Archive of Our Own

Dino used to say “l’erba cattiva non muore mai” every time Ash came out mostly unscathed from some at least half-deadly stunt.  

Ash would ask “aren’t you supposed to be French?” and Dino would say “with a name like Dino, I’m required to speak Italian to keep up appearances”. 

Maybe it is true, that bad people never die. The devil looks after his own, and so Ash is laying on yet another hospital bed, the sticky feeling of a nasal cannula stuck inside his nostrils and a deep, dull pain carved inside his belly.

He opens his eyes to find the bluish darkness of an ICU and no will to live whatsoever. What a boring personality trait to have.

It hurts like a bitch every time he breathes; his throat feels parched, tongue sticking on the roof of his mouth, limbs like lead and ears ringing. He hates it here, he fucking hates it here, he was at the library and he was fine, how the hell—

“Fuck.” Fuck, the letter. Where the fuck is the letter—too many tubes and cables; yes he has a heart and it’s beating, what’s the point in letting half the ward know. He clocks the closest hellish medical contraption: his knuckles hurt but the beeping stops, so that’s one for Ash, and probably a four digits number to the universe, why is he even trying to keep the score at this point.

He plucks the IV out and contemplates the fact that he’s wearing one of those stupid hospital gowns. Nothing ever good comes from him going around butt-naked.

There are people walking around in a very busy fashion and someone said something about escaped patients.

Ash is escaped but he’s also extremely impatient, so he grabs the first scrubs he finds on a metal tray and puts it on crying only a little bit when the stitches pull so hard he feels like he’s being stabbed once again.

Did he kill the guy? Probably. Was it Lao? Probably. 

He ends up pressing his forehead really hard against the closest wall and sucking air through gritted teeth as he rolls the pants on his hips because of course he’d find the most gigantic pair.

So. Assessment of the situation. 

Someone tried to kill him—what’s new—he killed the guy who tried to kill him—what’s fucking new—he’s at the hospital—of fucking course—he hates it here, and he wants his letter. So: first objective, getting out of here; second, get the letter. Maybe not in this order, he’ll figure it out along the way. 

Did he stain it with blood, the letter? He sure did, because he’s a cursed piece of meat, that’s what. 

Gosh, walking is such a drag—the floor is made of that stupid grey-sh lumpy rubbery material that makes everything squeak, his bare feet too, and corridors are always too fucking long inside stupid hospitals.

“Hi, Barbara,” he says, to the name tag of a nurse. 

Funny coincidence; she nods at him and smiles awkwardly. Ash smiles back like he’s a confident, young doctor walking through the aisle. Murder isn’t even his best talent: bullshitting his way through life, that’s what he does best. 

He knows people are freaking out over his empty bed, back there; Ash just keeps walking like a fucking bulldozer, and who cares about casualties, right? He’s a leech, sucking the life out of others, and he doesn’t even care, he just wants to get out and get his fucking letter, nothing else matters, he doesn’t feel anything.

“So guess you were wrong, Eiji.” He squints at the sharper light at the end of the corridor. He steps out of the ICU, back as straight as a stab wound in the guts allows, and considers where he would put a bloody letter if he was a healthcare professional. If they threw it away, Ash is going to throw hands.

“Ash?”

Ash swallows and squints for a second. He needs to think straight. The floor feels upside down and ready to smack his face—ops, it smacked his face. He thinks he fell, the floor is cold under his palms as he tries to push himself up again. It isn’t working.

“Ash! What the hell, do you wanna kill yourself that badly? Fuck—hey, I need help here!”

“Max, the letter,” Ash says, and doesn’t chop off Max’s hands nor the other hands that come—he doesn’t care at this point. Do what you want with this wrecked pathetic excuse of a body, you ain’t the first and won’t be the last. He needs the fucking letter and he grabs Max’s shirt with all his might, which is apparently not that much, since he’s being dragged away with no effort at all.

“Don’t—hey, don’t be rough with him, he gets nervous. I’m coming too, Ash, okay? Don’t worry. It’s going to be fine—”

The fucking letter, why isn’t anybody ever listening to him? Old people never fucking listen to a single thing he has to say, he wants to punch something. Barf on Max’s shoes maybe, just to make a point.

Why can’t they just listen? Or leave him alone? Why can’t they just let him d—

“Here, is this what you wanted? I was holding onto it for you, okay? Didn’t let them throw it away.”

Oh—the letter. The plastic folder crinkles; Eiji should have put it inside a plastic folder to begin with, this way Ash wouldn’t have bled all over it and made a mess.

“Come on, I’ll stay here, okay? Shit—you really are the devil, who the hell goes around like that after losing so much blood?”

“The devil looks after his own,” Ash says. Maybe. He isn’t really sure; he keeps the letter with him, he’s pretty sure there’s a needle inside his arm once again. He doesn’t like it one bit, but Max is barking around like a big golden retriever with a very sharp tongue, so it could be worse.

He has the letter. He’s fine.

*

The next time he opens his eyes, Ash wants to die. 

For once, he can’t exactly pinpoint a direct cause—he usually can. He’s just… tired. And in pain. And the tiny hospital room is made of bleached white that sips through his bones, it feels like snow. 

