asher_talos | [For Ray]

[For Ray]

When he wasn't possessed by the Island into thinking he was in love or being kidnapped, Asher had forgotten that being out on the boat could actually be pretty nice.

He wasn't sure where Ray was at that point, whether he was still out on the deck, the indoor sitting area, or even if he had gone overboard for that matter, though he was sure he would have heard the yelling from the bedroom if that last one were the case.

He was lying back on the foot of the bed, legs hanging over the edge and staring up through the porthole on the ceiling. He was also smoking, something he only did on the rare occasion now, having mostly broken the habit since the twins were born. Ray probably wouldn't appreciate it, which was why he hadn't simply lit up right in front of him.

After loosening his tie, Asher tucked his free hand behind his head. He wasn't sure if the peace even had half a chance of lasting the duration of their entire getaway, but he'd enjoy it for as long as it did.

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"I think the fact that my bed is in your hut spares you a hell of a lot," Asher says. The bed was the equivalent of a child caught in the middle of their feuds. He couldn't exactly drag it out of the hut every single time he got pissed off and needed to get away.

"And I think you knew that would be the case when you asked me to move in."

Ray simply smiled in response, neither confirming nor denying it. Of all the people, things and pets back on the island, the bed was definitely what he was going to miss the most.

"It wasn't like I could move in with you." He pushed off the wall and went with the rock of the boat, hitching up a knee and scooting onto the end of the bed near Asher. "Privacy was kinda a factor, if you remember."

"Was," Asher agreed. But things were different now. "After you exposed yourself to the other guy down there do you really think there's much left to hide?"

There was plenty, of course, but Asher just liked reminding Ray of that incident whenever he got the chance.

"I can think of a few things," Ray replied, mouth pinched at one corner with the cringe-worthy memory of Snape walking in on him.

"Who wants to live in a basement, anyway? They're spooky. Hardly homely."

"Scared of haunted washing machines? The ghosts of lost socks of spin cycles past?" When he'd had the entire room to himself, it hadn't been that bad. It obviously wasn't his penthouse at the Tower, but it wasn't a hut made of sticks, either. If Ray's hut had been like the others, he would have easily turned down the offer.

"Damp, dark, dingy," Ray ticked off on his fingers. No windows meant no natural light and that wasn't something he could live with. "I can see why you'd like it though. Hundreds of years hiding from the sun."

"You do realize that there are people who live on levels beneath that one, right?" His sister being one of those people, and Danica didn't really do Damp and dingy.

As far as hiding from the sun went: "I bet I'm one of the people least likely to get skin cancer on the Island."

"And for that I'm grateful," Ray admitted ingenuously. It was bad enough having to worry about giant monsters, freak weather and magical disappearances taking Asher away from him; regular human stuff on top of that was too much.

"Now you just gotta make sure you don't catch anything lethal, fall from anything high, trip overboard," he leaned over to the nearest flat surface and rested his mug there, "or get fatally shot and I'll be a happy bunny."

"You'll be happy?" As the person not dying from a gunshot, drowning or an undetermined disease, just being 'happy' would have been an understatement for him.

"Still. I promise nothing."

"You should. Promise, I mean," Ray said, climbing back onto the bed and tucking a leg beneath him. "You lose nothing. Either you're fine forever and you keep your promise or you die but don't have to listen to my whining about you breaking your word."

He shrugged. It was a pretty stupid promise but it would still make Ray feel marginally better. "Win-win."

"I try not to make a habit of lying." Omitting the truth when it befitted him in some way? That, he was mostly okay with. "Or of pretending that this place is the least bit predictable. Besides, I'm pretty sure you told me you didn't like lying before."

"Let's talk about something else." Conversations about Asher dying wasn't exactly in keeping with the objective of the vacation - to relax and spend time together. Quality time, if that wasn't asking too much.

"Let's play a game, c'mon. It's looking kinda gray outside, so let's just hang here, play something."

"Wuss," Asher muttered under his breath, his mouth hidden behind his mug as he took another sip and set it down beside Ray's once he was done.

"You brought Monopoly?" He asked, sounding none too enthused by the prospect.

"Ah," Ray lifted empty hands, "no. You're safe. And just to prove to you that I'm not a wuss, because I did hear that, you can go first."

He leant back to rest on his elbows, trying to look like he was an open book and not at all fazed by his next suggestion.

"Ask me anything you want to know that you don't already. I won't lie."

"That sounds potentially dangerous..." He asked Ray a question. Ray answered. And after that?

Something told him that the game didn't just end there. But he could hope.

"Uh... Okay. You worked with the Mountie for how many years and you seriously never thought about... you know? Ever?" There was a chance he wasn't taking the game all that seriously.

"Well, that's an easy one," Ray replied, giving Asher a look of disappointment rather than relief. Maybe it would just take a while for him to warm up.

"Nope. Never. Too busy chasing skirt. Not to massage your ego or anything but you're genuinely the first guy I ever looked at differently."

"You need your eyes checked," he suggested, and it had nothing to do with modesty and everything to do with the fact that he had eye. Ones that worked, even.

"Maybe you're just blinded by the annoying." As much as he'd heard about some of their cases, he guessed he could sorta, kinda get how Ray's mind never went there. Sure, he thought Ray was plenty annoying, but that annoyance had never almost gotten him killed a few dozen times.

"Yeah, that." The fact that he was closer to being family than anything might have had something to do with it too.

"I always knew he was good-looking. When you're standing next to him and every single woman overlooks you because he's there? It's kinda hard not to notice he's attractive. I take it you've thought about...you know."

"What do you think I was doing before you showed up with the coffee?" Asher replied, leaning back to mimic the position Ray was in.

"Once or twice," he continued more seriously with a shrug. "You can't think about it too long or it feels like you're corrupting the one thing that's good and pure left in the world."

"Yeah, yeah, Mr Funnybones."

He wished Frannie had had the same outlook as Asher. It would have saved Ray a lot of stress, Fraser a lot of embarrassment, and his sister wouldn't have made a fool out of herself every time he was near.

"Uh, hello?" Ray pointed in his direction. "Good and pure right here."

A small puff of laughter escaped him as he raised a brow, noting the hand pointing at him before looking at Ray himself. "Now who's the comedian?"

Good, sure, but given who his current company was it wasn't as if Ray had any real stiff competition. Pure, though?

"At least you have something to fall back on when you get sick of the cop thing." With the lack of any real crime to fight, that might've been soon.

"Nah. When I retire, I wanna be a kept man. Keep that in mind, just in case they start charging around here."

Years of risking his life for others surely had to have earned him a rest in his old age.

"So if good and pure's never been your type, what is?" If bald was on the list, Asher might find himself laid out on the floor rather than the bed.

"Kept? As in 'In a dark basement after you've gone senile'? Sure," Asher assured, nodding. "You have my word." That was a promise he had no problem making.

"I don't know if I have a type. If I do, I don't think you fit into it... And yet."

"Clearly your type is ugly, mean and a little chubby," Ray surmised, resting his cheek on his shoulder and looking over at Asher through his lashes, "which is why I don't fit into it."

"If it makes you feel better to believe that, I'm not going to take that away from you," he said, flopping down the rest of the way onto the bed, locking his hands behind his head.

"You're welcome."

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