Precious Babygirl

He can’t guess exactly what’s going through her mind, but he recognizes the upward pull at the corner of her mouth and he knows there’s some of him in her head. That sick sense of humor, usually unwanted but good for situations like this. It wasn’t much that could get you through the pain but sometimes a perverted or dark joke helped you see to the other side. Like a light at the end of a long tunnel.

Sniffling, a too long sleeve swiping over his eyes, he shakes the laughter from his mouth and leans back to focus his gaze on the tiles of the ceiling. “Who made it? ..Jess.. Sam.. Chris?” He cared about the others but not as much.. Jessica made the list for reasons all his own, one of few secrets he had been able to keep from them all. A private little piece of something that had been all his own. He hadn’t had to share her and he wasn’t about to now.. But Mike had said.. But Jessica had been only one who was supposed to be untouched. She was his fuck you to Mike. Man, I’ve been fucking your girl on the sly.. She had been the only one who came to him after.. Cried her heart out and begged, Begged, for forgiveness. 

She had been the only one who had admitted their fault. 

In a way, it was an easier question to answer than some of the others she’d imagined he’d ask. “Josh-- you didn’t... you didn’t kill them. They all made it down.” Without him, much to her short-lived shock and horror. Abandoning their attacker had become sadly understandable once the gang got to explaining to the police and paramedics what had happened. Sympathy for Josh plummeted like bad stock once those stories got out---- worse than any horror movie because it’d been real. He’d really chased Sam around-- SAM! of all people. Tied her up in nothing but a towel, left her locked up somewhere to stew in the worst fears every young woman was raised with. Rumor had it what he’d done to Chris had left his best friend an inpatient somewhere not too different from this place.

Everything was a mess and the memory of the girls-- what it had done to Josh... it wasn’t enough to wipe his slate clean. At least not from what she was hearing at home. The usual bout of affluenza wasn’t going to be enough this time either. And that was all before they touched on what the news was reporting as either a bout of stress or drug induced hysteria-- Monsters on the Mountain; featuring Josh Washington himself as the head Monster. Charlotte believes and yet... it’s that doubt-riddled belief and acceptance of things one thinks might be possible, all the while desperately wanting to see and experience for herself. It’s Josh, after all. He’s more than capable of rigging together mountain monsters--- he DID rig them up... just, not ALL of them.

He laughs until he begins to cough, which has his hands searching for the little remote that raises the top of the bed. Once he’s properly upright and caught his breath he’s back to grinning at her. Even if it hurts. He refuses to give into the pain or even wonder why he feels the taut stretch of stitches cutting up towards his temple. Fuck that noise. 

“Missed you too.” It’s a soft quip, one he honestly means, as if he hadn’t seen her in awhile, it almost feels like he hasn’t. Even though he knows the truth. It hadn’t been so long since he took the gang back onto the mountain. But it was the first time in a while there weren’t whispers from behind him or shadows darting just out of sight. It’s nice, sure, yet it leaves him numb and raw to everything that’s happened within the last year. Fuck. And now he’s crying. A fact he only realizes once his vision of Charlotte blurs. 

“How many?”

Josh’s newly lopsided grin didn’t bother her one whit---- a lie she thought to be mostly true. Charlotte was too much Daddy’s girl to think scars ugly. In her father’s home time’s wrinkles were celebrated and often much envied for the tales they told. Scars were precious keepsakes, as valuable as all the gold and diamonds in her jewelry chests. The fresh red lines that extend Josh’s smile into a proper rictus only hurt (her) because there must have been pain in their making and that---- well, that, is a proper tragedy, if only because Josh has been dealt that so much already. Why that mountain has it in for him, she doesn’t know--- but she’ll be damned if it ever gets it’s claws into him again...

It’s so sad that she doesn’t know what to do with it; except suddenly understand whole chapters of her Daddy’s life. She doesn’t want it. Neither the sadness nor the knowing.

