speakscanadian | [truth plot] Asher

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[truth plot] Asher

In all his time on the island, this was the first that Ray had stood within the orchard overlooking the garden. He'd needed a quiet place to think, where he wouldn't risk questions coming at him left, right and centre. After badgering Danica for twenty minutes in the morning, he'd made the nasty discovery that he too was a pawn in the island's antics today. The trees provided the kind of cover he needed.

Not that he was hiding. He wasn't the one that had been hiding anything.

Groaning when he realised he was still thinking about it, Ray tipped his head back and took a deep breath. Overhanging leaves filled his vision, all fresh and bursting with color. It was pretty depressing, considering how he was feeling inside.

Asher had bitten Stephen and he'd shot a bear. The words had come out of his own mouth. And still he'd lied about Rorshach, despite those confessions. Granted, Ray and he hadn't been on the best of terms back then, but he had had every opportunity to come clean since.

Maybe he shouldn't have been surprised. Maybe deep down he'd known all along and had decided it wasn't a big enough deal to stop him getting closer to Asher. If that was the case, then it was all on Ray.

Dropping his head, he walked aimlessly amongst the trees towards the pathway. He'd spent most of his life relying on his hunches but it had only taken one man, this man, to stop him doing what he did best. Instinct was key to avoiding mistakes but Ray had stopped listening to his. He'd thought he'd been following it when he'd brushed aside his uncertainties and let himself fall for Asher but perhaps he'd hadn't. Maybe he'd been wrong. Maybe.

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"Great." For him, not so much for Ray, but that worked out just fine by Asher. "Save myself the bullet."

A crease formed between Ray's eyes. "I hope you're joking." Otherwise his opinion of Asher only using the gun when provoked was completely wrong.

"I hope you're joking." Unlike Ray, Asher didn't seemed compelled to just start spouting the truth randomly, and he wasn't going to dignify that with a proper answer unless forced to. Ray could believe what he wanted until then.

Kicking his foot in the dirt, Ray mumbled something unintelligible even to himself. The grumbling made him feel a little better though.

"Which one d'you...have the issue with," he began slowly, deciding to let it go. "The daylight, the public place or the sand?"

"Sand," Asher answered automatically. The public place and broad daylight thing were probably what other people were more likely to take issue with. "Smooth transition."

"Ahh..." Ray nodded to himself and wandered between the trees, looking back and waiting for Asher to follow. "You can still use sarcasm. That's interesting." And more than Ray could do.

"Is it just questions you can't avoid answering?"

"Yes...," Asher replied through gritted teeth. He'd been through this once before, but that didn't mean he liked it any better this time around.

He followed, but kept a few paces behind Ray to make getting away that much easier if it came to that.

"Whoo..." Ray whistled as if in sympathy, then pumped the air with a fist. "I have the powah."

Like all great superheroes, he would put that power to efficient use.

"Quick, what's your favorite color?"

"Blue. Stop it." Maybe he'd wind up having to use that bullet after all.

Ray turned and gave Asher a look. If he thought that was enough to stop him, he didn't know Ray very well. "But the power..."

His expression turned curious again and he walked backwards, slower.

"What did you think of me when we first met?"

"I thought you were an ass. A well-dressed one, but still." And abusing the current situation the way he was only served to prove the fact.

"Hey..." Ray didn't know anyone else that could offend and compliment at the same time so successfully. "Don't make me up the ante and ask the tough questions." That probably wouldn't be fun for either of them.

"You can ask me something if you want. I'm an open b--an open b--...I'm relatively honest. My favorite color's green."

"I've done this before... It doesn't end well. Granted, we've already slept together, so I'm not sure what else could happen." He was just sure that something would happen, and the chances of it ending well were pretty slim.

Despite it being a day for truths, Asher sure had a knack for making things more cryptic.

"Huh? What do you mean you've done this before?"

Was Ray meant to be having a deja vu? Because he wasn't.

"The forced honesty thing. It happened before." He did his best to block the experience out most days, but the current situation made that sort of impossible to keep up.

"No, I got that bit," Ray insisted, winding his hand in a circle. "But rewind please. What has us already having slept together got to do with anything?"

"I slept with someone I wish I hadn't and probably wouldn't have ordinarily the last time it happened." And he ended up hating that person's guts fairly quickly after that. Like the guy Asher had shot, he was gone, too. And good riddance to them both.

"Oh." It took a lot of restraint for Ray not to ask who it was and whether he knew them. Maybe he should have stuck with asking Danica about her brother's exes rather than hammering on about the creepy masked guy. It might have been more helpful.

"Alright. Okay, uh." He stopped in his tracks just shy of the pathway, palms out to stop Asher too. "It doesn't sound like you're gonna take advantage of the situation, so you're already a stronger man than I am," he admitted. "But neither of us want a bad experience, right, so how about this?" He waited a beat, then gave Asher a smile like he'd found the solution. "We don't ask each other questions."

"Sounds simple enough, in theory... but you're a cop. You made a living out of getting answers to questions, and now you've got sources that can't help but give you those answers." He'd already done a job on Danica, but Asher wasn't too worried about anything else she might have told him. How much worse could it have gotten when he'd already been told the truth about him shooting a guy?

"Stephen." Asher said, not prompted by the curse, but he could practically hear the gears in Ray's head turning. "Not my finest hour."

"I can try," Ray replied with a nonchalant shrug. It seemed that he was still able to lie with his body, because he didn't feel so confident inside. He turned away, starting along the path.

He wasn't sure if he was surprised by the Stephen revelation, but like Asher had said, there was no point worrying about people who were no longer there. It might have been a different story if he were though.

"Everybody makes mistakes." That was what he'd been planning to say anyway. What actually came out was: "I'd try almost anything for you."

The dirt on the path was met with saucer eyes, but Ray walked steadfastly on.

"Stop talking," Asher said once again. He really did have Ray's best interests in mind, since he hadn't said anything terribly damning himself thus far. And he preferred to keep it that way.

"I'm Italian," he replied, slowing a little but still averting his gaze. He didn't trust his tongue very much if he looked at Asher right now. "I was born to talk."

"Try," Asher urged with a slightly smug smile. "Make it one of those 'almost anything' things."

Looking over his shoulder, he quickly lifted a hand to hold in front of his eyes, blocking his view of Asher. It probably looked weird but it was better safe than sorry. "Do you realize how--" When he caught himself asking a question, he paused and rethought. "I hope you realize how much you're asking of me."

"You'll survive." But he wasn't convinced he'd be successful in keeping shut. Not because he was Italian, but just because he was Ray.

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