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Cape Cod is where the seeds of their conversation begin, if he really thinks back on it. The ocean breeze chills him from the bone even when he’s inside. “Home” holds no warmth for him. He never expected it to, after everything that’s happened. That’s not why he’s here. He’s here on business, nothing more.
He drags his thumb over the picture of Griffin he found in his desk drawer, buried underneath the papers of actual importance. It was taken his senior year of high school, his letterman jacket making his shoulders appear broader than they really were. His head is tilted back, laughing at something the photographer said, undoubtedly. With a pang, Ash realizes that he’s about the same age that his brother was when this picture was taken. Not long after, he was drafted. He’s caught up to where, in his memory, at least, the Griff that was a star ball player and made him sandwiches ended.
And now, he hates baseball and Griff is completely gone. There’s no chance in bringing him back, anymore. The only thing left is to hunt down the people that took him away.
His thumb traces his brother’s face one last time, and then he shoves the picture back in the drawer with a slam. He’s here on business, after all. No clues about this mysterious Banana Fish are going to come out of Griff’s high school photos.
He stalks out of the room with Griff’s letters and other potentially important documents in his hand and almost barrels directly into Max, who must have been standing just outside of the doorway. Annoyed at himself for not sensing his presence earlier, Ash resists the urge to snarl at the annoying reporter, who apparently feels the need to supervise him outside of prison as much as he did inside. He waves the letters in his face instead.
“We’ve got what we came for. Come on, let’s get moving,” he says, already pushing past as he speaks.
He pretends to already be far enough away to not notice Max lingering, or to hear the opening and shutting of a drawer. He’s done with this house and all its ghosts. If Max wants souvenirs from what he left behind, so be it. It really isn’t his business.
When he sees dark brown eyes waiting for him on the back porch, he forgets the awkward moment with Max almost entirely.
The first time Max attempts to actually discuss the subject with him is much later, when they are sitting together at a rather ordinary bistro a mile away from the luxury condo that he shares with Eiji. They are having a rather routine “father-son” check-in, like they have had tens of times before, when Max’s grin suddenly turns sly and sharp. He teasingly points at Ash with his fork, waggling his eyebrows.
“How is that house husband of yours faring these days? Being treated well by my incorrigible son, I hope?”
Something flares ice-hot inside him and Ash stabs his fork into the roast potato on his plate with a little more force than is strictly necessary.
“Max,” his voice comes out low, warning. “Not funny. Eiji is fine. Bored, but fine.” He stuffs the potato in his mouth. Max, seeming to have gotten too comfortable lately with their little charade, presses past the line in the sand that Ash just drew.
“Oh, don’t be so cold. Your old man is just wondering when the grandchildren are coming, is all.”
“Max,” he repeats, more insistent now. He uses the tone that gets men the size of Kong to shut up and fall in line. “Knock it off. Don’t joke about Eiji like that.”
That, at least, wipes the grin off Max’s face, but unfortunately doesn’t get him to close his damn mouth. “Oh come on, Ash. Don’t get your panties in a bunch. I know how important your relationship is, I mean well by--”
Even when Max is being serious, the way that he says relationship still clearly has the implications of something crude, and it sets off a wild impulse in Ash. He leans forward and presses a steak knife against his lower side underneath the table in the span of a breath, cutting him off. Max’s eyes widen and he raises his hands slightly. Ash fights down the swirling, defensive panic crawling up his throat. He has to play it cool. He can’t let Max go around making horrible assumptions, but he can’t let him realize the truth of why those assumptions unsettle him so deeply, either.
“I protect Eiji. That is our relationship. I may be an ‘incorrigible’ whore, but I would never hurt Eiji. Never.” His words are slow and purposefully detached, masking the whirlwinds of emotions underneath. He presses the knife slightly closer. He needs Max to understand this. He would never drag Eiji to his level, not in a million years.