Then, unbidden, come to mind all the replies that prove Charlotte’s spent too much time around him, from Crossroads to UCLA, her prissy pink wit tainted by Josh’s brand of TERRIBLE humor. How many what? Licks to the center of a tootsie roll pop? Or better yet, a limerick only Josh could think up right on the spot---- a power he’s infected with over one too many shared days. How many asses would an asshole haul, if an asshole could haul ass?

That was a loaded question if he’s ever heard one. No, he hadn’t been faking but now that he had joined the land of the living.. He wasn’t sure it was something he was looking forward to. Being awake seemed more trouble than it was worth. But Charlotte was there and she would demand his attention one way or another. Silly, spoiled brat that she is. He almost loved her for it. Never changing who she was. Sure she grew up, she matured but like him.. He had mostly remained true to himself. 

Of course, she wasn’t off her rocker insane, so it wasn’t like people lined up demanding she make a change. 

After a steadying breath he peeks out at her, amused to see her pout surrounded by a cloud of pale fluff and rosy cheeks. Good. She hadn’t gone to seed over him. It hurts his jaw and his cheek but he smiles. “Looking good, Gray.” He pushes himself up a little straighter but most keeps himself still so the machine he’s attached to doesn’t give them away. “Shame to waste it all on me.” What’s a real shame is that he discreetly glances around, hoping to see anyone else there, maybe even his parents. Funny. How it still disappoints him. Whatever. Same thing, different day. Neither one of them had shown up since that very first time he was committed. 

Whatever. He’s fine. 

“Missed me, Lottie?” 

Having been reminded of what she should never have forgotten to begin with---- namely that the nurses and orderlies of Josh’s ward were just hard-working underpaid people, Charlotte confined herself to the lone visitor’s chair at his bedside and stifled all the varied impulses his stupid face brought on. Naturally, Josh opened his mouth and did what he could to break the short streak of her good behavior. It was only so many days ago that she would have been able to quip back without hesitation--- name-dropping Mike as the real reason for her push-up bra’s existence, or blaming her lack of panties (ha! as if!) on a date with Matt after...

Now she stutters through failing wit--- trying hard and failing to keep the boys’ battered visages from her mind’s eye while in front of Josh. How verboten would they be now, after all he had planned and done to them? Did he even know? “Yeah, well... somebody’s gotta get this General  Hospital porn parody on the road... lazy.”

“Cutting it a little close, Gray.” He retorts half heartedly. It wasn’t like he had made any plans of his own. He’d be partying with his sisters, spending the week either at home or in the city. He liked being in charge of his own events but it wasn’t like he hadn’t been invited to two point five hundred other shindigs.   “Very much doubt you’d like Mexico though. Well, when the frat boys and girls gone wild have taken over. It’s crowded and you can’t get nearly was wasted as you want. At least not safely.”

“Today on a very special episode of,” Charlotte drawled sarcastically, hazel eyes rolled in faux-annoyance at the parental act from Josh. Beneath the outer layer of sass though, she was sincerely touched that his big-brother instincts included her. She knew he had a point, some young and rowdy crowds were safer than others, and privileged white boys on a party streak in another country? That was potentially as bad as it could get. Still, she was determined to get the FULL college experience. Keggers and benders included.

He had known she’d be mad, he had intentionally kept her blind and deaf in the face of his downward spiral and the plan to hurt his friends like they had hurt his sisters. Of course she’d be mad. She was the only one who truly got him, who usually saw pass the bullshit to the heart of Joshua Washington. But he couldn’t let her get pulled down into the grim with him. She was too.. He had to keep her safe from himself and the terrors on the mountain. 

God forbid they got up there and he had lost her too. He’d have burnt the world if another person had been snatched from him. 

So her anger he could weather, like a storm that built and built until it exploded dangerously with rolling lightning and booming thunder. He could wait until she calmed down, until she forgave him. A few weeks, maybe a few months. He had had a plan for when he returned home. 

He hadn’t foreseen the wendigos. The death. Hannah. He hadn’t known he’d be one of the mountain’s victims or maybe he wouldn’t have planned any of it. Or maybe he would have brought hell to them at home. The past was filled with maybes and what ifs. He couldn’t change any of that now. But he could still let Charlotte work out her anger. Except he miscalculated that as well. She’s enraged and though he’s never seen her feeling such an extreme emotion he realizes there’s no way it’s going to sooth out anytime soon. He had done a stupid thing. He deserved her punishment. He deserved a lot of punishment. 

