asher_talos | [For Stephen & Danica

[For Stephen & Danica - Dated to August 4th]

Most people looked forward to their birthdays, but Asher wasn't most people. Technically, he'd only been a person for a little over two years now, so at least he had a good reason to go against what he considered to be the majority rule.

To him, all birthdays did now was remind him that he was disgustingly mortal, that he was that much closer to death after five centuries of avoiding it so well. He couldn't understand why people celebrated something like that. But, then, Asher still didn't understand a lot about how humans worked. He was okay with that, though.

Whatever the case, Asher was perfectly content ignoring that there was anything even remotely different about the day. There was no rule stating he had to acknowledge it. As far as he was concerned, it was just a normal day.

He reentered the compound after returning from feeding and watering Beau, just like he would any other day. He was smart enough to avoid the rec room, though, because chances were that the jukebox wouldn't have gotten the Ordinary Day memo, and he wasn't going to be held responsible for what he did to it if it started playing Happy Birthday.

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Stephen walked in, munching on an apple. He greeted Asher with a nod, then had the feeling he should be remembering something. What was it...

Aha! It came to him like a bolt of lightening, and he snapped his fingers to get Asher's attention as he finished chewing and swallowing.

"Hey, isn't it your birthday soon?" He had a vague memory of that around this time the year before.

Asher didn't really appreciate being snapped at, and the glare he sent Stephen's way probably said as much.

"No," he answered curtly, which didn't really count as a lie since his birthday wasn't soon.

Stephen looked disappointed for a second, then he shook his head.

"No, no, I think it is..." he said as if he actually had to convince Asher of this. "I got you something this time and everything! It has to be!"

He didn't go out of his way to offer things to just anyone, after all.

"Why...?" he asked, eyes narrowed, suddenly very skeptical and overly suspicious. Obviously Stephen had to have done something or he wanted something.

It made sense in his mind and that was all that mattered.

That was an odd question.

"Because...that's what birthdays are for?" Duh. What else was any holiday for? It was why Stephen had it in his employees' contracts that they had to get Stephen gifts for every holiday, right down to Arbor Day.

"Bet the same goes for Christmas with you, too, huh?" Asher was thoroughly unsurprised.

"Birthdays are for getting older, that's it" Gifts were just things that piled up and had to be divided up between the people left behind after someone died due to having celebrated one too many birthdays. Maybe it wasn't the brightest outlook on things, but it was the truth.

"Of course. We get presents in honor of Jesus' birthday since He's not around to get them Himself," Stephen said, all matter-of-fact. Didn't everyone know that?

"And that's why you get stuff," he added sincerely. "To make you feel better about getting older." He offered what he assumed was a comforting smile and spread his arms. "So I got you something!"

Asher looked at the outspread arms, brow raised, taking a subtle step backwards. "A hug?"

He didn't hug.

"I felt a lot better about it when I didn't have someone bringing it up."

A--what? Stephen frowned.

"No, not a hug. What kind of present is that?" A cheap one, that was what. Not that anything cost anything on the island, but that made it easy to pretend Stephen wasn't all about cheap gifts anyway. His money was his.

He ignored the other comment and pointed towards the door. "Wait here, I'll get it."

"Yeah, sure." Asher said, shooing him off with no real intention of waiting anywhere. First snapping and then staying? He wasn't someones dog.

He headed into the kitchen instead, and after he poured himself a cup of coffee he took a seat at the table, back to the door. He could have done a better job at trying to ditch Stephen, but why bother? The island was only so big and he'd have to deal with him again sooner or later. Avoidance was futile.

Stephen went down to search for wherever he had put the stuff. Turned out that it was under his bed. He blamed the dogs, of course.

He scowled when he returned to see Asher gone, but no matter; he was easy enough to track down.

"Tada!" Stephen said, setting down the small wrapped item in front of Asher. Apparently somewhere down the line he remembered that today was Asher's birthday.

Asher looked up from his mug to Stephen, and then to the gift. It was small. Small worked. Small things were easier to pass along after he dropped dead.

"Uh. Thank you," he said, though it might have been hard to hear any gratitude in it when he made it sound like a question. It probably didn't help that he was staring at the thing like it might explode at any second.

"You are welcome," Stephen automatically returned seriously, taking a seat on the other side of the table. If he had been home, he would have been able to give something a lot nicer, but again, he was fond of keeping his money for himself...

He frowned. "It's not a bomb."

"I wouldn't expect you to tell me if it was..." Asher replied, still eying the gift critically, fingers still firmly fixed around his coffee mug.

"Now that you've said that it sort of makes it all the more suspicious." Not that he thought Stephen was smart enough to make a bomb.

Stephen scowled deeper. "It does not! Why would I lie?"