Max, for his part, looks shocked and almost--hurt?--as if he had any reason to be. “You’re not, I didn’t mean--I know you would never hurt him; you two lo--”
“Good. Then that’s settled, then,” he says with an air of finality. He withdraws the knife as quickly as it came and sets back into his potatoes. Max looks like he has a lot more to say, but thankfully, finally, lets the subject drop. They finish their meal in deafening silence.
Max never dares broach the subject again until they are watching a manilla envelope filled with the obscene records of Ash's past burn away between his fingers in a dark alley. Max draws his lighter again, this time accompanied by a cigarette. He takes a deep, shuddering drag before looking Ash straight in the eye.
“Good. Now that that’s done, we’re overdue for a chat.” He makes a gesture with his fingers to follow him, and begins to walk. Ash, feeling hollowed out, does so. They walk down to where Max left his car, a couple blocks away. He motions for him to get in, and Ash opens the door and buckles himself in without complaint, his movements mechanical rather than conscious. They drive for a while, making distance between them and that foul Frog’s apartment before Max speaks again.
“I need you to…..know something, Ash. About me. Because I’m...I meant it when I said we’re burning away your past. I don’t want to see it keeping you from happiness anymore.”
Ash nearly scoffs at the word, in of itself a dull sound against his hollow chest. Happiness? What kind of fantastical game of house is Max playing at now? But there is a gravity, a sincerity to his words that gives Ash pause. It reminds him of when Max handed over their evidence on Banana Fish so he could save Eiji, saying that he understood.
“What do you mean?” he asks, hating how small his voice sounds. Fucking shit, he thought he ironed that vulnerability out a long time ago.
Max stares ahead, taking another drag of his square, and then abruptly pulls over. They’re back in Manhattan now, and the night is still young. People are still milling in and out of bars, talking, laughing. Ash feels simultaneously exposed and claustrophobic sitting in the front seat of Max’s Ford. He drums his fingers on the window next to him, desperately trying to squash the alarm in his head telling him that they’re already on borrowed time. No one is following them. He checked.
“I wasn’t...well, I wasn’t freaked out tonight because of where we were. Having you, a, a kid, on my arm was the uncomfortable part. I’ve been to bars like that before,” Max says slowly, as if he’s trying not to spook a small animal. Ash stares at him, not fully comprehending.
“You’ve been to gay bars. More than once.”
“Yes.” Max scratches the back of his neck, clearly still uncomfortable.
“So are you trying to tell me you’ve been a closet homo this whole time, or what.” His words are flat, too loud and blunt for the small space of the car that they’re in. Max bristles, but Ash keeps going. “That why Jessica hates you? Why she wouldn’t let you see Michael?” Nausea quickly takes over the hollow, dead feeling in his chest. Shit fuck, this is the last thing he expected from Max. He had barely admitted to himself that Max was someone he could respect, even trust, and now this? While spinning some bullshit about happiness beforehand?
“No,” Max says, finally twisting around to look at Ash, leaning forward into his space. He looks pissed. “No, Jessica is furious with me for a lot of reasons, some of them good reasons, but it’s not--it’s not that. Never. I mean, she knows I’m a bisexual. I told her that before we tied the knot, and she wasn’t happy at first, but she accepted it a long time ago. I loved her, love her still. And I love Michael more than anything. I would never, ever hurt him and she knows that.”
“Oh.” Ash struggles to process Max’s heated speech. He feels slightly bad about bringing Michael into it, but he still can’t shake his wariness. “So you...what? You fooled around with guys when you were in school, then settled down with Jessica until she divorced your sorry ass? And that’s supposed to make me happy, somehow?”
Max frowns. “No, what I’m trying to--look, I’ve always liked women. I never had to force that. I’m just attracted to men sometimes, too, and loving women didn’t make that go away like it was supposed to. Not just a, college phase or whatever.” He pauses to take a last drag before stubbing out the cigarette in the ashtray and tossing it out the window. “The reason I’m telling you all this is...I know you see men being together as this inherently violent thing. You have good reason, it’s pretty much all you’ve ever known. But….” he trails off again for a moment, an unbearably sad look on his face. “I see you and Eiji dancing around each other like me and Griff did, and it kills me. I don’t want you making the same mistakes I did.”
