Him.

Chapter One

Ash didn't speak to her parents, and didn't have any family besides, and Rosita knew this; so, a couple times a week, she'd get Ash out of that lonely apartment and have her over for dinner with her own family. They'd all sit around the table, Norm joking with the kids and Rosita telling Ash to eat more. Ash never thought of herself as liking children, but Rosita and Norm's kids were always fun to be around–they were all old enough to have their own personalities and, probably because there were so many of them, they never singled Ash out or made her feel like anything but another family member. A few of them, like Carla and Hannah, had even taken to calling her "Aunt Ash".

Rosita and Norm's house was cozy, and the comfy working class smells of drippings and pine-sol wafting up permeated the abode. Rugs and throw pillows, doilies and little knick knacks, all the things Ash never had (but secretly relished) could be found in spades. The cascading noise of fifty little feet scurrying around, laughing little voices, and Rosita occasionally telling someone what or what not to do were some of the immediately noticeable sounds of the place, and where Ash (uncharacteristically) enjoyed peace and quiet every once in awhile, she didn't mind the clamorous cacophony of Rosita's home. She couldn't explain it, but it made her feel safe.

After dinner, the kids would scramble out of the kitchen and get back to their own little lives, Norm would sometimes help Rosita with the dishes but he'd usually just march upstairs to his den, and Ash would sit at the table and talk with Rosita about whatever was going on in their lives or at the theatre. Sometimes one of the little girls would walk in to join the conversation and see what grown-up girl talk is like, leaving once she'd gotten bored or sent out (if Ash and Rosita had to broach a serious subject).

"If he really needs to leave one day he could just walk out the front door, it isn't like the principal will tackle him," Said Ash, Hannah sitting in her lap, to Rosita.

"He doesn't like to break the rules, you know that," stated Rosita, craning her neck to look out the window above the sink. It was passed the winter solstice, and the sun still hanged in the sad orange sky. "I've been trying to work with the school to see if I can get permission to check him out in emergencies or if he's sick, because-"

"It just seems like a lot of trouble for nothing. If it's a real emergency, he can just leave . No one's going to stop him," Ash interrupted, playing with Hannah's hair.

"His father's in prison, Ash. It's hard enough on Johnny to have to work for himself, go to highschool, and be a ward of the state without getting in trouble at school," said Rosita, turning toward the porcupine with eyebrows raised. Ash smirked and Rosita rolled her eyes, turning back to the dishes.

"Well, no one needs to finish high school," said Ash, smirking harder and looking at Hannah.

"That's not funny, Ash. Don't listen to her, Hannah," Rosita turned back again to face them and twisted a wet towel in her hands, as if she were going to pop Ash with it.

"O-okay, I'm sorry," Ash sat up, smiling and holding Hannah between herself and the piglet's mother. Rosita gave her own contented little smile and turned back to the sink. Ash leaned back and let go of the giggling little girl. "Lance dropped out of high school, he was always arguing with the teachers."

It was starting to worry Rosita how much Ash had been bringing up Lance, and she had been doing it more often as time went by. Rosita, along with Buster, had gradually become the parental figures of the Theatre gangand the last thing she wanted for Ash was for her to go back to an emotionally abusive relationship. Lance was horrible to her.

"Lance was too smart for high school anyway-" Ash began, before being interrupted by Rosita.

"Hannah, how about you go play somewhere else for a little while, okay?" asked Rosita, wiping her wet hands on her apron. It had already dawned on Ash what was about to happen, and it made her nervous.

"Okay, Mommy," the piglet jumped down from Ash's lap and scurried out of the kitchen. Rosita, by this time, had already sat in the chair facing Ash, with crossed legs and motherly eyes staring at her. Ash did everything she could to not meet this gaze, but ultimately failed. Rosita caught her eyes, and they sat in silence for awhile.

"Ash…" Rosita began, reaching onto the table and putting her hand on Ash's.

"Wait, come on… I don't want to do this," Ash squirmed in her seat a pulled her hand away.

"Sweetie, I know it's hard, but sometimes…" Rosita leaned forward, doing her best to give good advice without offending the teenager. "When you've spent years of your life with someone, living with someone, it can be hard to move on. Even when you think you have already-"

"Stop, stop, just–please. I don't want to talk about this right now, or ever," Ash interrupted, scooting her chair back and standing up.

"Okay, okay, I understand," Rosita assured, also slowly rising from her seat. "You know I only want what's best for you, and I'm just not sure that you aren't thinking of getting back into a harmful relationship-"

"It's getting late, I'm going to head home," Ash said calmly, trying to defuse the motherly intrusion before it became a lecture.

Rosita was about to try to convince her to stay, but looked at the kitchen clock and saw that it actually was getting late. She paused for a moment, and then said, "Well, it's going to rain tonight, let me drive you home, okay? We don't have to talk about anything on the way."

