asher_talos | [For Stephen]

[takes place the day after this]

He’d found the keys -- attached to the dumbest keychain he’d ever seen, no less -- in the pocket of his suit jacket when he got dressed that morning, and a small slip of paper accompanying it that simply read ‘Dock’. It’d taken a few hours before he eventually bit (figuratively) and followed what barely qualified as a clue down to the docks with Onyx in tow. When he got there, he found a boat - he found a lot of boats, actually, what with it being a dock and all, but only one had a symbol he recognized, painted on the side of it. It was the same symbol he had tattooed on his wrist.

While he’d been hesitant of boarding, Onyx had darted on ahead, up the stairs and straight onto the deck before vanishing into the interior of the boat. A few minutes later, he reemerged, excited barks muffled by whatever the hell he’d found and was now carrying in his mouth. Asher couldn’t make out what it was, but when he heard ‘I want to suck your blood’ coming from the thing, in a bad Romanian accent, he decided he didn’t want a better look at it.

Onyx continued bounding around the deck, running laps when Asher finally joined him. The dog left for one more lap, but he never rounded the other corner again. Instead, Asher had heard a splash before he moved into the saloon area of the boat, but he wasn’t concerned. Onyx knew how to swim.

He was seated at the table within the boat now, his head resting against it, staring at the stupid keychain as it sat too close to his nose, forcing his eyes to cross slightly. He saw double for the second time that week. He’d be seeing it a hell of a lot more a few months from now, assuming all went well and Del gave birth to twins.

That word still scared the shit out of him.

A boat didn’t need to be fed or walked, but more importantly, it didn’t dance. Asher could certainly appreciate that much.

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Stephen stared again, eyes wide.

"Del...is having more than one. At the same time." Pause. "From you."

On one hand, that explained why Del was so freakishly huge. On the other, what the hell?!

"So you...huh," he added brilliantly.

"I have no idea why I tell you these things," Asher admitted with a bitter laugh. It wasn't as if he expected Stephen to suddenly offer any pearls of wisdom.

He didn't want to punch him yet, so at least it wasn't as bad as when he'd first told Stephen Del was pregnant. But who knew how long that would last.

"Because we're friends?" Stephen asked with some hope. He was annoyed with himself for that. But he had already stupidly admitted Asher was - what had his 11 year old self said? - his best friend on the island, so where else could he go but down?

So, trying to act the part of what people seemed to assume friends were, he added, "How does that news make you feel?"

"Is that what you call it?" Asher watched Friends before the island, knew who Joey was before he turned up. Using the show as a guide, he was almost certain that they were doing something wrong if they were, in fact, 'friends'.

And the wrong just kept on coming.

Asher stared at Stephen as if he'd just lost his mind. There was no way to be altogether sure that he hadn't. "It freaked me the fuck out a lot less than you asking that just did... Go back to the sentence fragments."

"Yes..." Stephen frowned, which only grew deeper when Asher continued. "But I'm helping!"

Kind of.

He was trying?

"And you didn't like the fragments!"

"Fragments are better than forced and fake." Not by much, but by enough. "Lesser of two evils."

"It wasn't fake!" Stephen insisted, palms up. Forced, however... "That was me, caring. Concerned, even."

Personally, he thought it looked good on him, but not much didn't.

"Well caring is obviously not your color. You should work on your delivery, consider taking up an acting class." He doubted even lessons from Joey could make it any worse than it already was.

Stephen tried not to pout, which was more than he usually bothered with. Really, Asher should be impressed.

"I'm not an actor, sirrrAsher." Switching the topic back, he then asked, "So. Do you know what they are?"

"If you were, you'd be a horrible one." And that was putting it mildly. "They're human," Asher answered flatly. No horns, no tails no mini sets of fangs. Other than finding out that there were two of them in there, the fact that they seemed relatively normal had been a slight shock.

Stephen was too taken aback by that to insist that he would be the best actor ever in life.

"...Uh, congrats. I meant the gender, but I guess that's also good to know..."

"I know what you meant." He just didn't care and his response wasn't going to change. "I'm not an idiot."

"Ooookay." What the hell? Either Asher didn't know yet, or he didn't want Stephen to know, which made no sense and was just kind of mean.

Stephen stared at the table again, trying to ignore the sounds of the vampire toy talking about blood.

Asher slid as far away from Stephen as the seating arrangement would allow for. He was afraid he'd wind up slamming the other man's head down against to tabletop so he could get a better look at whatever the hell he was staring at. Not only would it have been an unnecessary reaction, Asher wasn't too keen on the idea of having to potentially scrub blood off of any surface of his brand new boat.

Now if he could only scrub the mental images from his brain, he'd be okay.

"Well if you're just gonna be all silent and not tell me," Stephen said with frustration, "then I guess I'll go!"

He stood to leave, got to Onyx and paused. Nudged him with a foot. Onyx kept gnawing on the toy.

"Dammit..." Stupid dog, ruining Stephen's dramatic exit! He stepped over Onyx, almost losing his balance, and added, "Enjoy your boat. Good day," as pleasantly as he could, which wasn't much, then left.

[For Stephen]

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