He’s got a room with a view, so he keeps the letter under his pillow and watches a plane rise high in the sky; he thinks about the ticket that’s under his pillow too, and tries to remember what he was trying to do before he got stabbed. Cats can’t fly, they can just jump real high and hope to land on their feet.

He likes to think Eiji is sitting with his family in Gizmo, eating ungodly natto to his heart’s content, and it should be a happy thought, but thinking about natto leaves an acrid aftertaste in Ash’s mouth.

*

Nadia comes in with Sing in tow, looking smaller than Ash has ever seen him behind a small pile of… earthenware pots?

“It’s congee. You can’t trust hospital food,” Nadia says, and one wave of her hand is enough for Sing to snap to attention and place one pot on the nightstand near the book Ash isn’t reading.

Nadia is unimpressed. Ash is ashamed; Sing somehow more than him. 

“You can’t bolt out of the window, it’s locked,” Ash tells him, as a greeting.

Nadia looks at the both of them like she isn’t being paid enough to deal with kindergarteners.

“The other pot is for Lao,” she says, matter-of-factly. “He’ll be discharged in a couple days. He won’t try to kill you anymore.”

Sing opens his mouth. Then he closes it. Then he opens it again, and there isn’t enough Dilaudid inside Ash’s IV to deal with this shit.

“Don’t sweat it. If it wasn’t him, someone else would have tried.”

It’s the truth and they both know it; it doesn’t stop Sing to shift on his feet, uneasiness flooding from his tiny body in waves.

“Yut-Lung won’t do it anymore either. I slapped him.” He seems both bewildered and proud about it.

Nadia looks from him to Ash and rolls her eyes. She ruffles Ash’s hair like she used to do with Shorter’s Mohawk every time he was somewhere she could reach, and Ash wants to cry.

“Eat your congee, Ash, it will heal you up in no time. I’m glad you’re alive.”

She means it, he knows she does. It makes Ash feel even more ashamed.

*

He isn’t getting any better. There’s an infection going on, a fever stuck to his bones; Ash’s going to die and he can’t bring himself to care.

“Faulkner, really? Who wanted to punish you? Here, I’ve brought you the good stuff.” Newsweek and the last issue of Science land on top of As I Lay Dying, which was clearly Blanca’s idea of a funny gift. It made Ash laugh for the first time since he woke up, and tear painfully at the layers of stitches that keep his bullet wound and his stab wound together.

Max fusses over the nightstand for a bit, trying to keep the pile of yogurt Ash won’t eat from falling down.

“You forged enough papers to trick the entire sanitary system, you don’t need to be here 24/7 to prove you’re my fake helicopter parent, Pops.”

Max’s making his sad-puppy face. That, and for a second he looks so distraught Ash can touch something that feels like guilt inside his limbic system. It doesn’t last: since he woke up, everything is happening over a panel of smoked glass, even Max’s genuine, impotent worry that Ash can’t accept.

“Jess said you were being fussy with your meds. This is serious, Ash, are you even trying to get out of here?”

“Contrary to the popular belief, I can’t will my body to regenerate like some kind of deadly space creature. Sorry to disappoint.”

But Max doesn’t look disappointed; he looks dwarfed sitting on that small metal stool.

“You aren’t eating—Nadia is willing to bring you congee every day, you know? She’d do it.”

“Keep Nadia out of this.”

“I can learn to make congee too, but then I’d really be scared for your life. The only thing I can cook is mac 'n' cheese.”

“I don’t need—” Why is everything so tiring? Ash can’t even gesticulate enough to get his point across without his blood pressure dropping. “Just leave it, okay? I’ll survive if I survive and I’ll die if I die, I have no control over it.”

Max’s face falls and Ash hates himself some more.

“So this is your stance. No control over it. We’re just gonna sit here and wait.”

“There’s no we, old man. You can go to your family and try to be a decent fiance, since my understanding is that you used to be a shitty husband.”

He watches Max sputter and call him a little jerk with way less venom than usual until he sighs, and rubs his eyes like he’s spent the whole night awake. Just another one of a million things for Ash to feel ashamed over.

“Want me to read you the paper? There’s a funny column about—”

If it makes him feel better, Ash won’t take that away from him; he isn’t a good reader, he comments too much, but his voice is soothing and it’s still better than looking at the ceiling. 

The letter crinkles under the pillow when Ash closes his eyes.

*

He’s sitting on the grass, a shitty paperback book from the juvie library open between his knees. 

He knows Shorter is younger because he’s bald. He’s telling him about shaving his head with his own knife.

“It’s easy, see? But sometimes I go a bit too deep because I’m clumsy.”

Ash wakes up with his hands outstretched, screaming, and trying to put the bloody brain back inside Shorter’s open skull.

Nurse Barbara gives him something that fills his head with cotton and makes him sleep through the rest of the night.

*

Maybe Ash is dead already; that would explain Cain not wearing his sunglasses.

“What do you think? Not quite your figure, but I think I can pull it off.”

Ash is trying to process the squeaky shoes and the collared dress shirt; he’s failing hard.

“You look like a lawyer.”

“That’s pretty rude, man.”

He can’t be serious—why does Ash always end up associating with people who are so blatantly out of their minds? 

“Cain for fuck’s sake. This place is swarming with cops.”

