Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Ashley found Chris drunk—hunched over his knees between the couch and the coffee table—in his apartment on a Tuesday night.

The apartment was pitch black, but Chris didn’t seem to notice or care, not even looking up at the sound of her closing the door. She dropped her keys by the door with a loud clang that made him wince.

“What are you doing?” she asked wearily.

“Moping.”

She switched on the light. The coffee table was littered with empty beer bottles, but she doubted they were all from that night. He had a terrible habit of forgetting to take care of himself or his apartment. The dishes were already piling up from the last time someone checked on him, and there were takeout remains scattered across the apartment.

Ashley sighed and dropped beside him. His shoulder was warm against her cheek. “Anything specific?”

A moment of thick silence lingered between them. Ashley fiddled with her charm bracelet as she waited for Chris to do anything. The unforgiving lines of the wendigo—no matter how protective they were supposed to be—still haunted her as the thing rested against her wrist. Not for the first time, she wanted to chuck it far away from her and squeeze her eyes shut. She pressed it harder into her wrist instead.

Chris leaned subtly into her side but didn’t look up. “Do you think he died quick?”

Ashley’s fingers closed into a fist. “Stop doing this to yourself.”

“I should have gone back for him.”

“You did go back for him.”

“No. The second time. I should have gone with Mike.”

“If you’d done that, you’d probably be dead too.”

“Mike didn’t die.”

“And that was the best thing Josh ever did for him.”

Chris’ head snapped up at that, his face twisted in anger as he pulled away from her. The sudden cold stung more than it should have.

“What the fuck does that mean?” He spat.

Ashely considered backing off, and letting Chris wallow for another night, but the thought of him berating himself when he didn’t deserve it just made her knuckles whiten.

“It means Josh made his bed, and he’s lucky Mike tried to save him at all! He died knowing they tried, at least.”

“Josh was sick! We should have noticed before—”

“Before what?! Am I the only one who still remembers what he did to us?”

“Josh would never have hurt any of us!”

“Tell that to my black eye!”

“Josh is dead, and you’re still holding onto that?!”

“Josh put a gun to your head, and you don’t even care?!”

They’d risen to their feet at some point. Their voices were surely carrying to their neighbors, but Ashley was too frustrated to care.

“Josh needed us, and we weren’t there. Hell, we were the reason he fell apart in the first place.”

“Don’t start on that again. You were just as passed out as Josh, and he still tortured you!”

Chris scoffed and turned away from her. Ashley made a frustrated noise as he tripped over an empty bottle of whiskey.

“Maybe I should come back when you’re sober and seeing reason.”

Chris deflated and sank into the couch. “I’m not drunk. I just haven’t…cleaned in a while.”

Ashley crossed her arms. “Could have fooled me.”

“I don’t need to be drunk to miss my best friend, Ash!”

“He’s not worth it.”

Chris’ eyes were cold as ice when they met hers. “Out.”

***

Ashley tried not to think about her fight with Chris. She sent him their customary good morning and night texts, but they were brief and impersonal. Neither felt up to seeing the other yet, but it’d only been a few days. Chris would cool down, and they’d move on.

Life moved on regardless. Ashley refused to let her personal tragedies get in the way of that, which was why she was at the mall with Emily, who had invited her along earlier that day.

Emily sat them down in her favorite spot at the food court, a roll of fresh sushi laid primly for her to pick at with her chopsticks. Ashley poked at her pasta as Emily recounted her thoughts on the various shops and clothes they’d seen over the past two hours.

It all felt so normal that Ashley almost didn’t hear her when she said,

“I had another nightmare last night.”

Ashley had hoped to make it to the bookstore before the mountain came up.

“You doing ok?”

Emily shrugged. “Same old. Same old, y’know? Between the mines and the fire and Josh…” Emily choked out Josh’s name like it took real effort. “It was the prank this time. I dreamed that I was Hannah and Hannah was shouting after me as I ran out into that storm. ‘It’s just a prank, Em!’ I’m starting to really hate that phrase.”

Emily stabbed a bit of wasabi with her chopsticks and smeared it roughly onto her unagi.

“You have to stop doing this to yourself,” Ashley said. “It wasn’t our fault that Hannah—”

“Wasn’t it?”

Ashley was shocked into silence. Emily had an intense look on her face unlike anything Ashley had seen from her. At least, not about this.

“It’s not the same for you. You were barely more than a bystander that night. I practically planned the whole thing. And for what? Because I can’t stand the fact that other girls notice what a catch my boyfriend is? God, I just…I keep thinking about last year.”

“Last year wasn’t on you either.”

“Yeah yeah,” Emily dismissed with a wave of her hand. “I know about the prank and Josh and stuff. Sam told me all the gory details, but I’m not talking about that.

I’ve been talking to Matt—”

“I thought you two broke up.”

