* POP !

ASHDUDES: idk tell me 

ASHDUDES : anybody have a good joke?

ASHER: you and me are texas bound. grab ur things! it'll be great. seeing u will cheer noah up so much :-) see u in 25 mins x

while he might not have always been thinking things entirely through, he wasn’t an insensitive person. on one hand he understood the question but on the other in his mind it was as simple as the fact that noah had said yes. asher took things literally, even if he might not have been an ever present force then when he said things he meant them and he would always come through in the end. he actually took a moment to turn over everetts words, “i don’t know but it doesn’t really matter. she can yell at me if it makes her feel better,” he shrugs it off, the thought not concerning him in general. the mention of lafayette takes him back to the previous encounter. “dunno. maybe. but me and him can get along,” just like he got along with everyone... it was a narrow view of the situation lacking greater understanding even if he had felt empathetic and hurt by the way the other had seen himself previously. wasn’t all that laid to rest? “we can both be in one place together. at the end of the day we’re probably going to exist in each others lives for a long time. i don’t get why it’d be a problem. i like laff and it’s good if he’s there for noah.” 

sliding on his jacket as he zipped up his holdall, “well, she was really mad at me... i think... because i didn’t notice that she left when we were building that big school. so i said i could go to texas and i guess now i’m going to go to texas because actions speak louder than words, right?” he looked at his brother, “i definitely want to go,” so why did it seem like a recipe for disaster?

his brain was sometimes the equivalent of little cartoon birds flying around in circles except way less dizzying. he laughs at the question mainly because the way it’s phrased but he actually gives it some consideration, “well, i have been told that i can be kinda slow... sometimes i don’t get what people are talking about,” he muses without any negativity attached, no hurt feelings or upset. asher was well equipped to deal with the ways he sometimes lacked and there were odd occasions when he understood better what was going on around him. he didn’t have a lot of smarts but he did have some common sense. “you’ve been on your own a long time?” he didn’t really get what the context of the comment was but happily mulling along, “that’s it. you can make sure i don’t get lost. my supervisor for the day. i promise i won’t be too annoying. if i am then you can yell at me. i’m an amazing target for yelling,” he assures. he sure did get shouted at a lot by pretty much every woman he’d had the opportunity to meet on this trip.

“you’ve never asked that and you’ve been here more than once? dude, that is so disappointing. that’s like a freaking crime,” he joked, a wide smile still on his face. sometimes asher was truly in a world of his own but at least it was a good one. “what’s your favourite snack? that you can get here obviously. don’t say something they don’t have because then i’ll start wanting it and have to cry when i can’t have it.” 

“you really think so?” he was practically beaming, impressed with himself and ready to find everett to beg him to take a video to send back home. he wasn’t a rude person though and listening to ramona, he still grinned brightly trying to figure out what they had been talking about. plants. he actually knew a little about plants although he wasn’t sure what the question had been. “i like plants. especially cacti... although i did only find out that man eating cow plants don’t actually exist a few months ago. it was a life changing moment.”

ASHER: yeah

“eh,” like water off a ducks back, the comment about delusional doesn’t really get taken into consideration with him as he continues looking at her. the reaction doesn’t really shock him and luckily for gertie, despite being sensitive, he had nothing going on in terms of his ego so he wasn’t overthinking her response. “oh,” he said, an entertained look on his face because although he might have been a little dumb most of the time, he could tell something different was going on. “you don’t get crushes? not ever,” he asks, prompting even further, clearly finding the whole thing funny. “i’ve had like a hundred crushes. i can’t believe you’ve never even had one,” he raised an eyebrow, tapping his elbow as he stepped a little closer, “are you telling lies to me? that’s pretty mean you know, gertie, i’m a bit gullible.”

ASHER: do u want me to come to texas?

he liked that they could agree on that, or at least on something, not that it would have deterred him from making conversation if not. “trouble?” well, he’d certainly been in his fair share of trouble mainly inadvertently over the weeks that he’d been in hawaii but none of it had been serious or really involved any dire consequences besides being yelled at by other people. things back then had been complicated and yet more simple, he’d felt like he had more of a grip on his own existence in a sense but now here he was and he was starting afresh, trying to figure out a new spot in the student body. “red ones?” he liked red, how could he refuse such an offer? “bet!” he jumped up immediately to follow wherever she was going in the hopes of his mission being completed. “i’ll totally hang out with you and go searching,” he was already imagining how good it’d be when they found them. “but i’m just warning you, i can’t read maps and my phone always dies so i can’t be the navigation man. i can’t be trusted.”

“can’t it be both?” he asked with a lingering grin as he bounded in the direction they were headed in. it was simple really when it came to asher, if you were a person in his life then he’d follow you anywhere without question. he didn’t really even need to know where he was going because as long as it was with mel then he knew that things would be just great like always. even with the huge amount of time that he had spent out of the loop, he still thought of his friendships the same way. for asher, things never really changed and he still turned up with the same joy in his heart for those he cared about (occasionally even those he barely knew). “you know, it’s so good to get time to hang out again. it reminds me of being on the ss. things were so different then but sometimes i miss it,” that was the honest truth. even if things had been chaotic, he often still missed the strange and funny memories that he had made and the people he had met like troy and duckie who had added something extra to his life.

whatever gertie had been putting out there for the past few weeks or longer, asher hadn’t been picking up. despite that upon seeing her responding to him, “maybe everything is amazing. non-stop amazing-ness,” he was cheery about it, a grin on his face. he wasn’t the smartest guy in the world but he also knew that he was an optimist, that he saw the best in things until it was impossible to do so or his emotions became too overwhelming to see past. swinging around to stand in front of her holding the strap of his satchel (which was filled with textbooks about rock types), “hey, just wondering... am i your crush now?” he asked rather pointedly, a completely dumb and not very expectant look on his face.

ASHER: i'd like it if u did come back but you have to do whatever is right for u