(Untitled)

[ash_threesocks]

There's something to be said for the power of guilt.

Ash has been wandering about as himself ever since Stacie's funeral and every night he can't sleep for a good hour because all he thinks about are the people who might have thought of him as whoever he was playing that week and genuinely believed him. And what for? It's not like they had money

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[jill_langston]

"You asshole."

The words were spoken quietly and, to be perfectly honest, Jill hadn't intended on saying anything at all. She'd seen the file on the bulletin board and as far as she could tell, this man who wasn't really Roger May wasn't worth a second of her time. Not when he'd lied to her so freely.

She'd lost so many people on the island already, but not like this. Never like this.

[ash_threesocks]

Ash lets the cigarette dangle between his lips for a long moment before he takes it out and looks her over, figuring that she knows. How? He doesn't know. It's not like he's pretending anymore, but it's also not like he's been shouting it from the rooftops. "I'm not going to bother saying anything past I'm sorry, because I doubt you'll even take that one from me," he says, voice rougher than before.

[jill_langston]

"I don't really believe you give a shit, because you got absolutely nothing out of lying to me in the first place," Jill snapped, wishing she'd just had the sense to walk away the second she'd caught sight of him. "I know you lost your friend recently and I'm very sorry you had to go through that. No one should have to."

The comment was pointed and for a moment she almost felt guilty about making it, but it still stood. She'd been through death and island disappearances, but this had been willful deceit.

[ash_threesocks]

He has to know this next part and he lets her words sink in slightly (more than slightly, they push deep and keep going). "How'd you find out?" he finally asks, seeing as he doesn't see Danny or Luck telling a soul about who he really is and they're about the only ones left outside of that Moist bloke he knew through Danny who knows who Ash Morgan really is.

[jill_langston]

She didn't owe him anything at all. If she'd turned around and walked away in that moment and let him suffer through never knowing, she doubted anyone would blame her.

"There was a police file on the bulletin board, Ash," she answered, pointedly saying his name. His real name. It was difficult to not call him Roger, but she refused to let herself make that mistake. "I read it."

[ash_threesocks]

Ash just takes another long inhalation of a cigarette and tries to think of what'd be in there. The bar brawl, most definitely, seeing as that's the only arrest he's undergone. But they put all his questionings in, so there's likely to be hints at what he is.

So of course she knows. "I didn't know it was there," he admits heavily. "So you know I'm a grifter, then." She's a smart woman, she can read and intuit.

[jill_langston]

"I know you lied to me for no reason that I can figure out," Jill answered, because she honestly didn't care what he'd done before arriving on the island. "I know you conned people and frankly, that's not what pisses me off. People do a lot of shit for money, but I had nothing to give to you. You had nothing to take from me."

And he'd still managed to take something from her in the end.

[ash_threesocks]

"We don't always con just for money," Ash knows there's no point in explaining, that it'll sound worse. "I guess I got caught up in doing it just to see if I could. It was more than Roger. Christ, he's just the last. And the only one who actually had a friend." Past tense, he can see that much.

[jill_langston]

"Is that supposed to make it better, Ro--" She stopped abruptly, her teeth clicking together as she shut her mouth harder than she'd intended.

Giving herself a moment, Jill drew in a slow, deep breath, then looked at Ash again. "Our friendship was the last in a long line of bullshit lies just so you could prove to yourself that you hadn't lost the touch. I liked you. I actually looked forward to going down to the radio to see if you were around and the whole time, you weren't even a real person."

[ash_threesocks]

"No, I wasn't," Ash agrees with that, his curiosity about his file starting to get the better of him, but she doesn't owe him anything and that's patently clear. "Ash Morgan. I'm divorced, a fixer for a London crew, I've got pre-existing damage in my brain from a bar brawl and I used it to work the flop before I started back on the long con."

[jill_langston]

"I know," Jill answered simply at first, crossing her arms defensively over her chest. She'd read about his con, she'd read about how he'd stepped out in front of moving cars and as utterly ridiculous as she thought that was, it wasn't the part that hurt.

"Did you ever feel the slightest bit guilty about lying to me?" she asked finally. "About trying to be friends with me when you were giving me nothing?"

[ash_threesocks]

"Christ, I felt guilty all the time," Ash protests immediately, flicking away the ashes of his cigarette away from her and giving her an incredulous look. "Just because I'm a criminal doesn't mean I'm heartless. By the time I'd met you, I was deep into Roger May. And before that was Bill Waters."

[jill_langston]

"Then why? If you felt so damn guilty all the time, why did you bother?" Jill asked, because she still didn't understand. It made no sense to want to do something like that just to be able to do it. It made even less sense to imagine that he felt guilty about it.

[ash_threesocks]

"Why do policeman continue their work here? Carpenters join the building crew? Grifting's what I know," Ash says, not taking his eyes off her as he takes another long drag. "Pretending to be something I'm not is my lifeblood, just like you're a scientist and others are doctors and lawyers and politicians."

[jill_langston]

Jill just shook her head at that, because being a scientist and being a liar weren't the same thing. "You shouldn't have let him have any friends," she said finally, forcing herself to look up and meet his gaze. To hold it, no matter how badly it hurt. "I liked him an awful lot, you know, and you just took him away."

[ash_threesocks]

"He's not gone utterly," Ash protests and doesn't want to be too loud about it because he was in the wrong, at least...in the illegal at least. "I never make something that strays too far from who I am. So yes, his background's gone and I won't spout crap psychology, but I'm still the same man at the root. You play what you know."