“We did,” Emily said emphatically. “He broke up with me because of that night, and I don’t blame him. I’ve been stuck on that goddamn mountain, Ashley, and I hate who I was there.”

“You got yourself safe on that mountain. The only reason I didn’t die like five times is because Josh rigged the whole thing! You were—”

“Selfish and cruel. That’s what I was. If Matt wasn’t a saint as long as he was—”

“Didn’t he leave you to fall into that mine?”

“He would have died with me if he hadn’t. It was pure luck that either of us got off that tower.”

Ashley raised her eyebrows and sat back. Ok. She was not expecting that from Emily of all people.

“That is very forgiving of you.”

Emily shrugged. “I’m trying it out. Holding grudges hasn’t gotten me much, after all.”

“Don’t tell me you’re going to call Mike now.” Not after he nearly shot her.

“I’m talking to you, aren’t I?”

Ashley supposed that was true.

“I just wish Josh was here. He’d say something raunchy about…I don’t know. A forgiveness kink or something. Is that a thing? Josh would know.”

“Let’s not get too carried away. At least we were all acting under stress. Josh set the whole thing up from the beginning.”

“True, but he didn’t deserve to die over it. Maybe a light beating. Or a very extended marathon of the Hallmark channel.”

Ashley sneered, but not at Emily’s idea of revenge. More at the way she said it so fondly.

“I’d like to stop thinking about him entirely.”

“Yeah. I heard about you and Chris. I thought about going to check on him tonight, actually. God knows he’ll starve himself by accident if we don’t keep an eye on him.”

“He isn’t even mad anymore. It’s insane! Josh tortured Chris about as much as he did me, and he doesn’t even care. I just want him to respect himself a little more.”

“Chris knew Josh better than any of us—except maybe Sam—and he isn’t exactly the vengeful type. I’d be surprised if he spent any time festering a grudge over that prank. Not when it was the last time he ever saw him.”

“Maybe you could give him some lessons in the grudge department.”

Emily frowned. “No. That’s not a good idea. He’d be better off teaching me a little the other way around.”

Officially annoyed, Ashley finished off her plate and threw it away.

“What’s your problem?” Emily called after her.

“I’m just tired of nobody taking Josh’s prank seriously. Just because a bunch of monsters crashed his party, it doesn’t mean he didn’t do plenty of shit himself.”

“It’s hard to care that much when he was eaten by those things,” Emily said coldly.

Ashley scoffed and started towards the door.

Emily followed her, but she didn’t relent. “Maybe the rest of us aren’t the ones with the problem, Ash. Maybe you need to get some perspective and let it go.”

“That’s rich coming from you.”

“Hey! At least I’m trying!”

“To what?” Ashley span around, pinning Emily in place with her glare. “Forget what got us in that mess in the first place? You weren’t there! You have no idea what he did!”

“No. I was too busy running for my life in a deathtrap of a mineshaft while the girl I got killed tried to eat me. You got knocked out a few times and tripped around some smoke and mirrors for a few hours. You weren’t even in any real danger. I nearly died.”

“Josh attacked me twice!”

“Maybe if you were a little brighter, you’d have noticed it was him sooner. Chris told me about the newspapers. The cameras. You found so much evidence, and you still couldn’t tell the difference between a ghost and a projection? Maybe you should stop blaming Josh and ask yourself why you’re so useless in a crisis.”

Ashley swung to slap Emily, but Emily caught her wrist before she could make contact.

“Find your own way home. I’m leaving.”

***

Ashley had to walk home. Her apartment was a forty-minute walk away, but that was fine. She could stew in her anger the whole way and then beat the rest of it out with a hot shower.

Who did Emily think she was? Just as self-absorbed as ever no matter what she said about changing. Like her experience was the only one that mattered on that mountain. Ashley was sick of it. She was sick of everyone dancing around Josh’s name and treating him like a saint just because he was dead. They did the same thing to Hannah too, now that she thought of it. Hannah, who went up to Mike in the first place knowing he had a girlfriend. Josh, who spent months planning out all the ways he was going to torture them for a stupid prank that didn’t actually kill his sisters no matter what everyone says.

He was the one who kept inviting them to his murder mountain. It was no wonder someone eventually died. At least it was him and not some innocent bystander. Had anyone considered that maybe he did actually bring his death on himself? Why did everyone want to rob him of his agency all the time? He displayed plenty of it that night as far as she was concerned.

He was off his meds, the Chris in her head reminded her, but she didn’t care anymore. Josh should have been taking them if they were that important.

The sun set as she walked. The shadows grew longer as she passed through them, and they taunted her with all the nasty things that happen in the dark. She’d never liked the dark even before she nearly died in it. Ashley hugged herself and walked faster.

