hadriel_logs | Because nothing grows when it is dark

[Urgh. This going to be kind of painful.

But it's also necessary, and ultimately it's going to be for the best for all of them. They're each others best allies here and it only hurts them not be on the same page about everything, especially in the types of high pressure situations they've been dealing with. There's also a bit of freedom in not needing to stay clear of certain subjects, or having to keep secrets or pretend nothing's wrong, and in moving forward.

With the help of the wall and his strategic choice of rooms in the house he's made it to the kitchen, which seems to be his and Emily's designated 'serious conversation' room, though he hasn't bothered to try making anything to drink yet. He'll see if he can leave that to her when she shows up.]

[Honestly, they should've done this sooner, but it was a little hard to find the time, what with Emily being pissed off at almost everyone for not defending her when Mike pointed a gun at her, and then her and Josh and all those other people turning into wendigos.

And then all the rest.

Anyway, now is as good a time as any, so she steels herself for it and heads to the kitchen. She's fully aware of the state of Chris's leg, so she glances at him when she walks im, but doesn't stop, heading for the cupboards first.]

I'm not doing this without coffee.

[And she makes some, timing it all perfectly so that the sugar and creamer and mugs are all on the table by the time the coffee is done brewing. She fills both their mugs and rinses out the pot before she sits across from him to put sugar in her coffee.]

You wanna go first, or should I?

[It's not shy, the question, more as if this were a job meeting and they were organizing some sort of project. Only, this isn't that at all, and her gaze isn't cold. It's kind of uncomfortable to deal with, so she turns up the confident leader persona. Any illusion of control she can get here, she'll take.]

[Coffee is definitely a good idea and he's thankful she decides to go ahead and make some on her own, nodding and resting his chin on his arms on the table while she gets everything set up. Even though it's obvious why he isn't helping he still feels kind of like a jerk, but he's already drained from the whole ordeal of the last few days and needs to save up emotional energy for this conversation so feeling guilty over something minor will have to wait.

When she pours the coffee he distracts himself adding sugar and creamer; he's been trying to cut back on it to save supplies, since he usually likes a ton of the stuff, but today he's not going to bother holding back.]

It's uh... It's up to you.

[He glances up to make eye contact, offering a small smile of what he hopes is encouragement.]

[Even though she appreciates his kindness, she rolls her eyes. Such a gentleman.]

Right. I'll just get this over with. [She stirs in the tiny bit of creamer she likes in her coffee and thinks back to that night, to when she and Matt left Chris and Ashley to go find Sam.]

You know we went to the cable car station, and then to the fire tower. We found Beth's phone on the way there. We got cornered on this cliff by this, like, herd of deer? It was so weird. They looked ready to kill us, but they let us through.

[She pauses to take a sip of coffee. God, this seems so fucking irrelevant, but if the point is to get everything on the table to avoid crossing a line, then... so fucking be it.]

Then at the fire tower, we got the power back on and found a flare gun that I told Matt to keep just in case, and we contacted the ranger service. And then... I don't know, someone started banging on the hatch to get into the tower, but they gave up when they couldn't get in and went and took out the tower with us in it.

[Even without the temptation of mediocre coffee in front of her, Emily would pause there. It's the last time she saw Matt, when he risked everything to save her after confronting her about the conversation she'd snuck away to have with Mike earlier in the night. That was the thanks she'd given Matt for every kindness he'd shown her since they got together, when he was just the guy to date to try and get over Mike and Jess's betrayal. Before she'd realized she didn't deserve someone as good as Matt. Before it was too late to fix it.

It's definitely too late now.]

I fell. I was hanging from the railing. Matt tried to save me, but then the tower fell apart some more, and I fell, and I don't know what happened to Matt. He must've fallen too, but not where I did.

I guess I have the devil's luck, because some like, cable or whatever caught my ankle and kept me from falling all the way, so I was able to get down okay before the tower finally crashed and went down this fucking abyss straight into hell or something. It cut my leg up but not too bad.

[And then, her trip through the mines. She tries to stay detached as she recounts it, from all the falls she took to the clues about Hannah and Beth that she found while down there, and then to when she met flamethrower guy and he gave her those flares and she fell again and wound up chased and almost crushed in an ore grinder and then bitten, to add insult to all those injuries, and fell off the goddamn zipline because she hadn't done enough of that already.]

Then I ran back to the lodge. [She says that into her coffee, willing it to spell out on its surface some sort of psychic message that'll urge her to tell him about Matt's accusation of her, or if she should just keep that to herself. The coffee stays silent on te matter, so she does the same.]