“And I’m willing to risk it for your sorry white ass, how cool of me.” He inspects Ash’s full dinner tray with critical eyes until it’s clear that he’s waiting for Ash to do the talking. “So, what’s the plan? You decided you want to stir? Like this?”

Oh, not this shit again.

“I’m not—Jesus, I’m not trying to get killed by bacteria on purpose. And when I told Alex I needed to tell you something, I meant on the fucking phone!”

“Which you don’t have.”

“I can use Max’s—” It’s no use; he pinches the bridge of his nose, fever pulsing inside his skull. “Before septicemia whisks me away, you’re going to get money. To share with your guys, ideally, but it’s up to you.”

When he removes the fingers, Cain is waiting there, still.

“Money.”

“I took a big sum from Golzine. Dirty as fuck—can’t get dirtier not even if you buy a ton of coke with it. That’s all, I wanted to tell you.”

“You’re going to give us money.”

“And to my guys, and to Chinatown. I just kept a bit to pay medical expenses,” and Michael’s college, “because it would be shitty to leave that onto Max.”

Why does everybody keep looking at him like he’s talking gibberish, for fuck’s sake?

“Yeah, that would be so shitty, man, I’m sure that’s exactly what he’s worried about—Ash, are you dumb?”

“Wha—”

Cain plops down on the stool, slacks creasing on his knees.

“No, really. You’re—every time I think I’ve finally got you figured out, you go and do something crazy dumb. You gotta stop thinking shit about yourself. No one wants you dead, man.”

“That’s arguable.” Me, I want myself dead, it’s something Ash can’t say.

“If you want to give out money like a tycoon, at least do it with some swag! It’s like you’re imparting your last dying wish like an old fart from a hospital bed. Hurry up and get back on your feet, I’m waiting for you at the bar. Ass.”

He scoffs, and he’s gone, sunglasses back in place and blazer swishing in his trail.

*

Ash’s fever spikes up and chokes him down at night, dipping him in burning flashes as the world subsides into a cloudy jelly of murmured voices, muffled steps.

Dying is turning out to be a pretty torturous affair.

“What is it, Ash, you need something?” He didn’t know Jessica’s voice could sound like that, all whispery and soft. Her hand is cool, nice on his head. “Anything you want. Are you thirsty?”

“Can I die? Just a bit.”

The silence is sweaty and tastes bitter on his tongue.

“That won’t do. Sorry, sweetheart, that won’t do.”

Sure thing. It’s not like Ash can ever get what he wants ever.

“What happened, did he say something?” Max’s there too? He sounds exhausted, half asleep. 

Ash’s stupid dying ass has mobilized everyone he knows: looks like he can still command guerrilla warfare from his bed, what a champ. His only real talent is for trouble, just like Jim said. 

“He’s just a bit tired, right Ash? It’s the fever. Try to sleep, you’ll feel better in the morning, I promise.”

Or maybe he’ll die during the night; maybe Max and Jess can catch the next train and go to sleep on an actual bed. Where did they leave Michael, by the way? Such bad parents, Ash can’t stand it.

“You don’t have to stay here, I’m fine,” he tries. He doesn’t get the answer, they’re talking to each other—he hears the name, though. His head springs up.

“No way—leave him alone. I swear to God—”

“You don’t want to see him? At least call him—”

“No.” Ash is choking; Ash is crying and he doesn’t care at all. “No way. He can’t—he has to stay away from here.” Away from me, he doesn’t say. 

It’s okay. The pain is chewing him up from the insides, stomping on his heart. That’s okay—it’s okay while Max guides him to lie down and Jessica calls for a doctor. It’s okay, Ash is ready: if Eiji is going to come back, he’ll be sure to stay away from him, and if that means six feet under, then so be it.

*

People come and go; there’s always at least one pair of eyes watching. The worst is when they talk, too.

“Ash Lynx is a cool name, I guess you couldn’t lead a gang with Aslan. Aslan means lion in Turkish, by the way, I looked it up.” 

Dark hair and a colorful jacket and stick-figure limbs: it’s Sing, and he’s blabbering while he leafs through Ash’s medical chart with his very fake name printed on. Trust someone who chose the surname Lobo for himself to invent an identity as lame as Ashton Randy, Jessica’s long-lost nephew. 

“Sing means lion too. It’s a bit funny, don’t you think?”

Ash keeps on breathing raspy oxygen through his itchy nose-tube and feigns nonexistence.

“I thought it was funny. Sing can mean guilt too, that’s less funny—or maybe it’s even funnier, I think you’d appreciate a bit of dark humor, uh?” He’s tapping his foot on the floor, it bounces right between Ash’s temples. They just don’t want to let him sleep, forever or otherwise.

“That Max guy said you didn’t want to, but I did it anyway. You aren’t going to die, so you don’t get one last wish or anything, that’s what I thought. And, by the way, even if you get angry, that will be just another thing I’ll be guilty of. I can live with that—oh, you’re awake.”

He swallows, the asshole, and puts up an awkward smile. 

He’s lucky Ash has no energy to do anything more violent than glare.

*

He knows someone’s moving around him, talking, but he can’t understand a single word; still, the voice. It’s the voice that pulls something out of him, it pinches at his eyelids, makes his hand shift.

The pain throbs in his guts, it spreads out like clawed fingers and hurt up through the roof of his mouth.

“Ash—Ashu?”