Ash stood there for a few seconds, then said, "Okay." They left the house shortly thereafter, once Rosita told Norm to watch the kids while she was gone.

When Rosita said they didn't have to talk about anything on the way, Ash didn't think she meant they wouldn't speak at all. The entire drive had been silent, save the quiet songs emanating from the car speakers; the soft, Elton John type music they'd play on certain stations around nightfall. The first drops of rain hit the windshield as Rosita navigated the city streets, the streetlamps flickering on and Ash peering listlessly out of the passenger side window. The rain was supposed to come in heavy and last a few days, but Ash liked rain, so she wasn't bothered. Occasionally Rosita would glance over at her, afraid that she had put Ash into this depressed mood. She should have known better: Ash was still upset over her break-up with her boyfriend, and everyone at the theatre knew better than to bring him up.

It's not her fault, Ash thought, she's right . Ash had been thinking more about Lance, lately. And worrying about him. Ever since they met in high school, Ash had taken care of Lance: keeping him out fights; making him go to class (enough to pass, at least); making sure he didn't fall in with the wrong crowd; and letting him sleep over when he didn't have anywhere else to stay. That was back when Ash still spoke to her parents. In fact, it was because of her relationship with Lance that she and her parents had stopped speaking.

It all became much more intense once they moved in together, after she graduated a year early and Lance dropped out. Along with their relationship, Ash's responsibilities evolved: keeping Lance from trying to fight with the police; making sure he didn't get addicted to whatever drug-du-jour his garbage friends tried to make him do; and, overall, just making him act like an adult. Looking back, Ash figured she never knew the real Lance until they moved in together. She'd always thought that his unkempt, homeless-chic style in high school was just an effect of his bad home life (and maybe part of it was) but she found herself arguing with him over things like basic hygiene. He refused to bathe regularly, and Ash had to force him to brush his teeth–he said he didn't like the feel of it . Ash actually had to cry the first time they fought about it before he broke down and brushed them.

There were a thousand little things like that, things they fought over. Ash had to make sure Lance didn't stay up all night, make him take his medicine when he was sick, calm him down whenever he threw one of his temper tantrums (which he did often) and he fought her every step of the way. Everything was a some great struggle with Lance, a struggle for freedom, a struggle for power. Asking him to help do the dishes was no different to asking him to give up a kidney. Lance was an overgrown child at best, and a puerile megalomaniac at worst. Ash was strong emotionally, especially for a teenager–but she loved Lance, and some of their worst arguments would end with her crying.

But Lance was more given to tears than Ash, and he cried much more than his girlfriend (although he would deny it vehemently, even as tears streamed down his face).

Above all her other responsibilities, Ash's greatest was earning a living for herself and Lance. While her boyfriend sat at home playing video games and twanging on his guitar, she'd drag herself to work at a shoe store in the mall every day to pay the bills and buy Lance more games and comic books. She did this, not only out of love but for the sincere belief that Lance was a musical genius, and one day soon they'd be living the dream.

She still believed Lance was a genius, even after he betrayed her.

Lance's intelligence was very important to him, and the primary locus by which he defined himself. Spending his entire life building himself up as a genius in his own mind, as well as always being told how smart and talented he was (mostly by Ash) made him especially sensitive to attacks on his mental prowess. Ash, having an intimate understanding of Lance and his mind, knew this, and whenever one of their quarrels sent her over the edge and she really wanted to put him in his place, she'd point out that he didn't finish high school and didn't even have a GED (usually in a crass way, and suggesting that he wasn't smart enough to achieve these things).

The result was always the same. Immediately after, Lance would throw a temper tantrum and lock himself in their bedroom, crying his eyes out for an hour or two while Ash calmed down and started to regret saying it. Afterwards, she'd knock on the door and try to coax him out sweetly while he'd lay brooding. At some point, he'd emerge and go on a lengthy tirade heavy laden with advanced philosophical concepts on how the 'modern paradigm of education is destroying life as we know it', and how autodidacticism is the stuff of the true intelligentsia. Ultimately, it was only to make himself feel smart, and Ash would still have to apologize up and down and tell him how smart he was for a couple days–then things would go back to normal.

Ash once considered going even further and pointing out to Lance that he couldn't even tie his own shoelaces, and needed her to do it for him whenever they came untied (which was true) in such a way as to heavily imply that he was mentally subnormal; but Lance was known to threaten suicide regularly, and Ash was afraid he might actually go through with it if she said that to him.

But they had plenty of good times, too.

"Ash?" said Rosita.

"Huh? What?" answered Ash, snapping out of it. They had nearly arrived at her apartment, and they'd just cruised by some seedy bar called the Capra Lounge . The rain was pouring down, now.

