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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"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."

With a flat smile, Ray shifted onto his side, propping his head up on a hand.

"Well, you're not my type either. Shocking, I know." For one thing, Asher was tall. Ray had had a knack of attracting only women below five foot five inches back home.

"Yeah, skirt chaser. I got it." And even on the Island weirdest day, Asher had managed to keep a firm hold of his pants. Or his dick, anyway, which was more important.

"No, I meant--well, yeah, I meant that too, but I also mean personality. Most of my serious relationships were with short, fiery and Italian women," Ray explained, never having come to the realization that he was describing his own mother. "Except for one but..." He trailed off, dropping his gaze and lifting a shoulder weakly. He took a deep breath. "And you're none of those three."

"So she wasn't Italian? Did your mom have an aneurysm?" he asked. Probably no more so than she would if she ever found out who he was with now. Non-Italian, not a God fearing Catholic, not female...

It was probably best for her health that mama Vecchio never step foot on the Island.

Ray made an attempt at a laugh but failed miserably.

"No, she was Italian." Asher was right about the aneurysm part though. When his Ma had found out her teenage son, the light of her life, was having a dalliance with a Zuko, she had been less than supportive. For his own sake, she'd said, but it hadn't felt like it to Ray back then.

"She just wasn't your typically loud, in-your-face, hot-tempered prima donna." He caught a wrinkle in the sheets and rubbed the material between his fingers. "That's not to say she wasn't passionate, she was, just...I dunno, in a gentle, understated way."

"Sounds like you had it bad," Asher said. And maybe it wasn't just in the past tense if his shift in demeanor was anything to go by.

Ray's fingers paused and he stared at them, silently deciding whether he wanted to continue down this road or not. Decision shortly made, he plastered an evasive smile on his face and leaned forward over Asher, dropping his voice invitingly to move the conversation on. "I've got it bad now, that's all that matters," he said, closing in for a kiss.

Asher leaned in the rest of the way, kissing Ray gently before laying back down. "Doesn't look like you're enjoying your game very much."

"Should've brought Scrabble," Ray mumbled, dropping his chin on Asher's chest. "Tell me something about you.£ he asked quietly. "What were your parents like? Who was your first love? How did you survive childhood without a tv?"

"Ordinary. Amelia. We had chores back then. Kept us busy and not fat." Not having an abundance of food did have something to do with that last one, too.

"Hey, I had chores," Ray insisted. Just not as many as his sisters had had - he was male, after all. Maybe that was the reason behind the everlasting puppy-fat... "I had to polish pool balls and rake the lawn and stuff. It was seriously unfair."

In case he had imagined hearing it, Ray added: "Amelia?" His ears visibly perked.

"Remember when you played stable boy after losing that bet? You barely survived." And Asher thought he'd never hear the end of it. Part of him even hoped that maybe one day Ray would go in and not survive, just so he wouldn't have to hear about it anymore. "Imaging doing ten other jobs on top of that. And imagine doing it at thirteen." Ray would have been passed out before sunrise. At least he would have been quiet.

"Yeah."

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