He knows that voice.

“Are you awake? Ash?”

Eiji. Simple as that: Eiji. Ash doesn’t know where he is, what happened, why, but Eiji. Did they both die? No, no way. Did they—fucking Sing.

He catches a shadow, hair sticking in every direction against fuzzy light; he turns his head, nausea rising, and shuts his eyes.

“Sing? No, Ash, I’m not Sing, I’m E—”

“You can’t—you can’t be here. Japan. You have—”

“I’m back, I’m—I couldn’t stay. Ash?”

Pain explodes inside his chest, it burns up his throat and climbs out.

“Go away! Why can’t you ever do what you’re told! Stay in Japan and be safe, Goddammit!”

Eiji’s face—God, his face. He’s okay, he’s standing over him and Ash knows in his eyes that he’s already forgiven, but it can’t be like that; Eiji doesn’t exist to absolve him, because nothing in the vast Universe could ever—

“I don’t want to stay in Japan, stupid American! I want to stay with you—you want to go away from me that bad? I lov—”

Ash growls; the mattress squeals under his weight. 

“You can’t! You fucking can’t—Ibe-san, tell him.” 

The man’s standing there, caught in the headlights, mouth agape; everybody always watching, these adults unable to ever do anything useful.

“You told me too, right? That—Ashura thing. That I’m—some kind of corny demon-god-thing that kills people!” 

Ibe pales and Eiji turns to him like he’s been slapped, physically hurt. 

That’s okay, it’s some kind of reverse White Fang shit. Ash is going to hurt him now, but it’s for the best, so that Eiji can forget about him and go live a beautiful, happy, safe life as far as possible from the bleeding, festering wound that Ash is.

“Tell him, please.”

Ibe says something, but Ash isn’t sure if it’s even English; Eiji lets out a sound that resembles that of a wounded animal, and a very angry one, but Ash can’t let him—he tells him all, all the things he knows are true: monster, and animal, something dangerous with claws and fangs; he’s a beast and a killing machine, he’s a toilet on the best of days, he’s an ebola-level plague that makes good people bleed, he’s a vicious lynx and a tiger and a leopard and a jaguar, and every other animal in the feline family but a house cat, and those too can scratch and bite the hand that feeds. He’s bad news and can’t be helped.

He can’t be helped.

“You can’t yell here, this is a hospital!” nurse Barbara tries, and then swallows when Eiji turns his stone-cold glare at her.

“Sorry, we’ll be more quiet,” Ibe says. 

Eiji grabs the metal stool from the side and places it beside Ash’s bed, moves precise like he’s holding one of those tea ceremonies. 

The dripping of the IV is deafening, it pulses inside Ash’s wound with every ragged breath.

“Ash. Please, lie down, you’re going to hurt yourself.”

Uh? Ah, right. Ash keeps still; Eiji’s hand moves toward him as if it was a spaceship, foreign like everything Eiji, and so close to Ash’s heart that it’s really, really funny to think they were born so far away from each other.

“Here, you’ll feel better if you lie down. Are you in pain?”

Yes. No. Yes and no—there’s a warmth that radiates through Eiji’s hand on his shoulder, soft as he pushes him back on the bed, and that should be scary, that is a scary sentence; only it’s not. Ash is a toddler and that’s the most comforting hand that’s ever touched him. It’s a different kind of pain, it pools behind his eyes and burns when the hand travels up to brush his hair.

“Ash, listen to me, okay? You know I wouldn’t lie—Japanese people don’t ever lie.”

“That’s a lie.”

“Okay, right, maybe. But I don’t lie about this. You are not any of those things, Ibe-san knows that, and I know that and Max and Jessica, and Shorter too knows that.”

Ash is a broken toilet: he can’t even keep the water in.

“All the people that said those things to you are wrong. They were evil, or confused.” He glares back at Ibe: he’s almost stepped out of the door at this point, ears red. Eiji sighs and turns to look at Ash. “You are not a devil, you’re not an animal, you’re not any kind of thing, sure not a toilet.” He looks bewildered at the thought. “You are a person, Ash. You have to trust me on this, you are a person. Not demon, not animal, and not thing. Person.”

Maybe Ash’s brain is broken, because it’s like Eiji is trying to describe him a color he’s never seen; he wants to believe him, though. More than anything else in the world, he wants to believe him

“I’m technically a mammal, so I’m an animal,” he says instead, and Eiji deadpans really hard. He stretches his lips, his eyes glint.

“You are also a very big smart mouth, yes.”

He doesn’t stop stroking his hair, though. Ash falls asleep like that.

*

The next day, one of nurse Barbara's replicants comes in with a plastic-y pale-blue armchair and sets it in one corner under Eiji’s watchful gaze.

“That or he was going to bump his head on a corner to get admitted,” Ibe explains, to Max’s gaping mouth. Jessica sighs something about “young stubborn loves” and Ash contemplates choking himself with his IV tubing, even if he’s figured that the reason why there are so many people inside his room at any given hour is that they’re trying to prevent exactly that—did he say something worrying at some point? Probably, he’s pretty out of it most of the time.

Eiji smiles at everybody, and Ash specifically, before nesting himself on the chair with a checkered blanket and his phone.

