiji, and honestly Ash is too.
Eiji, Ash thinks. Eiji. He closes his eyes and takes a breath, thinking about adults’ hands all over him, skin on skin and touches that never wash away. Being defiled, ruined in a way that can never, ever be undone.
Eiji.
Redefine me.
Change my entry in the dictionary, in the encyclopedia. Write your name all over it, until all that’s left of me has been touched by you.
You, and only you.
Eiji.