hello dear queenie!! hope u can survive ur hot weather as we have survived ours :’] ive been thinkin abt the idea of matt having the voice of an angel (because jordan fisher) and no one knowing that info until they all go to karaoke together ;w;
The silence he was met with was, uh...well, it wasn't the best feeling in the world, leave it at that. Considering the whistles and stomps Jess had gotten after her (enthusiastic) Britney Spears medley and the (again, enthusiastic) boos Chris had gotten for even attempting Sinatra, the lack of reaction felt like a physical wall, a layer of brick separating him from his friends.
Not the best, in other words.
"Was it, uh...really...that bad?" Matt managed to chuckle, still absently swinging the karaoke mic by its cord as he forced himself to smile, to keep standing, to not, for the love of God, let his face go red as a beet.
The silence stretched on; then, always one for dramatics, Josh slowly rose from his chair, cheering, "All right, High School Musical!" as he started the slow clap to end all slow claps.
And Matt, losing his battle against blushing like a fool, tried to step down from the stage before Beth and Mike both rushed him to stay right where he was, one of them whispering, "Oooh no, you're the night's entertainment now."
tee hee hee could i preemptively ask for joshley with 6 from the too close for friends prompts :3
(for those who prefer AO3)
“Wow, is your dialogue bad.”
He didn’t deign to lift his gaze. Not for that. Lifting his hand, though? His finger? Removing all chance of misunderstanding by responding through a single deliberate gesture?
Yeah, he could do that.
“Little Miss Purple Prose is going to lecture me on character voices now, huh? She of the breath she didn’t know she was holding. Shit, these are dire times we’re living in. Hey, quick unrelated personal opinion, which one’s more applicable, you think: ‘Pot, meet kettle,’ or ‘blind leading the blind?’”
“You know, if literally anyone else said that to me, my feelings would be sooo hurt, but you really just made me read, ‘Um, guys? You’re gonna want to see this…’ with my own two eyes, so, like, I think I’ll probably survive.”
Was that scorn in her voice? Judgment?
He was going to have to do something about that.
“Big talk coming from—oh. Nice.” Josh glanced her way and, lo and behold, found she was also brandishing her middle finger. “Mature, Ash. Real mature. Don’t let anyone ever tell you you’re anything but a consummate professional.” He grabbed a nearby pen, squinched one of his eyes shut to calibrate the shot, aaand still somehow managed to miss her by about a foot.
She snorted but forever endeared herself to his heart by pretending to duck out of its path. “Leave it to the guy throwing stuff and unironically using the phrase ‘bone zone’ to question my maturity…” Heaving a sigh, she flipped the comic onto the foot of his bed, dropping to her elbows to read (and, ostensibly, insult him) more comfortably. “I don’t get it, Josh, I really don’t! You’re such a good writer—how does all that skill just, like, leave your body the second two characters have to talk to each other? It’s almost eerie, actually.”
“All right,” he said, standing abruptly from his desk. Why he’d thought he’d be able to get anything done while she was editing was anyone’s guess. He couldn’t even claim ignorance; it had always been this way, ever since the first time they’d traded stories in study hall, her handwriting cramped but legible in her notebook and the heels of his hands smeared grey with graphite. “If you’re going to keep negging me, you could at least call me pretty while you do it. You gotta slip a hook in there, Ash, gotta keep me coming back for more. It’s like you’ve learned nothing from me.”
“I’m not negging you, you dip, I’m giving you constructive criticism. Ever hear of it? It’s how you hone your craft.” Sudden as a thunderclap, there came a papery thump as she smacked her hand down onto his sketchbook, stopping him from snatching it away.
Hmm. So she had learned something from him. Good to know.
“Would you prefer a compliment sandwich?” she offered in a tone made sugary sweet by meanspirited glee. Adding insult to injury, she kicked her legs up behind her, letting them dangle in the air like she was paging through a gossip magazine at a sleepover. “I’m good at those. And you’re providing me a lot of sandwich filling, here. ‘He’s right behind me, isn’t he?’ You can’t be serious. Please tell me you weren’t being serious.”
Ah. An impasse.
How quaint.
This muddied the waters a bit. On the one hand, there were few things in life Josh hated more than being corrected. Then again, there were fewer things he loved more than having his ego stroked. A compliment sandwich was a risky, risky proposition on the best of days, especially if it was being served up by the queen of cliches, herself. Still, though…
Still.
Maybe he just needed to be proactive about this whole ‘constructive criticism’ thing. After all, wasn’t editing a two-way street?
Yeah. Yeah, he thought it was.
“Softening your punches now that I’m within pinching distance?” he teased as he flopped onto the empty stretch of bed beside her. “Predictable.”
“Pfft. I’m not softening any—”
He kept his face impassive, propping his chin up with his fists. “Almost as predictable as the ending of your new whodunnit.”
Bingo. The mattress bounced under Ashley’s weight as she went ramrod straight, the smile wiped from her face and her eyes gone wide as hubcaps. “Predic—it’s not—it’s not predictable! It isn’t! You take that back!”
Tamping down the laughter threatening to give him away, Josh shrugged. Maintained his composure. “Nah, you’re right, it’s probably not. To a normal person, anyway. You know me, I’m a special case…steeped in the genre since birth. I can’t help seeing patterns that the average Joe would need to cross his eyes to pick out. Comes with the territory of being brought up at Big Bob’s knee, know what I mean? It’s a gift and a curse.” From the corner of his eye, he watched her speedrun the five stages of grief, then begin the plunge into the dreaded sixth—rewrites.
It was getting hard not to laugh.
