Call me kitten (boyxboy love) ✓

59. Wrong number

We didn't fall asleep until very late that night, mostly because I couldn't let go of the fact that Ash thought Simon knew what we thought of him. Even if I had thought along those lines, there had been something about Simon that I couldn't quite put into words, something in his manner that told me it was probably true. I would have liked to have a well thought out plan of what we were going to do about it, while Ash mostly thought we could carry on as normal and just go with the flow. However, my enormous need to know everything in advance made me completely against that idea and we had fallen asleep agreeing to talk more about it the next day.

But the next day came and went and somehow it didn't feel as urgent anymore to raise the subject of Simon. Both Ash and I had found a new routine of sorts after he came home and although everything that had happened weighed heavily on both of us, the routine seemed to make us forget about it a little and neither of us wanted to upset it. We went to work, we made dinner, played games, and just hung out with each other. The only thing that broke the sense of normality was when Ash was called in for new hearings.

I tried not to let it affect me, but it went to hell every time. If Ash didn't say anything during the interviews, why did they insist on calling him again? Were they just doing it to psych him out? Or did they really have new questions to ask him? I tried to coax answers out of my dad, but he stubbornly insisted that he wasn't allowed to discuss it with outsiders. But he had also smiled and said that he couldn't stop Ash from talking to me about it if he wanted to. So, I directed my anxious questions to Ash instead, even though I could tell he seemed completely exhausted every time he came home from an interrogation.

"They just seem mostly desperate," Ash muttered as he lay down on the couch with his head in my lap after spending an entire evening in interrogation. "Frank said it was a good sign, but we shouldn't get our hopes up. But I'm getting pretty damn tired of this... Can't deal with this and Nathan at the same time. He hasn't texted you?"

"Why would he do that?" I asked in surprise.

"Uh, I don't know. Because he hasn't texted me. Thought he'd want to tell me something anyway."

The fact that Brady hadn't visited Nathan yet was the thing that seemed to affect Ash the most. He seemed completely convinced that Brady was planning to do something extra fucked up, just because it was Nathan. Nathan had always been the little one, the one who was innocent and needed to be protected at all costs. Nothing Nathan had ever done when they were younger had been wrong, Brady had defended him no matter what, while Ash had mostly thought Nathan had been a pampered brat. And the fact that Nathan had now also been "depraved" should have pissed Brady off more than anything.

Which was why Ash was sure something extra bad would come out of this. I hadn't been so sure about what Ash said, somehow, I still wanted to believe Brady was human, but nothing I said seemed to convince Ash otherwise. So, our discussions mostly ended in us agreeing to disagree.

On Friday there was at least some relatively good news when Florian joined us for lunch. I sat and listened as Ash and Chris discussed a game they liked, Ash lingering at our table pretending to fetch dishes and poking back and forth with our glasses. It was so strange to see Florian in his work clothes, it was as far from his usual style as it could possibly get.

"I've got a present for you, Ash," he smiled, not seeming to care in the least that he was interrupting a discussion about what weapon to use to best shoot Nazis at range.

Ash glanced up in surprise and Chris looked inquiringly at Florian, who politely greeted him.

"What do you mean?" Ash asked suspiciously.

"I've managed to get Keith banned from Cupid's," Florian grinned proudly, looking around as if he expected applause.

Ash's expression shifted the second Keith's name crossed Florian's lips and he looked darkly at Florian. I was confused, why wasn't he happy about it? Now we could go there without having to think about the risk of bumping into that idiot.