Rosita glanced over. "I know I said I wouldn't pry anymore, but… your ex-boyfriend hasn't been texting you, or calling you in the middle of the night or anything, has he? Because if he has then we can-"

"No, he hasn't texted me or anything. Don't worry about it," answered Ash.

Meanwhile, in the Capra Lounge.

"So why did Becky kick you out, Lance?" the ibex behind the bar asked.

"She was going through my phone while I was nappin'," said Lance, the aspergic genius himself. Leaning back in his chair and scratching his head, he continued, "She saw that I texted Ash after her show."

"She kicked you out, just for that?" The ibex replied, cleaning a glass. The bar was closed (and Lance was underage) but his little brother Bozzio ( pronounced bo-zee-oh ) was Lance's drummer, so it was all copacetic.

"Becky's problem... is that she has trust issues," answered Lance, and all of the four or so other people in the bar snickered. Ever since Becky kicked him out of her apartment, he'd been staying at Bozzio's place. Because Bozzio's brother ran the Capra Lounge, and their father owned it, Lance's crew would play a gig there every other day.

Lance's "band" was mainly constituted of instrument-playing goons that Lance brought on just so he could scream at and mooch off them. As a result, there was a high rate of turnover in the band's members. However, Bozzio (an alpine ibex who grew up in Little Italy in Manhattan) was proving to be more loyal than the average goon, and could take just as much abuse as Lance could dish out–so he was quickly becoming the porcupine's best (and only) friend. As sad as that was.

"I'm done with Becky, anyway," said Lance sitting up and crossing his arms. "It's time I got Ash back."

"Aw, tired of cuddling with me, Lance? Miss your comic books?" said Bozzio, mockingly.

"Shut the fuck up, Bozzio," answered Lance, nonchalantly. "I'll have you know that I love Ash, and I can't stand to be apart from her," he continued, just as nonchalant.

"Well, it's not like it'll be hard. You didn't even actually cheat on her," said Bozzio's big brother.

"Well… Cheating's different for girls… I never slept around on Ash, but that doesn't mean I didn't cheat. Y'know, for girls, the emotional aspects of the relationship are more important than the… physical parts," Lance ran his fingers through his quills. "Ash is upset that I was romantic with Beck, and… Listen, I don't claim to be an expert on why women feel the way they do-"

"Wow, that's just… shattered my world, Lance. I thought you were, like, the next Lord Byron or something," said Bozzio, sarcastically. "What makes you think she'll take you back, then?"

"Bozzio…" Lance smirked. "Ash may think she's Straight Edge, but she's one-hundred percent addicted to this!" Lance gestured toward himself. "Relapse is imminent, Bozzio, inexorable !"

"So your plan is to sit around my apartment and wait for her to come crawling back to you, even though you're the one who cheated on her ?" Bozzio swiveled around in his seat to face Lance.

"I didn't say that. Ash is a strong girl. She has morals, y'know, a sense of justice; not like you degenerates," said Lance, and everyone present raised their glasses. "Now, while it's obvious that I'm the victim in all of this, the only thing Ash cares about is that I've been bad to her. She still loves me, though; so all she needs to see is me at my lowest… broken and abused, with no one else in this whole wide world…" Lance cooed, hands gesticulating and head shaking to make the scene. "She needs to see that I've learned my lesson, and then she'll be satisfied. Then she'll take me back."

"So, what you're saying," Bozzio began. "Is that you're just going to look as pathetic as possible and hope she pities you enough to take you back."

"Y- Well, yeah. That's, uh, on the face of it... In layman's terms, that's what I'm gonna do," said Lance. "Of course, it's much more complex when you get to the real mechanisms of it. It plays on the modern paradigm of... essential occidental morality as, uh, as influenced by the abrahamic imperative that the, uh, the… Listen, it's all very philosophical and you ingrates wouldn't be able to appreciate it even if I explained it to you! So let's just get down to it," Lance stood up. "Now, I've been checkin' it out, alright? I happen to know that Ash walks down Valadaro Street on her commute every day, and it'll be raining tomorrow. Now, so that it looks like Becky was especially bad to me (and I've learned my lesson about runnin' around behind Ash's back), I need one of you to punch me in the face and give me a black eye-"

"Oh, hell yes!" Bozzio hopped down from his stool and lunged toward the porcupine, slamming his fist into Lance's left eye socket and knocking him onto the floor.

"Ow! J- God damn, Bozzio! It was supposed to look like a girl did it!" screamed Lance.

"Ooh, sexist. A woman can't hit as hard as a man?" mocked Bozzio, standing over his friend as the rest of the group tried to contain their laughter.

"Shut the fuck up, Bozzio!" screamed Lance.