It’s clearly a conspiracy plot, but Ash has had his fair share of those in the last two years and is too tired to care. He falls asleep watching neatly staged Japanese cooking videos on YouTube with Eiji’s head rested on the corner of his pillow.

*

The infection isn’t getting better; everybody looks puzzled, as if they were all expecting Ash to pull another one of his Lazarus stunts and resurrect thanks to the power of Eiji’s friendship in pure anime fashion. Sing was positively betrayed and Max too looks at him like Ash is doing it on purpose, dammit.

He isn’t. He isn’t, right? He’s still here, he takes his antibiotics, he’s trying to eat even if it’s the most difficult thing on earth; he’s trying to behave, to not be trouble—right, like that has ever worked in his life ever.

“She doesn’t shut up about you, you know? I told her I have a handsome American friend and she went crazy—here, look, she sent me all these texts asking for photos! And I told her you’re in bed all pale, but she just doesn’t care, little sisters are the worst—oh, and look here!” 

Ash looks, there isn’t much more he can do. Eiji rummages through his backpack with both hands. 

“It’s called omamori—it was supposed to be for good health, but she got one for marriage again. Such an airhead.” 

It’s small as a key-tag, bright red and silky under Ash’s thumb; just like the one Eiji had that day on the rooftop.

“O-may—”

“O-ma-mo-ree.”

Ash wrinkles his nose. He remembers following Eiji’s hand as it traced foreign signs on a crumpled piece of paper; the pencil tip snapping at the same time as the gunshot—he gulps amid a wave of nausea and shifts on his side, face to the window, his back to Eiji’s wounded eyes. Ash is such a coward: if he could walk, he’d be running. What’s the point, anyway? 

“You know I won’t come to Japan, right? Not even if I don’t die.” 

“You won’t die,” Eiji says, sure as a death sentence. It’s a life sentence, and it’s way scarier. “And you don’t have to come to Japan if you don’t want to. But it must be because you don’t want, not because you think you can’t.”

Ash can’t even reach the toilet without a great deal of pain and Max’s help, these days: Japan is definitely out of reach. He stares at the monotonous glint of the East River cut by the scuff mark of a lonely ferry boat; Manhattan has never felt like such a small, deadlocked place.

“I’m selfish, so I’m glad you came to see me.” The stitches pull uncomfortably when he turns; it’s nothing new, he’s done it already. Maybe he’ll bribe Max into letting him drink something strong after, just like that time in L.A. “But you can’t stay. There’s no guarantee that tomorrow another person that has a grudge toward me doesn’t come and shot me in the head.” Or worse—Ash can’t even think about it without drowning, without hearing the gunshots and seeing Eiji fall down on a dirty floor, sayonara on his lips and pencil forgotten. “It’s just how things are. I’ve never wanted for you to get involved in this shit, and see me do that kind of stuff, like with Arthur. You don’t belong here, Eiji. It was nice to meet you, but you have to go back to your life in Japan and forget about all this crazy gang stuff. You’re gonna live a long life and stay safe.”

See? Easy. Maybe not easy—that stupid pulse oximeter won’t stop beeping like crazy—but simple enough, like every reasonable thing is once it’s properly explained.

Eiji sighs and nods, pondering. Ash recognizes that pang inside his ribcage as something different from the constant gnawing pain of his wound; he really is the most selfish jerk on earth.

“Nope.”

Eiji has crossed his hands, back rested against the chair and face serene. Ash blinks.

“What do you mean ‘nope’.”

“I mean ‘nope’. Isn’t it another way to say no? Alex says it all the time—I won’t go back to Japan. I went, and you got stabbed.” He isn’t serene, he’s distraught: he swallows, still smiling as the tears glisten in his eyes. “I understand what you’re saying, then come with me. Away from gangs and guns, don’t you want to? You said you wanted, and you can! You can do anything, Ash.”

“I can’t—Eiji, I am dangerous!” Great: if bacteria won’t kill him, making Eiji cry will for sure. “For fuck’s sake, how many people do I have to kill before you finally have a fucking epiphany about how much I’m unworthy of your fucking time, and your—” Affection. Of your—“It doesn’t matter where I go, I’m bad news! Always been, and you shouldn’t want to touch me with a ten feet pole!”

The armchair screeches and the blanket pools on the floor with a waft; Ash can feel the tears on his cheeks too.

“Well, I’m not pole vaulter anymore, so I don’t have a pole to touch you with, I’m sorry!”

That makes so little sense Ash’s brain just stops computing. He blinks white sparkles at the corners of his sight, head dizzy. When did he sit up? There’s again that stupid beeping filling up the room, pulsing trough his temples and down inside his belly, hot flashes of nausea punching at his diaphragm.

Eiji bumps into the tray of Ash’s abandoned dinner and on nurse Barbara’s foot on his way out.

She starts yelling too, about moving around with septic wounds, but the only sound Ash hears is the stomping of Eiji’s feet all along the corridor and out of the ICU.

It’s a good sound, it’s exactly how it should be. Ash lies back on the bed and closes his eyes.

*

At night the ICU is steeped in a bluish hue. It makes the bags under Max’s eyes pop out like bruises.

“I’ve never told you how I met Griff, right?”