It wasn’t until she rounded the corner to her apartment building that she noticed the shadow following her.

Her heart leaped up to her throat, but she forced herself to slow down and walk steadily forward.

How long had he been following her? How fast could she run? She couldn’t lead him to her apartment. That’d be so much worse. Fuck. What should she do? What should she—

The man turned left and entered a neighboring building. Ashley stopped outside her building and resisted the urge to vomit.

She couldn’t do this anymore.

Ashley slammed her way into her apartment and screamed into her couch. When that didn’t help, she kicked her coffee table over, spilling the contents over the floor and breaking two forgotten mugs.

She was tired of being so useless. She couldn’t even stab a psychopath without getting knocked out right after. What good was she if she couldn’t even defend herself?

Ashley ripped off her jacket and threw it aside. It wasn’t even her jacket, she realized. Chris had given it to her a week ago. To comfort her, she huffed in hollow amusement. Because she was the one who needed protecting, but god help her if she needed anyone to listen to her. To see reason.

A paper poked out of the inside pocket, catching her attention by pure chance. She hadn’t even known that jacket had inside pockets, but she was used to useless girl pockets. She supposed it shouldn’t be a shock that Chris’ had cool stuff like secret compartments with secret little pieces of paper in them.

Ashley picked up the paper and unfolded it. She hadn’t bothered to turn on the light when she stormed in, but the faint light of the half-moon through her window gave her enough to read.

It was more research, she realized. Research seemed to be the only thing Chris did these days. Wendigos. Blackwood. Pixies and vampires and curses and magic. He didn’t seem to care if it was real or not anymore. He was as obsessed with learning it all as Josh was with horror movies.

Ashley clenched the paper hard enough to crease it. Now she couldn’t even stop bringing him up. Great.

This paper seemed to be ripped from a journal of some kind. It detailed the way wendigos hunted and stored their food.

Human, she thought. Their food was human, but that wasn’t what really upset her. It said that the wendigo preferred to keep its prey alive for as long as possible. Considering how quick they all were to rip heads off, Ashley had her doubts, but if this was true—

Josh could still be alive.

Hannah had dragged him off to the mines. Mike said that he still heard screaming as he ran. If Hannah didn’t kill him right away then what if…

They killed Hannah, for good, that night in the lodge. She wouldn’t have come back for Josh if she…

Ashley crumpled the paper into a ball and dropped it.

No. No, she couldn’t do this. She couldn’t live knowing he was still there. Josh being dead was the only thing that kept her sane. It’s the only thing letting anyone move on at all, even if it was badly.

Josh died a year ago on that mountain. If he was still alive, then it wasn’t Josh anymore. It couldn’t be.

It was the right thing to do, she decided. Josh was a monster, and Ashley was going to take care of him once and for all.

***

The Scooby Gang
Ash: Going do not disturb for a week. Don’t call.
Sam: Everything ok?
Mike: Is this about the fight?
Chris: Do we need to talk about this?
Emily: Don’t bother. Just let her stew for a bit.
Matt: Everything good?
Jess: I have so many questions
Ash: Relax. Just busy for a bit.
Chris: If you say so…
Sam: What fight?
Mike: I’ll dm you
Chris: don’t worry about it
Jess: well now I’m worrying
Ash: ohmygod guys. Chill. I just want to focus on this thing I’m writing. I haven’t gotten any progress in weeks.
Multiple people are typing…

Chapter Text

“It’s over.”

Matt spoke with the weight of inevitability. He spoke like they were always heading here. Like they’d been here for a while.

“What the hell does that mean?”

Emily asked as a warning. People didn’t break up with her. It didn’t work that way. And besides, with the anniversary of their winter getaway coming up, she didn’t have the time or patience for Matt to ditch her like this.

“You know exactly what it means.”

When Matt left, it was like he took the last safety buoy with him.

***

Emily slammed her car door shut, shoved the key into the ignition, and slammed her fist into the steering wheel.

Who did Ashley think she was? Their friend died, and all she could think about was herself. As if her experience was the only one that mattered on that mountain. Like they didn’t all do shit they weren’t proud of.

Emily’s head made a soft thunk against the headrest. That wasn’t true. That mountain brought out the truth of all of them, and some of them were heroes. She just wasn’t one of them.

She thought of Sam, going after Mike and Josh. Stopping Mike from shooting her. She thought of Chris, going after Josh before any of them. Not for himself. Never for himself despite everything Josh had done. Matt, who did everything for her until she pushed him too far.

Tears ran down her cheeks as she remembered how angry she had been that he jumped to safety. Fuck, but she would have pulled him down to save herself in that moment, and she hated that she knew that now. She hated how selfish she could be when lives were at stake.

Matt was right to leave her. He probably should have left her much sooner if she was being honest with herself. Not something she’s very good at, but at least she was trying.

