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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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.

"I will," Ray started indignantly, the last word drawn out in his surprise at not being able to finish the sentence with 'not'. He hoped Asher got that it was a reluctant agreement.

"Fine, but before I zip it," he moved his hand to the side of his face, so he could continue walking without tripping over, "think of an activity we can do where I'm quiet and can keep my eyes closed. Looking at you makes me want to say things."

"Pin the tale on the donkey," Asher offered. Ray never said anything about offering up a good activity. "With a gag."

Ray took a moment before answering to make sure his tongue didn't run away with him. Asking which one of them would be the donkey probably wasn't the best response.

After a long beat, he replied: "How about we nap. I could do with sleeping off my residual rage."

"That's almost as juvenile as my suggestion," he said, but he didn't dismiss the idea. "I'm not sure I want to get into bed with a guy who's harboring residual rage that's related to me."

"You could make an exception for me," Ray replied, then nodded into the distance as Danica's outdoor lounger came into view. "We could do it in public. That'll keep you safe."

"You know better than anyone that time of day doesn't matter. You've never been to a crime scene in the middle of the day?" Despite all of that, Asher still followed. The only thing he was semi-worried about was Danica happening by, but he'd deal with that when/if it happened.

"You're armed. I'm not. I'd say that gives you the advantage." Not that Asher would need to use the gun. Ray might kick every now and then in his sleep but he wasn't about to unconsciously strangle the man. "And I have. Been to a crime scene in the middle of the day." Obviously; but he still felt compelled to point it out.

"I know," he answered. The only way Ray wouldn't have seen one was if he'd been fighting the good fight by riding a desk back home for the CPD, which Asher doubted was the case.

"Great." It was clear which part of his last comment Ray thought Asher was agreeing with, especially when he reached out and caught one of Asher's fingers with his own to pull him the rest of the way to the daybed.

"Then you also know there's nothing to pretend to be scared of," he finished, brushing a leaf off the bed with his free hand.

"Not true." As long as the both of them still didn't have full control over what came out of their mouths then there was plenty for him to be scared of.

A puff of laughter came out Ray's nose. "I'm not gonna attack you while we sleep, Asher, residual rage or no." With a look of exasperated amusement, he added, "You waitin' for me to put you onto this bed with me? Because I'm down with manhandling, so I will." He squeezed Asher's finger a little tighter as proof, wrapping his own around a few more so he had a better hold.

"You have a strange idea of foreplay," Asher said as he took a seat on the edge of the bed. "And I'm not worried about that. I could take you without the gun."

"As long as knees are banned too, I'd like to see you try," Ray half smirked, wincing in his head at bad memories, as he dropped down on the bed as well.

Shucking off his jacket, he leaned back onto his elbows and looked out at the trees, sucking in a long breath only to release it with a sigh. He was still avoiding looking Asher directly in the eye.

"You shouldn't be worried about saying stuff." Whatever criticisms Asher might have about him or his behavior to date, Ray hoped that he'd be mature enough to take them and deal with them. "This is the one time you get to say exactly what you want, one hundred percent the truth, with an excellent excuse at the end of it."

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