He didn’t. Ash feels like he shouldn’t—Griffin is still a big black cloud over his shoulders, even if he doesn’t want for him to be. But Max is the only one in the whole world who gave a rat’s ass about his death. People like Griff, people like Skip, they don’t deserve to be swiped under rugs, talked in hushed voices. They deserve to be remembered.

So Ash says “you didn’t,” and Max nods.

“It’s funny—maybe not, it’s just awful, really. We were at this conference thing—it was on streaming at base, and it wasn’t mandatory, just for officials and some journalists. I sneaked in to see what it was about. I remember the title: Current Military Operations in Iraq: Strategy, Development and Combat. Pretty fancy, uh?”

Ash doesn’t answer. Max’s eyes are distant like he’s looking inside an upside-down binocular.

“So I went there, and there was this screen, and inside the screen all these national security experts and distinguished officers and the like sitting at a table. They chatted for a bit and then this big-shot professor takes the microphone and starts talking about Ancient Greek history, and how the war was supposed to be an ‘American Anabasis’—I turn to the side and there’s this guy, just a kid, ash-blond hair, bent in two and laughing.” He laughs too, a bewildered snicker. “It was Griff, of course. Sitting there in that dusty uniform that looked too big on him, trying to suppress his laughter as Big Shot Professor explained the parallels between some old as fuck Mesopotamian war and us, how they both were ‘tactical victories that turned problematic’.” He shakes his head and grabs one of Jessica’s yogurts that Ash isn’t going to eat. He licks the lid and digs in, waving the spoon as he talks. “Maybe it was the word ‘problematic’, maybe he’s read Xenophon… I never asked, but I wouldn’t be too surprised, he was a big nerd.”

He was. He should have gone to college; he could have tried if he didn’t have a toddler to take care of. He could have tried if he wasn’t such a self-sacrificing idiot, thinking that a job in the military would have let him send Ash to college instead, one day.

“We ditched the rest of the conference and we went to smoke outside. He was shy, at first. Then I told him I had a beautiful blond girlfriend waiting for me at home, and he told me he had a tiny blond brother waiting for him at home. He didn’t shut up about you for the next hour.”

“Sorry ‘bout that,” Ash says. Max shakes his head, smile somber on his face.

“He opened up, after that. We started talking all the time—about books, about home… He used to tell me to quit smoking. During a fucking war! Very annoying.” The smirk doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “He told me ‘wars don’t make sense, not ancient ones, not this one. Us and them’, he was talking about the Iraqi people, ‘are just decoys for rich guys who fight by swiping their Amex’. He was a smart boy, your brother.”

He was a smart boy, and he died, trampled on by people who didn’t give a damn; Ash is supposed to be smart too, and he’s spent his whole life trying to survive shit like that, and he’s damn tired.

Max looks tired too, slouched on Eiji’s squeaky armchair, eyes downcast.

“And he was right. Wars don’t make sense for the ones who’re actually dying fighting them. Griff killed many people, and so did I, and so did you. We can’t take it back, but it was war, and as awful as it might be, Griff dying didn’t change anything for the ones he killed—same as it wouldn’t change anything if I die. And it won’t change anything if you die too, son.”

The word sets heavy on Ash’s chest, alien and surreal; he feels a pull at the corner of his mouth as a laugh barks out. It hurts deeper than Lao’s knife.

“You’ve gone senile already, old man? I know there was a fucking French army, at some point, but I’ve never been to war.”

There’s something inside Max’s eyes—Ash is supposed to be smart, but he’s never seen anything like that. It makes him squirm.

“Forget that asshole Foxx, kid. You’ve been at war since the day that dirty piece of shit of Dino Golzine took hold of you. And it isn’t even true, you’ve been at war since you were eight, and every single adult in your life failed you so spectacularly that you needed a gun to save yourself.”

“Premeditated homicide isn’t war, Max. I’m a street punk, not a veteran.”

It’s still there, that look, but it isn’t condescension—it’s mercy.

“And why is that, uh? Every war is dumb, those fought by governments aren’t more legit than those fought by mafia dons and rapists—who knows it better than you, Ash? Most of the time, they’re the same people.”

Maybe Ash is dreaming this conversation: it’s the most sensible explanation. Max crushes the yogurt cup inside his big hand and then keeps it there, eyes searching uselessly for the dustbin.

“Explain to me how it works inside your head, kid, because I don’t get it. I went there on purpose, well knowing that the nitty-gritty of the job was to kill people. I even got paid to do it, then I went home and now I’m a proud US war veteran. You’ve been drafted as a kid for a neverending survival game, never killed anyone who wasn’t actively trying to kill you—Oh, come on, what are you going to tell me, that Golzine used you as a hitman?” 

Ash closes his mouth, caught red-handed, and Max scoffs. 

“Of course he did, he sure didn’t want to waste your good aim, the fucker, and find yet another convenient way to break you. And what was the alternative, Ash? He beats you up? Something worse, probably. He tortures you in that fancy torture chamber he had going on in his basement? Or maybe he sells you out in that sick club of his, even makes a couple grands out of it as a nice side dish, and the guy gets killed anyway by another one of his lackeys. What’s with the face, did I guess right?”