That's it. You know the rest.

[He's quiet for the entirety of Emily's story, listening carefully even when he shifts his attention to his coffee just like she does from time to time. He can't imagine being on a collapsing fire tower; how terrifying that must've been, and being with someone else whose fate is unknown after it, and then going through everything in the mines.

He's not sure what to say once she finishes, or if he should say anything at all, but there's one thing he focuses in on that might--if even a little--help.]

If Matt fell into the mines somewhere, um... A flare gun would probably hurt a wendigo. At least scare it. Jess survived falling into the mines and so did you, and Matt's really tough, and with a flare gun he has a really good chance, Em.

[Because she gave him the weapon, even before any of them had any idea that there were wendigos or how to fight them. She gave Matt the best chance he could have, and maybe that will give her some hope.]

[In spite of the hope that causes to well up in her, Emily doesn't want to think about it. Not for more than a second or two. Because if she does, it'll overwhelm her like that night by the lake, and she'll start a downward spiral into missing Matt and hating herself for failing him and wanting him to show up here so she can tell him the truth and that she loves him and that from now on she'll be the girlfriend she always should've been.

She can't do that again. She can't cry over this again (not outside her room or the shower, where no one can see or hear her).]

Yeah.

[There's nothing else she can think to say that won't either open the floodgates or be really mean, so she takes a long drink of coffee and fights away the unbidden urge to confess what she did (or didn't do) and get whatever fragment of absolution Chris could possibly have to offer for her trouble.]

Okay. Your turn.

[He isn't sure if what he said did help or actually made things worse, but he knows better than to pry right now. The whole point of getting everything said is to let at least the three of them--Chris, Ashley, and Emily--be able to understand and support each other when they need it, so... Hopefully she'll talk to him later about whatever is bothering her, if she wants to.

Chris swirls his coffee idly, tapping his fingers on the mug a few times, trying to decide how he wants to tell his part of the story. When he'd told it before, to Maketh and later Nick, he'd had to give backstory or, on the other end of the spectrum, be as vague as possible to avoid indicating who played what parts in the whole ordeal other than his own.

With Emily, she knows everything. She even knows much of what happened in the night already, with only a portion in the middle missing, so he can skip the story about the saw trap unless she wants to know more details. He can just start from where he last saw her, before she rejoined them all at the Lodge hours later.]

Okay.

[Yeah. His turn.]

So um... After Ash and I ran into you and Matt, we went back to the Lodge to look for Sam. But she... Wasn't there. We figured the guy who'd attacked us--I mean, we know it was Josh now, but then we still thought it was like, some murderer--um... We thought he must've taken Sam somewhere, so we went trying to find her.

We ended up in the basement of the Lodge and then, uh... I guess Josh really went all out. There were fake ghosts and dead pigs and pictures of all of us up on the wall in this weird abandoned hotel running under everything; I think it goes all the way to the sanatarium.

[Not that that's super important, but it's easier to marvel at than think about the difficult part he's about to get to.]

So uh... Eventually, we found Sam. She was um... Ash thought she was dead, but she was just knocked out; we were trying to figure out what to do, and um... Josh snuck up behind me and I think he drugged me.

[Everything happened so quickly, and although he remembers it he'd lost consciousness so quickly he isn't totally sure. But he does know Josh went after him first so it'd be easier to subdue Ashley, which reignites a flicker of long-standing anger about Josh hitting her. Although he regrets a lot of how he handled things after finding out it was Josh behind it all, Chris doesn't regret punching him back or calling him a coward. Those were well-deserved.

He takes a sip of his coffee to give himself a moment to get his temper back under control, not because he's extremely angry but because the next part of the story is hard enough to tell without any emotion, let alone already riled up.]

Ash and I woke up about the same time, and we were at this um... Table. Ash um, couldn't really move but I had a hand free and there were... Saws, above us, and a gun on the table.

[Every time he gets to this part it's like it's happening again; it isn't like sometimes when he has flashbacks--he knows where he is and that he's talking to Emily--but he just remembers everything so clearly. How heavy the gun is when he picks it up, how loud the saws are, the look on Ashley's face and the sound of her crying, the exact words of the instructions he was given.]

The guy--Josh--he said um... H-He said that I had until the saws came down on us to decide what to do. That I could take the gun and shoot Ashley or I could shoot myself, and whoever was left could live.

[The choice is yours.]

I um... I shot myself. But the bullets were blanks.

Jesus.