Never mind that he maybe technically sort of have lied in the past...

"Because you're you?" Unless he wasn't him. They did live on an island that enjoyed a good body-swap, after all.

"You are still you, right?" It couldn't hurt to be sure.

Stephen glanced down as if he had to actually check to make sure.

"Yes, I'm still me! Why would I give you a bomb? I'm no terrorist!"

Was he going to have to open the stupid thing himself?!

"Why wouldn't you give me a bomb?" Everyone had their limit, a snapping point, and it wasn't as if Asher had ever been particularly nice to Stephen in the past. In the real world, people had been blown up for lesser reasons.

What a weird question. (Stephen ignored the fact that he probably would have asked the same in other circumstances.)

"Why would I want to kill one of the few people I can stand?!" What was with the probing interview over a birthday present? See if Stephen ever went out of his way for this again...

"Why does one of the few people you can stand happen to include someone who's usually a dick to you?" It really seemed like something he should be seeing a shrink about.

"I could answer questions with questions all day, you know."

Whenever Danica's birthday came round, she pretty much expected everyone to wait on her hand and foot, which wasn't necessarily out of the ordinary. Only, on her birthday, she liked those hands to be filled gifts, the more expensive, the better. More than a few familiars had seen their time cut short because their presents hadn't come up to par, and they hadn't been given the opportunity to stick around long enough to learn their lesson the next year.

Vouchers? Danica nearly choked just remembering it.

She knew it was her brother's birthday but it didn't really make much impact on her day. He was fairly low maintenance compared to her so when she held out the pie she hadn't made in one hand and his own suit jacket that she'd borrowed over a week before in the other, she wasn't concerned at all about his reaction.

Stephen shrugged. The questions-with-questions thing made him suddenly picture Asher as working for the government, and so he was silent for a bit. That was kind of a fun image.

Anyway.

"Maybe I like dicks." Beat. "Wait. I didn't mean--just open the present!"

"You shouldn't have," Asher insisted flatly as he reached for his jacket. The pie remains untouched.

His sister was a lot of things, in the course of five hundred years, though, none of those things had ever been a pastry chef.

"Do I even want to know who you stole that from?"

Asher blinked. "Yeeeah, well that make you and about ninety-seven percent of the general male population on the island."

He continued to size up the gift, but his gaze wasn't nearly as critical now. "Why? Not opening it seems to be leading to brand new revelation. Who knows what else you'll say if I hold out." Watching Stephen make a fool of himself was probably better than whatever the present was.

Great, now Stephen was just thinking about the phrase holding out and trying to keep from commenting on it. He wasn't used to that.

"You won't get anything else out of me!" he said as if Asher was about to start water-boarding. "You underestimate my...quiet abilities."

Or something like that.

"You like the sound of your own voice too much to stay quiet for long," He said, nudging the gift away slightly.

"I can wait." Technically, he still hadn't even admitted that it was his birthday.

Well of course Stephen liked the sound of his own voice too much to stay quiet for long. No one else was anywhere near his level of company. That wasn't a crime.

He started tapping his fingers against the table top and scowled at Asher.

Tap. Tap. Taptaptap.

"Can't you just open it!?"

"I could, but I'm not going to." Especially not while being yelled at. "And if you don't want it shoved into some part of your anatomy, I suggest you lower the volume."

The scowl deepened again.

"It's your birthday! I'm giving you stuff! Why would you want to put that off?" He sounded genuinely confused, if not slightly quieter than before.

"Just weird that way, I guess," he answered with a shrug, folding his hands on the tabletop.

"Most ways," Stephen mumbled under his breath. "You're doing this on purpose, aren't you?"

"I'm not doing anything." Which was most likely the problem, but he didn't really care.

"Aha!" Stephen exclaimed, pointing. "So you admit it!"

"How keen are you on keeping that finger" Asher asked, head tilting curiously to one side.

"I didn't steal it from anybody," Danica answered, starting to feel stupid standing there holding out a pie. She cocked a hip and gave her brother an impatient look. "I ordered it." Like catalogue shopping. That counted. She wasn't about to tell Asher how she'd pay for it but letting him know who had made it couldn't hurt. She could narrow it down a bit, in any case.

"Guy looked a lot like you." The pastry was thrust towards Asher again. "Take it."

"...It's an important finger." He used it a lot.

He brought his hand back, just in case, and sighed heavily. And sadly. Dramatically, one might say.

"Can you please just open it?"

There. He didn't sound demanding or loud at all.

"Well if you're going to whine about it." Asher said, reaching out to pull the present back toward him. A small part of him had to wonder if this was normal. Was accepting gifts usually like pulling teeth with other people?

Probably not.