Ash doesn’t have a face—he isn’t even here. He isn’t listening to any of this shit; Max doesn’t have any right to say stuff like this, as if he has even a remotely vague idea of what that was like. How it feels to have an array of options just for every single one to be shittier than the previous, and for death to always be the best one; and still being so entitled that you don’t wanna choose it basically out of spite—

“For fuck’s sake, Ash. Surviving isn’t an entitlement—it’s a fucking right, you hear me? I just…” He covers his eyes with one hand, leaving a smear of yogurt behind. “Cut yourself some slacks for once, would ya? The only thing I know for sure, your death would hurt so many people. You get that, right? What that would do to Eiji? What that would do to me?”

It’s fucking unfair, for Max to tell him this now. Ash wants to punch him so badly, but he doesn’t have the energy to do anything but glare and burn up.

“I’m not trying to die. I don’t know how to tell you anymore. I swear I’m not trying, I’m just—”

“Tired, and a bit sad, I think. I get it. But it gets better—I know it never did in the past, but… He’s dead, Ash. Golzine is dead.”

He is, right? He fell in a sea of flame. And Marvin, and Frog, and Kippard too. That sicko Foxx. Every monster, over beds, under beds, they’re all dead now.

“Then why—”

He can’t really say, he’s scared of what he’s asking. Max rubs his shoulder with a thumb, awkward and comforting, and lets him angry-cry until he wears himself out and the next nurse Barbara’s clone comes to check on his vitals and scolds Max for upsetting the patient.

*

They changed his antibiotics and Jessica released the power of a psychiatrist over him; now Ash takes six different pills and at least a couple of them are supposed to make him feel a bit less inclined to kick the bucket as a way out. He isn’t sure he likes it—he feels nauseous and dizzy every time he goes to take a piss, but they help with the nightmares. Being able to sleep more than a bunch of restless, scattered half hours makes a whole lot of difference in the way his thoughts arrange inside his head, apparently.

“It’s not big news, really, you were the one who threw a shrink at me when I was at Dino’s place, right?”

Eiji brought the armchair here from the ICU and he’s knitting so aggressively that Blanca didn’t think it was safe to overstay his welcome long enough to remove his coat. Injury by pointy knitting needles doesn’t look real good on an assassin’s resume.

“Well, since your health problem was clearly psychiatric in nature, it looked like the most sensible course of action.”

Eiji’s laugh is eerie in the quiet afternoon light. He nods at the twisted slice of scarf or whatever it is he’s trying to knit.

“Psychiatric, sure. It’s clearly a psychiatric problem not wanting to be locked up with abusers. So sensible, kidnappers are very sensible people.” 

Blanca coughs lightly.

“Your friend doesn’t think I should be talking with you, kitten.”

“I think you shouldn’t talk with anybody. I think you should go to the Caribbean and be very friendly with sharks. Is that sensible course of action? Do I get psychiatric degree too?”

Eiji’s English becomes snappy when he’s upset. Assassination attempts aside, this is actually why Ash should have never made these two meet.

“Well, I’m happy to see you’re recovering. Honestly, letting yourself be stabbed into your gunshot wound—you must have really had your head someplace else.” He dares to look in Eiji’s direction: Eiji doesn’t divert his gaze.

Ash grunts and shifts his head on the pillow; the letter is still there.

Blanca sighs and if Ash didn’t know him real well, he’d say he was fidgeting with that stupid fedora.

“What’s the plan, then. Are you still going back to be a street punk like you said?”

Ash grabs a fistful of white sheets; he doesn’t really feel it under fingers that he knows are supposed to be his—Eiji’s voice is calm, definitive.

“You can do anything you want, Ash. You’re free.”

He’s he, though? Eiji can say stuff like this because he’s got hollow bird bones; he can jump and he can fly, but Ash’s bones hurt after writhing against shackles for so long, while he was forced to play all the worst parts to survive—victim and killer and whore and street punk and distinguished prodigy—the leash around his neck getting tighter and tighter until it became a noose.

He knows Blanca’s opinion on that matter and he doesn’t want to hear it again, but he can’t really cover his ears like a baby when Blanca talks, even if he seems to be lost on one of his cryptic tangents.

“I don’t read much science fiction, but I read this book, you see—the author is pretty unpleasant, but the story was quite good. I remember this quote, something about how nobody has actual control of his own life, and the best you can do is to fill the roles given to you by good people, by people who love you.” 

He hums all that like he’s imparting some kind of wisdom, the jackass. He has the gall to smile, even, an eyebrow tilted at Eiji. He places his fedora back on his head and stands up. 

“Take care for real this time, kitten. Or I guess you’ll take on yourself to do it for him, right Eiji Okumura?”

Eiji’s smile says “I hope your flight crashes inside the Bermuda Triangle” and Ash can’t really help the laugh.

*

So, all things considered, dying is just as difficult as living, and it doesn’t have Eiji in it. That’s an unforgivable flaw.

Eiji’s all triumphant as Ash picks up another spoonful, even if it’s heavier than his whole arm.

“I’ll bring some more tomorrow. Would you like something different from green onion?”

Ash shakes his head; bonito flakes are still dancing on the side of the pot.

“Let me at least finish this one? I swear to God, between you and Nadia, I’m going to die of indigestion.”

That’s stupid and he knows it; he feels bonier than ever, a bunch of Shangai pieces shoved inside a thin, crinkly paper bag.

“You can’t die of indigestion eating okayu, it’s literally impossible.”