[For a few, long seconds, that's all Emily can think to say. It's not like she doesn't know how it feels to be staring death in the face, but that's-- different. To have to shoot yourself or the person you love is... really, really fucked up. Scarier still is the thought that, in that situation, Emily isn't sure if she'd choose to shoot herself or Matt.

She's not going to think about it, though. Matt isn't even here, so it's not as if that's going to happen to her any time soon. No matter what, if faced with that choice, and if it were all some fucked up prank, then she'd be so mad at Josh that she wouldn't know what to do with herself.]

Chris. Fuck.

[Shit, she is that mad at Josh, and she wasn't even there for any of that. Hell, she doesn't even know if Josh is the one who sent her and Matt to almost certain death on the fire tower. (She's guessing it wasn't, because if this is what happened while she and Matt were elsewhere on the mountain, then he couldn't have tried to kill them when they went to call for help.)

It'll take her a while to get over this, because it's bringing that night back full force. But she'll get there. She'll be able to look at Josh without wanting to kick him in the balls for this. She'll go back to being gloomy and mad in general. Right now, though, she's shaking her head and frowning so hard it might leave creases in her forehead for a little while.]

I-- goddamn. What the fuck!

[Emily's reaction is similar to Nick's, and like with Nick it's... Vindicating, almost. Like maybe it's not crazy to be so messed up from the whole thing, even though it hadn't been real. He knows, logically, that it doesn't matter--thinking it was real at the time is what matters--and he doesn't for a moment judge Ashley for being affected by it all, but he still often finds himself thinking he should really be over it. There had been a very real threat on the mountain, after all; Emily and Matt and Mike and Jess had been having to deal with that the whole time.

But still. It's nice, in a sad way, to have it confirmed that what happened really was utterly screwed up.]

Yeah.

[He doesn't know what else to say in response, other than to finish the story; there's just a little left that she doesn't know.]

I guess the blank knocked me out or something, because next thing I knew Josh was coming into the room in his whole crazy murderer getup, so I shot at him.

[He hadn't quite registered that the gun only fired blanks, too focused on trying to protect Ashley and himself to even be surprised he was alive, let alone think too much about why. He's still not entirely sure; shooting himself at such close range should've killed him, blank or not. He'd just gotten lucky, it seems.]

Meanwhile, I guess Mike found Sam? They came in like, right as Josh pulled off his mask and explained what was going on, and um... Mike thought Jess was dead, and that Josh must've been the one who did it, since we didn't like... Know about the wendigos yet. So we took him out to the shed like I told you, and then I'd just gotten back to the Lodge when you showed up, and you know the story from there.

[That's it. Aside from some minor details--the video recordings, Hannah's doll house, just general creepy but not that important things--that's the story. They're on the same page, now.]

[Well, at least it hadn't gotten any more fucked up than that, which honestly isn't saying a lot because goddamn that was fucked up. Yeah, they'd been assholes to pull that prank on Hannah, but that last night on the mountain was... Jesus, Josh really outdid himself.]

Holy shit.

[She'd missed a lot during the time she spent finding a way out of the mines. Some part of her wonders who had it worse, but really, what good will that do? The point of this isn't to one up each other; it's to try and understand what they went through, and be able to be there for each other better than before.]

I guess-- you do know what it's like to like, almost get shot.

[Shifting in her seat, Emily stares down at her coffee and forces her thoughts to quiet down a little. There are so many things she could say, things that would sound hollow but might help anyway, or creative curses, or at least it's over now, or a simple fuck Josh, honestly, even though Chris knows she doesn't hate him. Instead, what she says comes out before she can even think it over, because she's thought about it so much already.]

Matt thinks I cheated on him.

[He drops his gaze back to his coffee at her comment, guilt twisting in his stomach briefly, but he doesn't think she's really still mad at him about that whole thing.]

Yeah. So I um... I really should've done something.

[He's sorry, again, for what happened in the basement. They've already talked about it, but that doesn't mean it's not worth repeating even if it's not in those words; he does know what it's like to think you're about to die in such a violent way, and doing nothing to stop Mike had been a reprehensible thing to do.

He's lost in thought about that situation when Emily says her last comment, and nearly does a double-take.]

W-What? Why?

[It's a lot better question than the other one that comes to mind, which is 'Did you?']

[She shrugs away the thinly-veiled apology. They've talked about it. She's... not quite over it, but she's not angry about it anymore. It's weird, and she doesn't want to think about it, so she just grips her mug tight when he reacts to her statement, as if he's half a second away from saying he was right to doubt you, and yet he stayed to try to save you anyway.

