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The sky circles clear overhead, sunlight burning in his unadjusted eyes. His heart pounds twice-fast against his ribs, and the caustic taste of poison lingers in his throat. Consciousness returns sharply, more sudden than waking, a cold reintroduction to existence. He lays flat on his back, squinting at the sky, unsure if his legs could hold him up if he tried to stand. The Country. This must be the Country.
Asher takes a deep breath and pushes himself up, takes his first good look around. Tries not to focus on anything but the present, with the past threatening to overwhelm. Golden wheat stretches across to the horizon, where it meets the edge of a bright blue sky. Sunlight comes down warm on his shoulders. It's— beautiful. Organic in a way Cloudbank never was. But there are other things on his mind than beauty, and he looks around frantically. If this is the Country, then the others should be here, he should be here—
"Asher?" A familiar voice, and a fireworks show of relief igniting in him. He whirls around, gazing up at an equally familiar face. Smiles breathlessly, caught up in the moment. Grant doesn't match it, his face more stunned than Asher thinks he's ever seen it. "What happened?" The tone of it makes it sound like Grant's already coming to the right conclusion. Asher throws his arms around him in lieu of a response, buries his face into his chest and clutches the back of his jacket. Warmth. Something he never thought he'd feel again, for a while. Grant reciprocates the hug, surprised.
"I'm here," Asher says, dodging the question. If he tried to answer he thinks he would just choke up. The ice-cold shock of terror at finding Grant earlier, slumped on the floor with a glass by his hand. The empty certainty in his decision, and the mechanical motion of the action. These things don't bear explanation, and he knows Grant can guess anyways.
Grant looks stricken. "I never wanted this. Not for Cloudbank and not for you. You shouldn't have done this, Asher, you still had a chance to—" Grant trails off, realizing that there were no real chances. Nothing they could have done could have stopped the Process. "And so did you. This is remarkably better than the alternative, from my end." A maybe not easy but quick death, as opposed to being left alone to face the Process, or Red, or innumerable other dangers. Better for it to be at his own hand, at his own will, and to be here rather than alone. Grant can't argue with that, and he breaks eye contact, guilt written in the lines on his face— and Asher always was able to read him like a book at times, wasn't he? "I'm sorry."
"There wasn't a choice." Any other comforts would be false, he thinks. Nothing he could say could fix anything, though he might try. Asher stands on his toes to press a soft kiss to Grant's cheek. "Don't be harsh on yourself," he murmurs, and even as he says it he doubts he'll be able to follow his own advice. Hypocritical, perhaps, to try and give Grant some peace of mind when he knows it's something he'll never have again. Perhaps wrong as well; he knows they've earned their guilt a thousand times over. Grant seems to think him a hypocrite as well, brushing a stray hair back behind his ear, caressing his cheek with the back of his hand. "You should take your own advice, you know." Asher leans into the touch, savors that which he thought for a while he'd lost.
Silence hangs between them for a moment, words falling short of expression. It'll take a while to get used to the idyllic quiet of the Country relative to Cloudbank's dissonant clashing of city noise. He breaks the silence with a sudden thought. "We should find Sybil," he says, reluctant to end the moment. But the idea spikes new worry; would she be here? They all saw what happened to her, torn apart and remade by the Process acting as mechanical gods. Would that affect her arrival in the Country? The thought sends his stomach churning.
"Good idea," Grant says, and like that their emotions are put on hold. There will be time enough for that later, and everything else besides. But for now, there's still work to be done. Asher steps back and takes Grant's hand, holding tight as he can, almost clinging to it. Presses himself close to Grant's side. The Country is a big place; the search could take a while. But then, it seems as if they've got all the time in the world.