"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."

Ray scrunched his face at the thought. Given the choice, he'd much rather be the older Asher, the one that had people do things for him. Was Amelia one of those people or had Asher met her before then, when he'd still been human?

"...who was she?"

"My wife," Asher said, nonchalant. It was the first time on the Island that he'd ever really acknowledged having one and putting a name to her. Even when she'd been there - or not there and only in his head, back during that first year there - he'd never said her name.

Ray didn't mean to gasp. His mouth stayed open after the intake of breath, unable to quite comprehend what he'd heard. It was surprise enough that Asher had just shared something, but the thing he'd just shared was huge.

He'd been married. As soon as Ray thought it it seemed a stupid observation to make. Why did it shock him so much? Why shouldn't Asher have had a wife when he was younger? Ray felt like he'd just gained the key to a secret level in a video game. Another door beginning to unlock.

"I definitely think I would have preferred Monopoly now..." He couldn't imagine there was ever much gasping involved in that game.

"Moving on."

"Nonono," Ray inched further up Asher's chest, "I'm sorry. I was just surprised, that's all. It makes perfect sense that you were married once." He paused. "Once, right?"

There were five hundred years to span - you could fit a lot of marriages in half a millennium.

"What the hell kind of question is that?" He had said wife, after all. Singular. Not that she was one of many. Sure, he's been alive for a few centuries, but most of those were as a vampire.

Who'd ever heard of a vampire wedding?

Ray didn't think that Well, Ross is your favorite Friend, after all would be a very welcome explanation right then.

"What...like," he licked his lips, keeping his head low in an attempt to not spook Asher. If he was spooked or agitated or felt interrogated, he'd clam up in moments, Ray knew from experience. "What happened when you turned...y'know. Did she...?"

Did she turn as well? Was she back in New York right now waiting for him? Surely Ray would have known if that was the case.

"She was gone well before it happened, so I don't think she minded it so much." There was a certain disconnect in his tone as he spoke, as if he was relaying fact about someone else's life and not his own. In a way, it actually was someone else's life, because he hadn't been that person in a very long time.

"Oh..."

Ray didn't know much about the olden days but he did know that back then, the only people who were allowed to divorce were like Henry VIII. And Asher had clearly been no king if he had a gazillion chores to do every day. So if it wasn't divorce, maybe it was...

"You don't have to tell me what happened if you don't want to." Despite the words, it couldn't have been clearer that Ray was keen to know. He was wary though. He might have been the one with the bipolar reputation, not Asher, but there was a first time for everything.

Asher knew Ray well enough to know that was probably difficult for him to say. Had it been another subject matter, he'd push. He wouldn't do it now, though, but he knew that he wanted to, and he knew it would eat at him until he had his answer.

What Asher still wasn't sure about was if that was the cop in him, or if it was just Ray.

"During childbirth," he said, after a quiet moment. He wasn't going to go into anymore detail than that, not that he thought Ray would need it in order to put together a full picture.

Any gasp wanting to escape this time was internalized before it had a chance. Asher was quiet, so Ray took his lead from him, lowering his chin back down to Asher's chest.

Ray couldn't even begin imagining it. Having a pregnant wife, beautiful, no doubt, and about to start a family, then having both snatched away at the last second. There was no way Asher would let him assume the child had died too if it hadn't.

Apologizing wouldn't help and making any kind of observation about how hard it must have been would seem douchey. Ray didn't think Asher even wanted him to comment about it.

In the end, he stopped trying so hard to think of what to say and just let out a small huff of hot air.

"...that was fun," Asher said, after a too long span of silence. "For the next game, let's just kick each other in the nuts."

If would have been just as productive as the one they were locked into now, except maybe with a bit less pain involved.

Rolling off Asher and onto his side, Ray tucked his legs up, knees pressing against Asher's thigh. It was a self-comforting position, hands clasped into his chest.

"How's it all fit inside your head?" he asked, as if he hadn't heard what Asher had said. "I got moments in my life, my nearly thirty-nine year life, that sometimes play over and over. Haunt me, I guess. You've got an extra five hundred years of that. How d'you do it?"

"It's not like I have a choice of keeping them elsewhere." Even if he did have that choice - strange one though it would have been - he probably wouldn't have made anything any different.

"What other option do I really have? Or anyone for that matter? Knowing the answer to that? That's how."

"I'd have a permanent headache if I were you," Ray joked. He was quiet then, just for a moment, wondering whether he should ask one of the things he'd told himself he never would. It was the kind of question where he wouldn't know if the answer made a difference until he'd heard it, at which point it would be too late to un-hear it.

But since they were being honest...

"Have...you ever killed anyone?" He blinked a few times, gaze on the profile of Asher's face. "Aside from feeding."

"Not as a human," Asher replied, head falling to the side so he was looking at Ray, watching for shifts in his expression.

His expression didn't shift at all. He stared back, unable to quite comprehend the answer he'd been given. Until a few years ago, an answer like that couldn't have been taken seriously. Everyone was human in Ray's world, except for Fraser maybe, so that kind of response would never have been given in earnest. And yet here Asher was, not only providing it as a serious answer but one that should apparently make a difference to Ray's own reaction.

Much like Asher now considered himself different to the person he used to be when human, Ray had always assumed there was a difference between vampire Asher and the one currently looking at him. Perhaps that was naive of him, given that he didn't have anything to compare current Asher with, but it was what his gut told him and he always went with his hunches. So if Asher wasn't the same person now, then maybe his answer made sense.

The conclusion Ray came to was more alarming than Asher's reply. Ray was in love with Asher, wasn't he? All of him. That was what love was, right? But how could he be if there were two Ashers and he barely knew one of them? Did that mean he could only ever half love him?

He blinked. "Does that make a difference?"

"To you?" Asher asked, clearly annoyed by the question. "Obviously not if you have to ask. Which, really, kudos on the shitty timing, by the way."

He pushed himself up into a seated position, agitated, suddenly all too aware of what he'd shared and verging on regret.

"Good talk. Let's not do it again."