Chris doesn't have to say it, though. Emily has said it enough to herself.]

I-- back when we were going up to the lodge, I asked him to take our bags the rest of the way because I had to go back to talk to Sam. Except-- [She pauses, shifting again in her seat, like there could possibly be anything that sitting right could to to make this not uncomfortable. She looks awful in this story. She looks guilty.] I went to talk to Mike, not Sam.

[She doesn't tell Chris what they talked about. It doesn't matter, and it was stupid anyway. In trying to prevent shit from happening, she had caused worse shit to happen. That would be poetic if it weren't so fucking awful.]

It wasn't-- I wasn't cheating on Matt. Mike dumped me, I'm not some desperate bitch who'd go crawling back to him after that if he asked me to. [And she's proud of herself for that, for how indignant she sounds as she says it. It's enough to get her through the rest of it, even though she doesn't look any less upset.] But we-- we hugged. Because we were still close, right? Like, yeah, he dumped me, but after being with him for so long, I kind of-- I didn't want to lose him as a friend, you know?

[It sounds stupid out loud. It doesn't make sense. It sounds like exactly the mess of feelings it was. No wonder Matt thought the worst.]

I don't even know how, but Matt saw that, and then on the tower-- he kept, like, asking about it? And I-- I said I was confused, and I was sorry, and I didn't get to tell him that I hadn't done anything because the tower fell and if he's dead then he died thinking that and I can't deal with that, I can't.

[By the time she finishes, her voice has gone thick with tears she is fighting tooth and nail against. God. This is exactly why she didn't want to tell anyone this.]

Edited (proof and reproof your tags when you're sleepy, kids) 2016-04-28 01:40 (UTC)

[He's quiet again, trying to follow the whole story and figure out how it must've looked to Matt; that explains a few things, actually, like Matt's comments to him when they'd spoken outside the Lodge and then the uncomfortable almost-confrontation between Matt and Mike inside.

Chris nods, more a subconscious gesture of agreement and understanding than a purposeful one, but he believes her. Partly because it's easy for him to understand wanting to stay friends with someone even after something goes bad, and partly because he can't imagine wanting to cheat on someone you're with.

Even if he couldn't understand any of that, the look on her face and the sound of her voice are more than enough to tell she means every word.]

I'm sorry, Em.

[He doesn't know what to say; he has no advice for this situation, specifically, because he has no experience at all. But... He can sort of guess, at least at part of it.

He's pretty sure Josh died thinking Chris hated him, and he wishes more than almost anything that he could change that.]

I wish... I wish I could say something helpful here, but...

[The only thing he can say is what he already said; that Matt might've survived, and Emily might have a chance to talk to him herself. He might show up here. So many other things might be possible.]

Edited 2016-04-28 01:46 (UTC)

You can't. Nobody can. [She sniffs, turns her head away, scowls at the wall. Anything to win the fight against her tears.

It helps that Chris isn't blaming her for what happened, that he isn't telling her she deserves to live with the guilt. Actually, Matt didn't either. He could've left her there to potentially die, could've chosen to save himself, could've told her she wasn't worth the effort, and yet he'd proveb yet again how good a guy he is.

And now she's here, and she doesn't know where he is, and all she wants to do is go find him, but she can't. No amount of crying will pry open the Door and pull Matt in here, so there's no point to it.

There's not much point to a lot lately, Emily is starting to feel. The gods use them all like toys, and there's nothing anyone can do about it.]

You're lucky. You and Ash. You get to be here together. As much as it sucks here, it-- You're lucky.

[Emily is jealous, but not in a malicious way; she's more dejected over it than anything. It's useless to deny it, though, so she doesn't bother.]

[He's quiet, shifting his gaze back to his coffee, and although he's not sure lucky is the right word he understands the sentiment. And maybe he is lucky after all, because he can't imagine being here without Ashley; her presence is calming and grounding and despite the danger of this place at least he knows what's going on with her. The uncertainty that Emily must feel about Matt would be awful.]

Yeah. I guess we are.

[Chris gives a small sigh, taking a drink of his coffee.]

At least we're lucky about something. Hopefully um... Hopefully you're owed some fortune too.

I'm not counting on it.

[She shrugs, then takes a sip of coffee. If there's actual justice in the universe, Emily is going to have a tough time of it from here on out. Some part of her still believes she is owed the world, that she can get what she wants through hard work and cutthroat dealings.

But the rules she's familiar with don't really apply here, and she's no longer able to run away from what she doesn't want to face.]