Everything in Ash’s brain comes to a screeching halt.
“You what?! You and Griff?!” His voice is pitched about two octaves higher than it has been in years, but at this point Ash really couldn’t be pressed to give a flying fuck. Eiji is off-limits in this type of discussion, he thought he had made that abundantly clear. And Max is….Max is bisexual, maybe he could process that, but his brother? Insinuating he and his brother were…?
He can’t finish the thought. He won’t.
Max puts his hands out placatingly. “Yes, kiddo. Me and Griff. We were best friends. About as inseparable as you two, too. But there was always something more in the air between us. It was...it was like his eyes were electric. Zapow! Shocked me every time he turned those baby blues on me. Bumping hands, grasping shoulders, cramming against his side in a foxhole--it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t everything. We both wanted more, but well…...I was scared. Far too scared to do anything about it.
“It was a dishonorable discharge, in those days. Still is, I think. You would get blacklisted from every reputable job once you were back, too. I could kiss my journalist dreams goodbye. So yeah, I was fucking terrified. Griff was less so. He knew the risks, obviously, but.” A cloud passes over Max’s gaze. “The war took a toll on him from the beginning. God, he...he couldn’t stand the sight of blood. Looking back, I don’t think he really ever saw himself leaving that damned jungle alive.”
Ash shudders. “He was too good to be drafted into that place,” he murmurs, not even consciously realizing he had spoken aloud until Max focused his faraway eyes back on him.
“Yes,” Max whispers, “He was.” Just like Eiji, Ash thinks, before he can catch himself. Because that would make Max right, that would mean admitting that his overwhelming desire to protect Eiji, that Eiji’s devotion to staying by his side, is, is tainted.
His fingernails dig into his palms. It would mean that he would never be free.
Max coughs, and then a bittersweet ghost of a smile appears on his face. “I only ever heard Griff talk about the future one time. Before he really lost himself to the drugs. I still think about it. He….he painted this picture of us getting an apartment in Greenwich Village. That’s where we’d all heard that the,” the word drips with acidity, clearly paining him to say, “homos hung out. He talked about us living together there, away from everything that would hurt and haunt us. That I could get a column in the Village Voice, and he would bus tables, and we would save up some money so you could come stay with us on summer vacation.” Max’s fingers twitch for another cigarette, and Ash is suddenly blinking back wetness.
“He really loved you, kiddo. That little family, that was...I think that was the only thing that kept him going at all. It was a beautiful dream,” he finishes. If Ash had to pinpoint it, that was the second his resolve broke, and the tears rushed out of him like a dam breaking. Max reaches out tentatively to put his hand on his shoulder, but he flinches away, wrapping his arms around his chest.
An ugly sob tears its way out of Ash’s throat. “He--I--You left him. How could you leave him for dead like that when he was, was,” he forces the word out, this time, “Your lover.”
Pain and regret flash as stark as a bolt of lightning on Max’s face. “You know what Banana Fish does. You saw what it did to Shorter.” You did the same to Shorter, is left unsaid. Ash knows, he knows, but that doesn’t make it any easier. When he voices that, Max sighs.
“Other people tell us it’s what we had to do, we even tell ourselves that it’s what we had to do so we can get through the day. But we carry the weight just the same. That’s the truth of it.” Max sounds so, so tired. He pats his pocket and pulls out another cigarette. “Damn, I need another light.”
They sit in silence as Max smokes, the stench of tobacco swirling around the cab of the car. Ash lets it fill his lungs until he nearly chokes on it.
“I wouldn’t trade anything for Michael and Jessica. I don’t regret how that aspect of my life turned out...well, besides the fact that I should have been a better husband to Jess but…it’s not like I don’t wonder about the alternative, either. About what would have happened if I was less of a coward in ‘Nam. And I...kid, I see you fighting your own personal war against the world. Somewhere along the way, it stopped being about answers for Griff.” Ash opens his mouth to protest, but Max raises a finger of his hand not holding the cigarette.
