asher_talos | [for Ray

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[for Ray - Dated 1/07]

When the Island had gone back to normal they'd had a hell of a time breaking the news to the twins that Toys-R-Us had vanished along with the rest of the city. Truth be told, a small part of Asher had wanted to join Celia in her tantrum over the loss. Not of the toy store specifically, obviously, but of the city as a whole. He knew it was most likely all in his head, but since being back, the sun seemed brighter, the temperature higher and the sand about a hundred times more obnoxious than it had been before. More obnoxious even than when they were stuck in the old west, which was saying something.

Not everything was left behind, though. Of all the things that could have remained from their time in New York, the Island had chosen this. Of course it did. It might have still been wrapped, but Asher didn't need x-ray vision to know what it was.

When he'd picked it out, he actually assumed that, more likely than not, it would have stayed behind. For his birthday, he'd tell Ray about his good intentions without having to hand anything to him. The thought was supposed to be what counted most, and Asher wondered if that held true when nothing tangible was ever actually received.

Now he'd never know.

He'd kept the gift in the spare room on the boat since they'd been back on the Island. It was already late-afternoon - Ray's birthday was already more than halfway over now - and it had only made it as far as the kitchenette table from its original hiding spot.

Maybe it wouldn't have been so bad if the thing didn't look like Martha-fucking-Stewart had done the wrap job.

Groaning, he swept the gift off the table after deciding he'd stared at it long enough, tucked it under his arm and started back home.

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Ray could almost - almost - have pretended that their return to paradise was just a temporary vacation but his imagination wasn't strong enough to last an entire week. He'd tried to keep his disappointment in check; the change wasn't, after all, unexpected.

He'd gotten to do, see and eat so much that it was difficult to believe that everything had now so suddenly returned to its regularly scheduled timetable. No more Riv, no more Bulls, no more luxury, no more Broadway.

"Sucks!"

"It really, really does," Ray agreed.

At least he was being an adult about it.

Kicking the ball back to Daniel, it sailed past the boy and towards the beach. Daniel ran after it, which was a good thing too since Ray wasn't about to get sand in his shoes.

Asher stopped the ball under his foot for Daniel as it rolled toward him on his approach.

"You stopped it! It coulda almost gone in the water, daddy!" Daniel said, which was more than a slight exaggeration, but who was he to correct him after apparently saving the day?

"Almost," he replied, nudging the ball gently back in his direction, the two then continuing on back to the hut. "Are you kicking a ball around with him or playing fetch?" Asher called out to Ray. The ball might have not been near the water, but it did cover good bit of distance before it was stopped. "He's three, not David Beckham."

"Who?" Ray asked, even though it wasn't hard to deduce that he was a soccer player of some sort. Ray's ignorance wasn't just down to the fact it wasn't his kinda sport though. Sometimes he forgot that he and Asher were from different times and it appeared Asher did too.

He waved it off in the end. "Never mind. I was just explaining to Dannyboy here that three is the perfect age to start practicing his b-ball skills instead."

"And who's going to teach him that?" He asked, taking a seat at the gazebo, placing the gift on the table top without a word about it. "You?"

He didn't understand Ray's fascination with basketball, but if it was something he thought he'd want to strike up an interest in and share with Daniel, he was welcome to. If it worked, and Daniel did wind up enjoying it, then it meant Asher didn't have to pretend to care about it when Ray brought it up, since he'd have someone else to share it with.

Or he'd have to pretend twice as much...

"Uh, duh."

Ray's response was echoed by Daniel but with ten times the enthusiasm. The little boy was the first one to spot the gift, following his father and climbing up onto the seat beside him to reach it.

"If he's gonna learn, he should learn from the best. Have I ever told you about the time a talent scout came--" to watch a different kid "--who thought I was amazing--" who didn't even notice he was there "--but I ultimately gave up a soon-to-be flourishing career in the NBA to fight crime instead?"

"Wow." Somehow, Asher managed to sound genuinely impressed, even though he was far from it. "When's the Lifetime movie?"

When Daniel went to make an attempt to inspect the gift, Asher gently set the boy back in his seat with a small shake of his head.

"He'll be four in a few months, so you should get to it before you miss your prime 'bball skill' window."

"When are the Emmys? Because I think we have a winner for Best Comedy Actor right here, ladies and gentlemen." Asher even received a brief round of applause for his troubles.

"You're right, though," he admitted, lifting Daniel onto his knees so he could steal his seat. "Time is of the essence. If that gift is for me, I take back my sarcastic Emmy comment immediately."

Asher wasn't sure if Ray putting Daniel between himself and the gift was the best idea if he did intend on opening it himself, but that was his problem to sort out. Asher had gotten the present to him, and so his part in it was complete.

He slid the gift from the edge of the table to in front of Ray, Daniel tracking it the entire way with his eyes. "The wrapping wasn't my doing."

"You got someone to wrap it up for you?" Ray laughed, pushing out of his mind the automatic assumption that it had been Delirium who'd done it.

Since his arms were longer than Daniel's, he reached up to the table to start opening it, rather than bringing it closer. "Who'd you ask?"

"An elf," Asher drawled, rolling his eyes.

"The creepy ghost shop clerk did it." If he was getting a free gift, he thought he may as well spring for the free gift wrap, too. It was one less thing he had to deal with. And maybe one more sign that he'd been around Ray too long.

