asher_talos | For Ray

For Ray

He could tell something was off even before he opened his eyes. Not in a bad way, necessarily, just... different.

Yet familiar.

For a moment, he just continued to lie there, eyes shut, listening. The hut he shared with Ray was relatively close to the shore, so waking up to the sound of waves was the norm. Today, though, it sounded like those waves were rolling in right outside their door.

He could hear breathing and heartbeats, both from the dogs and from Ray who was still fast asleep beside him. Ignorance was bliss, and all that. Ray hadn't gone to sleep with a vampire, and Asher doubted he was going to take waking up with one very well. Especially not after the stunt he pulled back when the causeway was active.

"Vecchio?" Asher whispered, nudging the other man with his knee. As long as he didn't start yelling, Asher would consider it going better than expected.

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Ray was experiencing the world's biggest deja vu.

Rather than panic, he just watched as Asher tested the light again, fully aware that he was going to be fine. What he didn't get was why he was doing it again.

"But not exactly a surprise," he commented, climbing off the bed and looking like he'd lost something. His mind, maybe.

"The fuck it isn't," he said, stepping into the stream of light completely. "Do you know how long we'd been trying to come up with the technology that would have made it possible for us to walk around in the daylight back home?"

Answer: A really long fucking time. And their search had taken them to all corners of the Earth looking for the one who started it all. Fucking years. Here, though, all he'd had to do was wake up on a Tuesday and it was done.

Surprise to Ray or not, the important thing was that it meant he didn't have to be stuck in the hut all day.

Ray boxed away 'worrying about Asher all night and all day' for another time. Right now, he was more concerned about himself.

"I meant it was hardly a surprise the second time you checked," he explained, head spinning. Man, he wished he was still asleep in bed.

"Yeah, well, better safe than a pile of ash, asshole," Asher replied, doing up the buttons of his shirt. "Excuse me if I didn't believe the first go and wanted to make sure before I went outside and burst into flames."

Relief flooded through Ray.

"Oh my God, you got up twice," he laughed, nervously dispelling some of his tension. Of course Asher had. It totally made sense.

Well, maybe not totally but Asher had pretty much just confirmed what Ray thought he'd seen, so... He shook it off.

"I thought I'd lost it for a second there."

"I have no idea what you're talking about, but I'm almost certain that I don't really care," he admitted, tucking the tails of his shirt into his pants.

"The..." Ray contemplated mimicking the tentative hand movement Asher had performed when checking the light but when he saw Asher's expression, he thought better of it.

"...never mind." He moved around the bed to find his own pants and top. "Are you really going out? Inside still sounds good."

"Because whatever is apparently going to possess me won't be able to find me as long as I stay inside?" Ray wanted him to stay inside for the same reason he'd wanted to get back to the main Island as soon as possible the last time something like this had happened.

Their current conversation was already headed in the same downward direction.

"You know this place, Asher. Freaky stuff never just happens to one person." He pulled a shirt roughly over his shoulder. "Who the hell knows what's out there?"

"Who knows what's out there any other day? You're telling me it's okay to go out there the rest of the time, but not now?" Now, when he was stronger and faster than he was normally. Something there just didn't add up.

"If you're scared of what may or may not be out there you're free to stay in here."

"I'm not scared, I just dunno what your rush is." A couple of minutes ago he'd been in bed, asleep. Now Ray was getting ready to chase a vampire out of his hut.

He moved back around the bed towards Asher, trying to make him understand. "You spent all of ten seconds in the daylight and now you wanna go out onto a tropical island and take your chances right away? What if it wears off and you're only protected temporarily? What happened to 'better safe than a pile of ash, asshole'?"

"And while you're here trying to unsuccessful convince me to stay inside, do you think there's anyone at the Compound right now having better luck with that with my sister?" If Asher had woken up this way then there was a good chance that Danica had, too. If the sun wasn't going to force her to stay inside, nothing and no one would.

"I have to eat, eventually. You want me to figure the details of that out here?" If she hadn't had him for breakfast already, Fitch and the clinic would be the obvious place to go first.

"There are a hundred and one other things I should be doing other than having a lie in all morning."

"Fine, then I'm coming with you," Ray decided, finishing doing up his belt, then turning around to reach for his gun. "And before you think it's because I'm convinced you're gonna go and massacre the villagers, it's not."

"Really? Because not five minutes ago I was going to be possessed and out of control," Asher said. Something about Ray's decision to arm himself while insisting he was tagging along for other reasons made it feel like the opposite was true. "Of course that's why you're coming. Why else would you be?"

"Christ, get over yourself," Ray replied, checking his ammo, then tucking the gun into his pants. "I may want you to stay inside but I still need to go and make sure people are okay."

Asher might like to ignore the fact that he was on the IPD - and to be honest, sometimes Ray liked to as well - but he couldn't when crap like this happened.

"Yeah, well, you have a good day at the office," Asher said, slipping on his shoes and grabbing his jacket, nothing in his tone giving the impression that he genuinely gave a shit about what sort of day Ray had as he headed for the door.

Ray knew he didn't show very well that his primary concern was Asher, rather than people he may or may not tear to shreds, but he at least thought he wasn't being a complete ass about it. Unlike Asher.

He sighed and started looking for his own shoes. "Would you just stop? You're being a jerk." When Asher didn't reply, Ray figured he was finally listening. Fully dressed a moment later, he went to join Asher at the door.

"I guess in a way that's kinda comforting. You still being you. You could try not being you though, in a nice way. I'm still reeling here. I'm still process-- Asher?" Ray's mouth slowly dropped as he stared at a frozen no-longer-former vampire, lifting a hand tentatively to move it in front of his face. "What..."

Asher stood, still as a statue, for a moment longer before moving again, reanimating just in time to walk right into the hand in front of his face.

"What the hell is your problem?!" he hissed, batting Ray's hand out of the way. And how the fuck did he end up right there, dressed, as fast as he did?

The gasp caught in his throat, the offending hand covering a cough as Ray regained his composure.

"Oh my God, that was me?" Was it him? Or was it some freaky side-effect of Asher's newly regained vampirism?

Ray figured there was only one way to find out, so instead of stepping out of Asher's way, he lifted both hands and started flicking them at the other man in attempt to freeze him again.

"Have you lost your damn mind?" Asher asked, shoving Ray away. He knew the vampire thing would be a shock to him, but he hadn't expected it to completely short circuit the other man's brain.

Well, that wasn't a kind.

"Have you lost yours?" He exclaimed, rubbing his chest and propping himself up against the wall to keep his balance. The fact that he thought he'd just frozen time took a back seat for a moment. "You shove me, you break me, asshole."

"Then don't give me a reason to," He replied. It didn't seem like a terribly difficult concept to grasp. This was Ray, though.

Before Ray had another chance to do something strange and Asher was forced to react accordingly, he pushed the open and stepped out into the sun. His eyes immediately squinted against the harsh light, and hadn't completely adjusted before he started walking. He'd feel his way around blind, if he had to. Whatever it took to put some distance between himself and Ray.

Ray glared hard at Asher as he walked away, furrow deepening between his eyes. Gone was the concern for Asher's well-being. If anything, he hoped to see wisps of smoke billowing from the man's shoulders any moment.

There was a split second of hesitation before he yelled after him. "You sound just like my Pop!"

It was the exact sort of thing he used to hear his father hissing to his Ma when he was sat at the top of the stairs in his pajamas, listening to the endless arguments. Sometimes he'd go down the next morning and his Ma would've gotten out her good make-up...

With a hard push, Ray slammed the door behind Asher and stayed inside, seething quietly. He didn't have to put up with being spoken to like that.

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For Ray

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