“Ow. Ow! Hey!” He’s snapped from his thoughts, that finger jabbing him causing him to whimper. “Stab wound!” It’s only then he recalls Ashley stabbing him, the drugs were apparently doing at least half their job. 

And then.. He feels the ache in his mouth and cheek, the dull numbness that makes him try to jerk his hand up again. “Fuck.” He doesn’t have time to fuss, they’re being interrupted and he’s distracted by telling off orderlies and nurses. But it’s the shadow of another man that settles the room and he glances in time to see Charlotte’s dad and he wonders just how much involvement he had in bringing him home. 

He’s laughing again, tears hot in his eyes. “They didn’t even fucking try to find me, did they?”

Visually speaking Charlotte was a dainty girl, most often seen done up as a walking, talking, doll. Pink was her favorite color, and for her the rainbow was made of pastel shades. First impressions of her tended to be that she was dainty; a soft cloud of cute patterns and candy colored hair-- a girly girl. Given just a pinch of time though, that impression was rarely one that lasted. What she looked like and what she was actually like were two wholly different beasts-- she didn’t really agree with that sentiment, but she understood that was how other people perceived it. Simpletons. As if the paleness of red that transformed it into pink was any gauge for whether or not a girl had been taking Krav Maga lessons since the age of twelve. Insert eye-roll HERE.

The fight she put up upon having hands laid on her was no soft fragile thing. She kicked and spit, and delayed in using her hands to do some real damage only because she needed to keep a grip on Josh. All for naught the moment her father steps into the room, his presence somehow enough to enforce quiet. It gave Josh room to understand more than any of them meant for him to-- but also it provided an opening for an eagle-eyed nurse to grab his IV line and push a sedative. Charlotte was still on him when the drug stole the light from his eyes, lids fluttering within a minute... then he was slack beneath her and there was no longer a point in fighting.

If there were words addressed to her while she disentangled herself and tried to return to her seat-- failing when she was barred from it by an orderly, she barely knew it. It was enough that her father was there, he’d listen for her and relay the important pieces, if there were any, back to her later. More likely though he wouldn’t relay anything and simply spread his money around until any and all complaints about her behavior were silenced. For her part, Charlotte became a stroppy unruly child, letting her expression scream loud volumes of her discontent with everyone involved. Arms crossed over her chest, feet stomping childishly as she exited the room, she lingered in the hall and wondered just how far they intended to keep her from Josh... and for how long?

The answer was that she had to be carried out, sedated herself and fast asleep in her father’s arms while he and her mother worked what little legal magic they could. She only began to understand just how dire things were when her father did indeed relay rules, hard-set and unyielding, conditions for returning to her best friend’s side. Three days later, there she was, slipping in some ten minutes before official visiting hours-- they could kiss her ass, she’d been a spoiled brat all her life, she wasn’t going to stop now.

It’s a crushing, tangled mess he finds himself waking to. The entire world around him a grey, fuzzy brightness that makes him groan. He tries to move away from it, tries to roll over but he finds he can’t. Which makes him panic, red hot, like a scorching iron branding the base of his spine. It effects him in two ways. Everything becomes clearer, his vision finally focusing so he could take in his surroundings and then he begins to remember. 

Like a flash. 

Which makes him laugh. It’s a hoarse sound to his ears, pained and raspy. He wonders if he had spent the first few days in the hospital screaming or crying. Maybe both. His memory isn’t complete yet but there’s those flashes. A black butterfly tattoo. Screeching. Wet tearing. Crunching. It’s all.. A wondrous blur. He isn’t sure he wants to remember anything else. He had enough fuel for his nightmares as it were. 

Once more he tries to move, a test to see if he’s bond to the bed like he believes he is. When his hand doesn’t reach his nose, to scratch an itch that’s bothering him, he looks down at his wrist and frowns. 