Emily fingered the talisman hanging around her wrist. It was a simple black figure of a wendigo’s head. Protection against evil spirits, according to Jessica and Mike. She wore it because it helped Jess sleep at night.

Maybe she should call Mike. Ask him what he thought about the whole mess. The thought made her chuckle. That’d go over well.

Funny how that mountain only brought Mike and Jess closer together while it seemed to do nothing but ruin the relationships Emily had left.

“Get it together,” she said to herself. “Nobody likes a pity party.”

Emily checked her messages and didn’t find anything pressing or interesting. She lingered over Ashley’s contact before tossing her phone aside.

So much for step one of the Emily 2.0 plan. She didn’t know why she started with Ashley anyways. She was the one who goaded Mike into shooting her in the first place. Then again, if Ashley had walked in with a bite…

Would Emily have been any better? She didn’t know, and that frightened her.

Emily started the car and drove home. Driving stressed her out, which in that moment was a blessing. It meant she was too busy wondering which idiot was about to run her off the road to think about what a bitch she could be. Unfortunately, her reprieve only lasted until she shut the front door of her parents’ house.

“Home so soon?” Her brother asked from the couch. He didn’t look away from the game he was playing.

“Geek,” Emily said, shoving his head to the side just to mess with him.

“Priss,” he said as he shook his hair back into place.

Emily smiled softly and went upstairs, down the hall three doors until she found her room barren of anyone to see the way her smile faded.

What would she have done if she was in Josh’s place? Revenge. Definitely. There wasn’t a doubt in her mind. The thought of her brother, cold and alone, like Hannah…

She would have murdered them. There wouldn’t have been anything fake about her serial killer. She would have lured them all back and poisoned their beer. Probably would have built up an immunity herself to cloak her true intentions. Sole survivor Emily. She could see it clear as day.

Emily leaned back against the door and sank to the floor. The tears came back in full force, but she managed to keep herself quiet.

She really was messed up, wasn’t she? What kind of a freak puts that together so quickly? What kind of person was she that she could see it all so clearly?

How could she hold anything against Josh when she ruined his life?

***

Emily woke up the next morning to the sun burning her sore eyes. She’d cried too hard the night before, and now she was paying the price.

The thought made her huff in amusement. Maybe she deserved it. She wondered what Josh would think. She wondered what Hannah would say.

Beth would tell her to get her shit together and stop wallowing already.

Emily decided to take Beth’s advice and got out of bed. Getting ready for the day was a well-practiced routine that she could do in her sleep. An hour later, she sat at her vanity, all ready for the day, but unable to look away.

She’d spent so long insisting that it wasn’t her fault they ran into the woods. She was starting to feel like a coward for it. These things didn’t happen to her. They happened because of her. Emily was too smart and too capable not to have agency in her own life, and she knew better than to think she had no hand in their deaths.

Funny the way intelligence can make it harder to see the truth. Emily was so busy running away from her guilt that she was able to convince herself there was nothing to be guilty of. Of course she did. She could convince anyone of anything. She’d make a terrifying con artist, but she didn’t much like it when she did it to herself.

Emily stood pointedly and made her way downstairs. Her parents were MIA, which was expected. They never ate breakfast together. Emily took her pick of the spread their cook set out for them and resolved to do something new to achieve this Emily 2.0 idea.

She could still call Mike. No. That was still going backwards. Sam, maybe. She’d probably have something insightful and empathic to say. Then again, she had her new friends to keep her busy.

Why did she need to call anyone anyways? She was more than capable of doing things herself. It wasn’t like she could trust anyone else to get things done either. This was Emily’s self-improvement arc. Nobody else’s.

Emily smiled sadly into her plate. That sounded like Josh. Arcs and character development and tropes. He never shut up about them. In another life, maybe she’d be a movie star in his first hit film. That could have been fun.

He’d have crafted such a perfect character for her to play. Someone who would play to her strengths. Something to keep her interested and coming back for more. Not for the first time, she wondered what he had planned for her that weekend. It would have been brutal. She kinda wished she got to see it.

It wasn’t right that he was just left there to rot with Beth and Hannah. The Washingtons had stopped searching months ago. The cops were useless. There wasn’t anyone left to care.

Emily would never go back to that mountain. Not for all the fame and money in the world. Not for Josh or Hannah or Beth. Certainly not for Mike or Matt.

Emily 2.0 though? Maybe she should.

***

The Scooby Gang
Emily: Spa retreat in Switzerland for the next few days. Peace.
Jess: Jelly
Sam: ditto
Matt: have fun
Chris: I have too many rich friends
Mike: You’re only saying that because she didn’t invite you
Chris: and?
Mike: wanna go do something stupid and expensive?
Chris: …
Mike: I’ll dm you
Jess: double jelly