Ash fiddles with the spoon; the pot is warm around his fingers, the rice is warm inside his stomach. Eiji can make every food taste good in a way that must have very little to do with the food itself—except for natto. The day Ash starts to appreciate natto, he’ll know he’s finally gone nuts.

“You can die of indigestion by eating anything, I think. You could technically die of radiation poisoning by eating lots of bananas.”

Eiji blinks and a stitch falls from the needle. 

“You can’t.”

“No, I’m serious. Well, you should eat around three hundred bananas every day for at least seven years to experience notable symptoms, so it’s purely theoretical.”

“Why do you even know something like that. Is this what you went to read in that libr—” He stops abruptly, and the silence slaps Ash in the face. He lowers his gaze on his half-eaten porridge.

It’s another sunny day. Alex brought him a phone and a get well soon card shaped like a pumpkin that was apparently Kong and Bones’ idea of a funny gift, so Ash is using it as a bookmark for As I Lay Dying. The first thing he did with the phone was to send them a photo of his middle finger. 

These days, he has the vague, cloudy sensation that this is what being alive was supposed to feel like all along.

“Why you went to the library, Ash? Why you didn’t ask for help? Was it the letter? I—”

“That letter is the best fucking thing that’s ever happened to me, don’t you dare say something about the letter.”

Eiji’s eyes are open wide, surprised; his lips tremble until he cracks a smile, too smug for his own good.

“Yeah?”

Maybe the fever is back; Ash is on fire.

“I—Gosh, you heard me, don’t make me repeat that. You know what I mean.”

“Ah, do I? I don’t know, I’m just silly Japanese—”

“You’re the smartest motherfucker I know, Eiji Okumura, don’t try me.”

“I’m selfish,” Eiji says, matter-of-factly and quiet, but the smile doesn’t go away. “I want you to come to Japan with me. When you’re feeling better—I want you to feel better. I’m going to cook for you, I want to eat together every day. And I’ll teach you Japanese, I’ll bring you to see the ocean from Izumo and to visit all the temples. They’re quiet and smell of wood and paper, much like libraries, I’m sure you’re going to like them.”

Ash hums, uncertain. It’s dangerous to indulge in these fantasies, and still—

“Is there a temple for the God of toilets too?”

“Every toilet is a shrine, Kawaya no kami is very important, you’ll see! But first, you eat all your okayu. And then you take your medicine and then you take a nap. I can sing you the God of toilet’s song, if you want. Toire no Kamisama, very cute.” He’s already fumbling with his phone, finger swiping fast on the screen.

“A God of toilet song, are you serious? Is that an actual thing?”

“Sure, big hit in 2010. Here, listen—”

Japanese people are out of their minds, yes, but Americans aren’t much better: Max and Jessica come inside dancing more or less coordinately while a non-Barbara nurse shakes her head, resigned.

“Doctor says they’re going to release you next week if you keep up with this good boy act.” Jessica pinches Ash’s cheek with very long nails and her cool, soft hand. Max yawns and steals the umpteenth yogurt; he’s halfway through the pile. 

“It’s discharge, Jess, not release, kid isn’t in jail. This time, at least.” He’s showing the biggest, smuggest smile, and Ash can’t find in himself to pout, not with that depressing Japanese song still whining from the phone; Eiji has taken Jess’ hand to swing her around in a very clumsy waltz.

“Ash, sing! You can learn Japanese!”

Ash crosses his arms, scandalized.

“I didn’t survive serial killers, mafia dons, human experimentation, and guerrilla warfare to learn the toilet song, Eiji.”

Max coughs yogurt from his nostrils and hits him playfully with the spoon; some version of nurse Barbara’s going to scold Ash for being once again the inpatient with the loudest visitors.

“It’s the God of Toilet, disrespectful American.”

“Maybe you did,” Jessica says, she’s smiling upside down as Eiji throws every reasonable caution about almost-deadly bullet wounds out the window and bends her in a flowery move. “Life is strange, brat.”

She twirls in Max’s arms, ready to catch her; he’s an even lousier dancer than Eiji. 

Eiji is laughing, hands pressed on his injured side and breath labored and eyes so bright, cheeks tinted pink. He weighs nothing, resting on the side of this thin, uncomfortable mattress. 

“This godawful song doesn’t end?”

“It’s nine minutes long! We should play it at the wedding.” Eiji nods with the same unbreakable confidence he pulls off when mixing smelly natto with his rice, or preparing to jump a wall with no mattress waiting for him on the other side. The braveness of who isn’t afraid to get hurt—way braver than the ones who aren’t afraid to die.

Wedding, he said. Ash gapes—he’s pretty sure some porridge has fallen from his mouth.

“Max and Jessica’s wedding! Did I say wrong word?”

“No, bud, you said just the right word,” Max says, that big jerk. “Hope we get an invitation!”

Eiji is confused; Ash is going to rethink this whole carry-on-with-life business, at least if he doesn’t just die of embarrassment before.

Freedom doesn’t sound at all like he had imagined it so many times: seems like he’ll have to eat his food and take his meds and suffer through his stupid friends’ teasing; he’ll have to take a leap of faith, and trust that he’s good for Eiji in the same way Eiji is good for him. 

It sounds more frightful than any role he has ever played before; the difference is that this time he’s choosing it.