It's about time you two nerds got together, though.

[And that's all she says on that, because she told him she'd try not to pick on them, no matter how well-intended her teasing might be.]

[Chris rolls his eyes at the comment, much more mock-annoyed than actually annoyed, because he understands the sentiment. He'd really rather have gotten together with Ashley on his own terms, in a way that wasn't horrifically traumatizing, but... That he and Ashley are a couple now is the one good thing that resulted from that night.]

Yeah, yeah, I know.

[And despite his determination to pretend to be annoyed, he ends up giving a small genuine smile.]

I guess uh... I guess it pretty great, though.

[And pretty much exactly like it had been being friends, only with less nervousness about sitting too close or worrying the other will notice them staring at them like a lovesick idiot. Also the kissing part.]

[Emily nods absently. Yeah, being with someone you like is nice. Before things with Mike had gone wrong, she'd been... not happy, but she'd felt good. Bck then, she could be proud that she'd managed not only to snag Mike Munroe, but to keep him for so long. And then he dumped her and all the rest, and she had put up even more walls of ice and steel to protect herself, and that in turn made her realize too late how good she had it with Matt.

After everything that's happened, Chris and Ash aren't likely to take each other for granted. That's the only advice she could give them, and about the only thing she can get away with saying after having agreed not to tease either of them about it. She gets it, of course, why she should leave them alone. It's just hard to do that when that's how she shows she gives at least half a damn.

Sighing, she picks up her mug and meets Chris's gaze.] So we're all caught up on that night, right? No more surprises?

I think so. Major stuff, anyway.

[He sighs again, tired, but at least this is done with. They all know what happened with each other, and hopefully things should be easier without having to tiptoe around issues they don't even know about.]

Okay.

[That's good enough for her. She has pretty much just bared her fucking soul to him, so that better be it. If all he told her meant nothing, or not at least as much as what she told him meant, she won't be happy.

She takes a sip of coffee and sets down her mug, her mind surprisingly quiet despite all the shit they've talked about. Maybe it's better, maybe this'll make it easier to process. Or, maybe it's worse and she'll have really shitty dreams tonight.

The coffee isn't good enough to distract her from that line of thought, so she thinks quick.]

Get your leg checked out.

[He gives an overdramatic noise of long-suffering at her last comment, slouching further down in his chair.]

I will; I'm gonna make a post and ask if there are any healers or whatever. I mean, before when it was just kind of screwed up it was fine, but now it's like...

[Totally screwed up. Can't really move it screwed up. Enough that he's actually more concerned with fixing it than inconveniencing anyone screwed up.]

Now it's kind of useless.

[Emily has zero qualms about being honest with regards to that.]

About time. I'm not sure there's, like, canes here for you to use.

Yeah, pretty much. I'm uh, not too psyched about the idea of getting eaten by a monster or something because I can't walk, either.

[So yeah, he has to do something.]

Actually, getting eaten by a monster might not be the worst thing that can happen to you. Hope would bring you back all healed up.

[Brought to you by the scar of what used to be a wendigo bite.]

[Chris just kind of gives her a look for several seconds.]

Okay, you know I'm usually all for like, pragmatic solutions, but I think that's uh... A little too pragmatic.

I'm just saying.

[She shrugs, smirking.]

Do you have your phone on you to ask on the network with, or did you think you'd, like, be okay hopping back to your room or however it is you get around.

[Translation: if you're in that much pain and you want to get it over with, I can bring you your phone, doofus.]

You really think I'd go anywhere without my phone?

[He offers a grin to go with the comment, understanding the meaning under her words.]

I guess I should release the new emoji pack to everyone while I'm at it too.

Weirder shit has happened.

[Honestly, it's nice to have a friend who understands her language.]

Yeah, totally. Score some points with Delight while you're out to get yourself healed.

[God she is so pumped for their coffee cart.]

I'm gonna need points.

[It's half muttered, but he really hopes Delight isn't too upset that her bar got kind of... Messy. That's a nice word for it. It's not like it was really Chris' fault anyway, but still.]

But uh, yeah, once I'm able to like, walk again and whatever, I'll let Delight know we're good on taking her up on her offer.

[Excellent.]

Then I'll let you get to that. [She stands and takes her coffee cup, wrinkling her nose at it.] There's only so much of this shit I can take anymore.

[Time is of the essence, nerdboy. Get healed so they can get their coffee.

Her priorities are straight, shut up.]

Because nothing grows when it is dark

[Closed to Emily]

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