“I’m not blaming you. But it became about burning down heaven and hell to keep Eiji safe. And I get it. I handed over the files, didn’t I? There was a time when I would have done the same for your brother. So I didn’t stop you, or blame you, or, or, anything. But.” Max takes another drag.
“But what?” Ash asks, the question sour in his mouth as he prompts the obvious.
“But, life is too damn short to fight wars for people without even letting them know that you love them.”
Ash feels his cheeks heat up at Max’s pointed glance, and deflects instead. “So this is you trying to live vicariously through me then, huh, old man?” Max’s eyes narrow.
“Don’t flatter yourself too much, kid. Like I said, I don’t regret how my life turned out. What I do regret is denying myself those moments of happiness when I could have had them. When me and Griff both could have. An old man just doesn’t want you repeating his mistakes, is all.”
“I don’t think I deserve that kind of happiness,” he mutters, before he can stop himself.
“What a crock of shit. I don’t see anyone keeping score on what kind of happiness people deserve. And even if there were, I think you’ve suffered enough for several lifetimes to be entitled to it.”
Ash pulls at his hair as he feels the panic setting in again. Max doesn’t see, he’s still in some stupid fantasy in the Village. He wants to live in a world where--where old perverts don’t get their way and attraction is somehow something to be proud of, not a vile, buzzing aftershock of a dick forced up your ass. Ash lives in reality.
“I’m...I’m still not--how can it not be wrong, wanting to, to, touch him, when he doesn’t belong here, in this gutter? I’ll--I’ll just trap him too--just like me, I’ll be just like them--”
“Ash.” Max speaks forcefully enough to shake him out of his anxiety spiral somewhat. “What those bastards did to you was fucking sick and I can’t wait for the day that they’re all rotting in the ground. It was not what you have with Eiji. What you kids got, that’s l--”
“Don’t say it,” he protests weakly. He doesn’t think he can stand hearing the “L” word again. The way his stomach lurches when Max says things like that about him and Eiji, it’s a terrible cocktail of shame and self-loathing and something very, very close to desire that he really doesn’t want to name.
Max frowns but continues. “You don’t have to be ready to admit it to me yet, or to me, ever. But I want you to know that you are not like them. Not ever. You’re like me. Scared, hurt, but not wrong. Not...broken for feeling the way that you do.”
The words settle, slowly, into the marrow of Ash’s bones, as the pressure of having to confess to this cocktail inside of him lessens. He still can’t quite believe something like that can be true. Him, a glorified toilet, an empty killing machine, not broken? How does he have any wants left that aren’t twisted, fucked up, depraved as the people who molded him?
His brother was a good person. Max is, too. He knows that, deep down, despite his momentary doubts. Max has always helped him, even, no, especially when he didn’t ask for it. All this...all these stories about the past are a shock, certainly, but not enough to shake that truth. Not fundamentally. And if Max can be a good person, can speak about loving his brother like it was something real and good, then…
He isn’t broken. It sounds like something Eiji would say, and maybe that’s the reason he looks back at Max after a long beat and says,
“Thank you.”
It’s days later, huddled in an abandoned warehouse, when Max knows that he was right to not let sleeping dogs lie. Sure, they’re all in the middle of a shootout against some crazy fucking professional mercenaries, but in the corner, Ash and Eiji are wrapped tight around one another. Coiled together, like they’re protecting each other in their own little foxhole, their own small microcosm of the universe. Eiji’s fingers are curled in Ash’s hair and Ash’s lips are against Eiji’s clavicle, and if he really listened, Max could pick up soft murmurs of sweet nothings. It’s a stolen moment before Ash will have to pick up his gun and get right back into the fray, as their ace shot.
Max reloads his own gun, gets ready for another round, and smiles. There’s no guarantee any of them will live to see tomorrow. Hell, it’s almost a guarantee that they won’t. But right now, they have each other.
And that, by God, is better than nothing at all.