"This is from New York?" Ray asked, hands stilling as his attention transferred to Asher in surprise.

"Wow." Daniel wasn't so patient, so Ray returned to the task, but he flicked Asher a smirk all the same. "Where'd you hide it when you smuggled it in?"

"Drawer in my nightstand. I figured it'd just disappear along with everything else when it changed back." It was such a random thing to get left behind.

At least the Island didn't see fit to have the full size one left there. Ray would have probably moved into it and changed his last name to Riviera if that had been the case.

There were no coincidences on the island, so if it had stayed, it must've been pretty important. Intrigued, Ray opened it quickly, eyes widening in surprise right before a high wattage smile took over his face.

"Oh my God," he beamed, sounding genuinely shocked by what he was holding. "Are you serious? You actually got this for me?"

"Believe me, I'm just as shocked as you are." More so, maybe. He'd hated that damn car, and still stood by his opinion that it was one of the least attractive things he'd seen in his entire life. For whatever the reason, though, Ray liked it, so he figured he'd like a miniature sized one, too.

"A car!" Daniel said, pointing at the toy.

To be honest, Ray couldn't believe Asher would even think of it, let alone actually get it for him.

"Not just any car," he corrected, turning it around so Daniel could witness its beauty from all angles. "The best damn car in the entire world." One that Daniel wouldn't be allowed to play with unsupervised for about seventeen more years.

"Hey," he glanced up at Asher, smile still in place, a little mischief in there too, "know what else three is the perfect age for? Learning about these babies," he grinned, lifting up his gift to remind Asher what he'd done.

"Is it fast?" Daniel asked. Asher hadn't seen the real one in motion back in New York, but it looked like a real clunker. The toy version might have been the faster of the two, actually.

"Learning about toys?" Asher said, just as his son reached a hand toward it. "He knows them well. He'll probably show you how to use it properly if you ask nicely." By denting it, scratching the windows and chipping the paint.

"Is it fast?" Ray echoed, his voice notching up, indulging Daniel for a moment. "Only the fastest you've ever seen. Also highly combustible," he added more solemnly, "but that's for another time."

Ray let the boy touch but kept a firm hand on the car itself. He leaned forward towards Asher, a self-satisfied smirk on his face. "I'm gonna make your son love Rivs as much as I do." With his free hand, he pulled on Asher's collar for a kiss of gratitude. "Thank you."

"I don't have a problem with disowning the both of you." Asher joked. "He has a sister and I'm sure there's someone almost as obnoxious as you on the Island to fill that void." Not that he much liked the idea of having to go through what they did to get where they were now ever again with a new pain in the ass.

"You're welcome," he said, after returning the kiss.

"Almost as obnoxious but nowhere near as handsome," Ray insisted, seeing fit to point that out early on.

Since he was feeling brave, he opened his palm slowly, Daniel's hand there ready to pounce. After several warnings to be careful, Ray quickly had a miniature Riviera vrooming up and down his arm. One second too rough and-

"Okay, yeah, no, I tried." Ray closed his hand around the car again, holding it protectively to his chest. Daniel looked surprised, then pointed accusingly at Ray with one hand and held the other across his eyes. The tips of his ears were pinking immediately, just as he opened his mouth to cry.

As Daniel's father, Asher's instinct was to make the boy stop crying. But as the guy not responsible for making him cry in the first place, Asher just put his hands up and let Ray deal with it.

"If you do plan on bonding with him in the future, you might want to avoid making him burst into tears."

"We've been bonding for years," Ray insisted, even though it didn't look like any of that was going to pay off today. "He's just forgotten."

Picking up the box the car had come in, he wiggled it in front of Daniel's tearful face. "You wanna play with the box?" He might have been three but he wasn't stupid. The crying notched up a few decibels. Ray closed his eyes for a second, then put the car into the box, offering that instead.

"Compromise?" Daniel quietened a little and clasped the box with both hands, giving it a shake. Ray knew it wouldn't stay inside the box for long but maybe by then he'd have been able to find a new distraction for the boy.

"He's not a cat," Asher said once Ray offered Daniel the empty box.

Maybe it was partially his fault for letting Ray open the gift when he was there, knowing full well that there was a toy inside. Ray obviously couldn't have known that before it was too late. True as that all was, he wasn't about to willingly take the blame for any of it.

"It's going to be fun when he has to go back to his mother and can't take that with him."

"Kids are meant to like the gift wrap better than the gift," Ray defended himself, a look of concern for his precious car clouding his face. Maybe Daniel wasn't like all the other kids...

"Let's wait until he's napping, then hand him back."

"Maybe that's true for kids back home and not here? The ones that grow up here don't exactly see toys in brand new packaging all the time. I swear stepping into Toys-R-Us in New York was like sensory overload for him and his sister." And maybe for Asher, too, but for completely different reasons, and none of them good.

"Sounds like a plan."

"Sorry I missed that," Ray lied, not sounding very convincing about it. He guessed it was just one of the sacrifices he'd had to make to keep the other woman happy. Of course Ray would much rather have been in Toys R Us than joyriding around the city in his favorite wheels...

"See?" He looked a little self-satisfied. "I've totally got a hang of this parenting malarkey."

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