[for Ray - Dated to 4/01]

[asher_talos]

Things had been quiet, and Asher wasn't sure yet if that was a good or a bad thing. In that moment, as he sat at the bar of the gazebo outside the hut, he couldn't say he actually cared one way or another. The farthest thing from his mind was Hannibal King and the trouble he'd brought along with him when he showed up.

Maybe he didn't often show it or even think about it all that much, but he knew he had it pretty good on the Island. It wasn't the sort of thought he'd openly express to Danica - lest she disown him completely for thinking something so disgustingly vile - but he knew. It wasn't perfect and it wasn't home, not really, but life on the Island wasn't what it used to be nearly five years ago.

He had Danica, pain in the ass that she was, and that alone made things more bearable than they had been when he first showed up. He had Del and the twins. And, now, he had Ray.

Things could have been a lot worse. Things have been a lot worse...

And its with that thought that he thinks maybe Danica should disown him, because even he was making himself a little nauseous.

Comments

[speakscanadian]

"If you're doing nothing, then why are these going back on?" Ray asked, leaning over and hooking a finger through a belt loop. "Makes sex kinda hard..."

[asher_talos]

"Yeah, I'm well aware of how sex works." Or didn't work, in this case. "You should probably get your key."

[speakscanadian]

"Woah, what?" Ray gave a sharp tug on the belt loop, his brow furrowing further. "What's this? What's happening now?" It felt like he had blinked and missed something.

[asher_talos]

"Nothing," Asher repeated. "Still. You're awfully chatty for someone who doesn't want to talk."

[speakscanadian]

"One second we're all over each other and the next you're snapping at me," Ray pointed out, pushing himself upright, a hand proppd behind him. "What changed?" Because he sure didn't know what had.

[asher_talos]

"I'm not snapping." If anything, Ray appeared to be the more agitated of the two as Asher just continued to lie there. "If you think this is snapping then I clearly haven't done it in a while."

[speakscanadian]

Staring at Asher for a moment, Ray's expression was unreadable. Then he twisted, reaching for the key and uncuffing his hand, dropping the metal over the side of the bed. The bang as it hit the wooden floor was barely audible over the creaking of the bed as Ray shifted, this time onto his side.

There was another moment of silence and then he moved again, wriggling closer and resting a hand on Asher's bare stomach.

[asher_talos]

Breathing out a small, irritated sigh, he put his hand over Ray's.

"What are you doing?" Asher asked, echoing Ray's earlier question as he watched him.

[speakscanadian]

"Trying not to completely ruin the moment," Ray replied quietly and honestly, crooking a thumb over one of Asher's fingers, gaze there instead of looking back at Asher. "Is it working?"

[asher_talos]

"I wouldn't know," Asher lied. It might have been a few hundred years since he'd been in a situation like that, but he didn't have to be to know that things probably should have been playing out a little differently.

[speakscanadian]

Ray used to worry that he and Asher would never fit. They weren't the ideal couple, weren't a match made in heaven, not by a long way. Asher was an ex-vampire who used to kill people for a living; Ray was a cop who used to save people for a living. Hated bad guys and Asher would surely have been classed as one of those.

They shouldn't have fitted and they didn't. They would grind and grate and it would be hard work and Ray had come to accept that. Because no matter how wrong it looked from the outside, it was times like these that made it feel so right.

Lifting his gaze, Ray moved his head a little closer on the pillow. "Kiss me?"

[asher_talos]

Stretching his neck, Asher pressed his lips against Ray's in a soft kiss, letting it linger.

"Still think this is better than the false start in the boat?"

[speakscanadian]

Returning the kiss, Ray bent his knee and pressed it against Asher's leg, and moved his hand from Asher's stomach up to his chest. It lay over his heart.

"Mmmhmm," he answered before the kiss was over. "Because this is real." He wasn't going to wake up tomorrow morning and discover it had all been a lie, a giant April fool. "And...it's not going to end."

[asher_talos]

"Huh," was all Asher allowed as a reply. Incapable of that sort of optimism, anything he would have said would have came off as glaringly negative in contrast following that.

"Even though you're not chained to a bed, getting laid right now?" Asher asked. There was no harm in making sure.

[speakscanadian]

"Even though," Ray agreed, not looking away anymore. And then, as if to prove it wasn't going to end, he flashed Asher a small smile and added: "There's always tomorrow."

[asher_talos]

"Whatever you say, Annie," Asher replied, stretching. "If you start singing, I'm gone."

[speakscanadian]

Ray kept quiet and just laid there, thinking about the last few minutes. After a moment or two, he huffed out a short laugh through his nose.

"You sure know how to pick your moments." And his days. "Know what date it is today?" It was kind of ironically perfect, actually.

[asher_talos]

"I know it's the Lord's day," Asher said. Days of the week were easier to keep track of than dates. The big holidays and birthdays of the few people he gave a fuck about usually managed to stick, but not much else.

[speakscanadian]

"Well, if I'm not mistaken, it's the first of April," Ray told him, lifting himself up just a little so he could see Asher's face. "AKA Fool's Day. AKA practical joke day." Fortunately, Asher had never subscribed to those shennigans in all the years Ray'd known him.

[asher_talos]

"Oh..." It was far from being one of the important holidays, so he didn't understand why Ray felt the need to point it out. "So? Did you plastic wrap a toilet or something?"

[speakscanadian]

"Heh. No." A couple of years ago their declarations had all been a giant practical joke, one played on them by the island. Of course, back then they had been glad of the fact. Now though, Ray couldn't have been more glad that what Asher had said hadn't been a joke.

"Do we even have toilets anymore?" A month without them in Victorian London had been bad enough. Ray didn't even want to know what cowboys and Indians used when they needed the john.

[asher_talos]

"We do. And I couldn't think of anything less appealing to talk about right now." He probably could, actually, and without much effort, too. But he wasn't going to.

[speakscanadian]

"I'll work on my pillow talk," Ray promised, head propped up in his palm. Fingers of his free hand rested lightly in the groove at the base of Asher's neck. "I know you still need to keep an eye on your sister but uh... Can you stay here with me tonight?"

[asher_talos]

Asher nodded without hesitation. He knew that he couldn't keep this thing with Danica up forever, and there was no time like the present to start taking a step back. Besides that, he didn't want to stay anywhere else tonight. Except maybe their normal hut and bed.

"I think King can survive the night without me keeping watch," he said, having no doubt that Danica could.

[speakscanadian]

"I'll even let you get some sleep," Ray told him with a smile, before rolling away and pushing up onto his knees. Despite the excitement, his pants hadn't even gotten undone, so his hands went straight to his shirt to begin buttoning it up again.

"C'mon." As lovely as the view of a half-undressed and mussed up Asher was, now wasn't his chance to take full advantage of it. "We've got sweeping to do."