“What not like I’m going to eat a nurse.” He murmurs and turns his attention to scanning the room. No parents. [ Duh. ] But there’s a girl curled into a chair at his bedside, he smiles to see two weeks of roots and lavender and a cloud of fluff. “Hey good lookin’.. What’cha got cooking?”

“Shh! Shh! FOR FUCK’S SAKE, JOSHUA!” Hissed whispers, as loud as a voice could get while still qualifying as hushed, that was Charlotte’s own as Josh fought his way back to consciousness. There was an agreement between herself and the nurses on duty, that she’d report to them if he seemed like he was waking, but she’d be damned if she kept her word! The last thing she wanted was a flock of them rushing in to push a button and send him back under.-- not before she had a stern word with his stupid ass.

There was an impulse in her then to hop out of that chair and sit on him when he started laughing; to clamp a hand over his mouth until he was still and quiet, but she reasoned that was more likely to draw attention and stayed put; hazel eyes rolling when finally Josh emerged from his fit and let a bad pick-up line fall out of his mouth. It’s the most him thing ever, but Charlotte’s in no mood for laughs and Josh’s brand of bad cover for his problems. It was one thing to look the other way after his sisters’ passing, when he made an effort to fool them all with his stumbling recovery, drowning his problems in vodka and deafening himself to his own pain at loud parties-- maybe it wasn’t the best way for a person to handle things but grief was an awful thing and she was rarely a judge. He’d fooled her too, sprinkling his bad habits with just enough fake heart-to-heart chats about his feelings that she didn’t see what he was hiding-- an insane plot for borderline criminal revenge. It was another thing entirely for him to ask with his bad jokes that she keep looking away and stay blind to his flaws.

She’s taken personal offense at having been left out, because yeah, maybe she would have tried to talk sense into him but when that didn’t work she’d have been his assistant and alibi. Now there were wrongful death suits waiting for him, charges brewing every second-- an army of angry parents, cops, and lawyers waiting for answers on both sides of the border trying to figure out how to make him pay. And what was she supposed to do? Let them take him away from her a second time?

“You. Asshole. YOU UTTER FUCKING PRICK!” The dam breaks, for all that she’s tried to reinforce it, there’s no helping the wave of mixed up churned together emotions that overwhelm her in the face of his habit to smooth over everything and act like nothing’s wrong. That was bullshit. EVERYTHING was wrong, prompting her to punctuate her every syllable with a stab of her finger right into his shoulder. Bad idea. They’ve been too loud, there are people coming, but she doesn’t care, she’s going to make him see what he’s done to her. (fuck what he’s done to everyone else, they were irrelevant). “You were just going to leave me like that?! Huh?! YOU WERE JUST GOING TO LEAVE WITH NO GOODBYE?!”

If her life were truly a fairy tale, she supposes, it would have been her strapped into climbing and spelunking gear and marching right into the old mines to drag out her Prince Charming. Instead, it was the handiwork of braver stronger men than she, all paid for and intimidated by her darling Daddy-- that last bit, of course, on account of the first group that had taken the mission and run out of the mines screaming and down a man. Charlotte imagines that in her fantasy silver-screen adaptation of the horror shit-show her life had become, that would be the moment when she made a brave speech about love and fighting while strapping on a hardhat with a headlamp on it.

In the real world she hadn’t even gotten to lay eyes on Josh until he was transported back to the states and admitted at UCLA Medical. Lest she try anything brave or stupidly romantic, Daddy had taken away her passport and all of her credit cards except one-- forbidding her to set foot in Canada, or get anywhere near Blackwood Mountain. She had sulked like a child then, reminding her father through tears and ugly pain that adults like him were not to be trusted, that they had given up on Hannah and Beth a year ago and she wouldn’t stand for the same to happen again-- this time to Josh. Darling Daddy, the true hero of the tale. He’d taken the battering and flown away to bring back her dearest friend. He hadn’t failed her.

If she deducted points from his heroics for siding with doctors and lawyers and keeping her away from Josh’s bedside for the week or so that it took to... whatever... sedate him? Well. Charlotte wouldn’t let Daddy know.