He blamed Stephen. If he hadn't given it to him in the first place then all of this could have easily been avoided. So, by that logic, all his fault.

"There. I opened it." Asher stared at it for a moment before looking back at Stephen. "What the fuck is it?"

When the fuck did the island get a bakery where you could order shit from, and why hadn't she sprung for an ice-cream cake?

"By now I'm pretty sure every other guy here looks like me. Or a cheap imitation, at least," he said, taking the pie this time once it was shoved his way. "Are you going to sing?"

"Do I look like I'm going to sing?" In fact, Danica looked a little awkward, pretty much how she'd been feeling ever since she'd arrived here and discovered her black Amex was useless. A pie wasn't exactly exciting but at the same time she didn't want it to seem like she was trying to be nice or anything. They were in public, after all.

Her hands hesitated on her waist briefly before she reached for the jacket again and pulled the lighter out of the pocket. She glanced around them with a warning look and flicked on the flame, holding it up to her brother. "Hurry up and make a fucking wish already. People are watching."

The newly formed smile fell from Stephen's face at Asher's question. It quickly turned into a scowl, because what the hell? It was obvious what it was!

"It's the audiobook version of my book!" He tapped a finger on the top of it and beamed again. "Plus there's a compass I found, for your boat."

But that was nothing compared to the gift of Stephen's Word! He had lucked out when the bookshelf had given it to him.

"The one I read?" And he'd heard being read to his horse, of all things, by Stephen himself. He was expected to suffer through it again? As luck would have it, though, Asher didn't have anything to play it on. "...I'll cherish it forever."

He'd stuff it in his sock drawer and forget all about it.

The compass was actually sort of neat, and Asher spent a few seconds swiveling it around and watching the arrow move. Unfortunately, it wasn't as neat as Jack Sparrow's, in that it seemed to work properly instead of pointing to whatever he wanted most. He was almost positive that he didn't want the fucking bowl of fruit on the table.

"Thanks. Again."

Asher wondered just how long he could drag this out. Even if Danica looked as though the gesture was making her uncomfortable, maybe even causing her actual, physical pain, Asher appreciated it. Even with the pesky reminder of getting older.

He eventually put her out of her misery and blew out the flame. "Maybe they think you're an arsonist." Which she'd probably enjoy more than anyone thinking she was doing something nice. "You gonna eat this with me or do you have more deliveries to make?"

After Asher blew out the flame Danica lowered her arms quickly and brushed her palms down the bare skin like she'd been doing that all along. "Happy birthday, baby. You better have made a wish that was worth that." New shoes for her might have been a nice gesture.

She peered down at the pie, trying to remember what was inside it. When nothing came to mind she took a moment to judge how hygienic Lew Ashby was and eventually came to a conclusion. "Of course I'll share it with you." If only to stop the likes of Delirium muscling in. She smiled, all sweetness and light. "What are sisters for?"

"They're for headaches and shot nerves," Asher teased, slinging the jacket over his shoulder, then wrapping the newly freed arm around his sister and heading toward the kitchen. "And the occasional pie, apparently. What the hell's in this?"

Any insincerity on Asher's part flew riiiight on over Stephen's head. The huge smile stayed firmly in place, and he sounded almost insanely cheerful when he said, "You are welcome."

In his mind, he couldn't have chosen a better gift.

It might have helped if Danica had paid attention while Lew had been making the pie, instead of sitting uninterested at the kitchen table painting her nails. She had stuck around long enough for it to be stuck in the oven, at least. That was something.

She pursed her lips, raising her hand to check for chips or breaks on the vanished fingernails. They were perfect. Totally worth it.

"If somebody gives you a gift-wrapped present you don't ask that," she replied, tilting her head up to look at him. "You open it and find out for yourself." Most people did anyway, herself included. Asher was quite possibly the only exception she knew.

"Right..." Asher simply took all of that to mean his sister was as in the dark as he was on the pie's contents. Honestly, it didn't surprise him in the least. "You could just say you have no idea, you know."

He set the pie down once in the kitchen and grabbed two plates and utensils from the cabinets. "Cherry," he said within seconds of cutting into it. At least that's what he went ahead and assumed the red ooze was. Plating a slice and jabbing a fork in it, Asher slid it in front of Danica. And waited. "You first."

He didn't know where it came from. She did. It only made sense that she go first. If she wasn't worried about being poisoned to death then he would be either.

Danica would have rolled her eyes had she cared enough to. She took the fork, breaking off a tiny piece of pie, just enough to convince Asher that it wasn't lethal.

She caught a crumb at the corner of her mouth with a finger. It could have had almost anything inside it and Danica wouldn't have known much difference, it all tasted the same to her. "Satisfied?"

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[For Stephen & Danica - Dated to August 4th]

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