He reached over to his sketchbook and turned the page, pretending to examine the panels there. “Hey, forget it. For real, forget I said anything. I’m sure no one else would ever think the scorned ex-wife would get stabby. Too unexpected. Defies all expectations. Talk about genre-bending, you’re really gonna knock their socks off with that one, Ash, you just mark my words.”
“I—”
And there it was. He saw understanding dawn in real-time, the gears in her head whirring almost loud enough to hear. The jut of her pout relaxed, the panicked crease between her eyebrows smoothed out, her eyes narrowed to slits as she realized how easily he’d been able to squirm his way under her skin, but the angry flush on her face? Oh. Oh, that one got worse. That one got way, way worse.
Which was—to be fair!—also predictable.
Where she’d been so quick to protect it before, Ashley had no qualms giving him the sketchbook now. Over and over again, in fact. On top of his head. Or against it, maybe. It was hard to say, considering he was being swatted like a fly.
“Ugh! You’re—”
“Ah, ah!” He laughed, hunching away from her with his hands blocking his face. “Four-letter words only! If you’re gonna insult me, you better make it sting!”
“—insufferable!”
“Hate to be the bearer of bad news, but that was indisputably not a four-letter pejorative, and thus I will be forced to dock you points. Wasn’t even four syllables.”
She didn’t seem to appreciate the joke. As he reached for the sketchbook, Ashley only redoubled her efforts, using it to thwap his hand away. Thankfully, though, stamina had never been her strongest suit. She gave up with a groan, letting it drop so she could cover her face with her hands. Not that it helped. That blush? Raging. There was no use in trying to hide it.
But it made sense, he guessed, in the grand scheme of things, anyway. In all the time they’d been friends, duality had sort of been the name of the game: Ashley preferred to blend in while he had a pathological need to stick out; she won all her teachers over without even trying while his reputation had darkened the Washington name for generations to come; and, mamma mia, she lit up like a Christmas tree at the slightest provocation while his poker face had no equal. They kept each other balanced, was the thing. Level. Humble.
…when they weren’t riling each other up, at least.
“You didn’t read it,” she said incredulously. After another second, she raised her head, squinting disapprovingly at him. “You didn’t read it, you liar!”
“I didn’t read it yet.”
Groaning louder that time, Ashley face-planted into his comforter. He had to hand it to her, too—that groan was so loud and so exasperated he actually felt it vibrating through the bed like a shockwave.
“Crazy set of lungs you got on you, holy shit. Don’t get your panties in a twist, it’s next on my list. I just figured it was a safe bet…you like making your killers women full of righteous fury! I always assume the lady with the saddest backstory’s the one who did the damn thing when you’re holding the pen. Now, the stabbing part, I’ll admit, I could’ve put a little more thought into. Not my best bluff. You’re too sophisticated for straight-up physical violence, that’s a rookie’s game. I should’ve gone with something more esoteric. Poisoned ice cubes, maybe, or a hacked Roomba.”
Again, she popped up, perking at the attention. “Do you really—” Ashley began, then caught herself, rolling her eyes up to the ceiling. “A compliment sandwich,” she said, her voice falling flat as she grappled with getting got not once but twice. “You just fed me a compliment sandwich.”
“How’s it feel?”
She rolled her eyes again, that time in such a way that they landed on his. “Like you should at least be calling me pretty while you neg me, smartmouth.” It was clearly meant to be a jab, but she should’ve known better, especially since she’d been his editor for the past however-long.
He loved a good callback.
So, smirking, he shut the sketchbook altogether, smoothing its cover down before leaning over to whisper against her ear, “You’re pretty.” Immediately, a new wave of color flooded across her cheeks, her nose, the tips of her ears. By then, his mouth was close enough to her skin to feel the heat blazing there, and…well, duality, right? If she wanted to dance around it, that was her prerogative. He’d never been one to shy away from a spark, even if it meant getting burnt every now and again. “Don’t act surprised. I don’t let just anyone insult me in bed, you know.”
Ashley turned to meet his gaze, her eyes bright with something he couldn’t place. She looked at him, looked long and hard, then shook her head and yanked the brim of her beanie over her eyes.
“Your dialogue is so bad, Josh,” she said, bringing them right back to where they’d started, “it’s so, so bad!”
omg happy femslash feb to you!! could i please request some good ole jess/ashley :] hope ur doin well my friend <3
"I-If we live through this," Ashley managed through the chattering of her teeth, her voice squished by how tightly she'd hunched in on herself, "remi-ind me to ne-ever listen t-t-to you a-again."
Jess was slower to respond, checking the window for the millionth time to see if any of their idiot friends had thought to come searching this way, but eventually she glanced over her shoulder and snorted, "It's not that bad, Debbie Downer, chill out."
"Ch-chilling is the problem," she snapped back, her breath fogging the dank, dusty air of the guest cabin, "all be-ecause you said 'Ye-Yeah, sure, we're gonna stay insi-ide, you should wear the sh-sh-shorts.'"
She let go of the drapes with a huff, throwing herself onto the couch with all the world-weariness of one of the characters from the bodice-rippers her mom was always reading. "Oh my God, for the last time, I look good in low-rise, you look good in cut-offs, and even if we do freeze to death out here waiting for them to come find us, you have to appreciate that our dead bodies will look fine as hell!"
When Ashley didn't laugh along with her - when she didn't show any sign of giving up the fuddy-duddy act, in fact - Jess rolled over onto her stomach, popping her legs up behind her and setting her chin on Ashley's knee; "I know what'll turn that frown upside down," she teased, smirking like the cat that got the cream, "c'mere, we can totally cuddle up to stay warm."
could i ask for a lil joshley on this fine weekend :]
The only explanation she could find for it, the way she kept...well...finding herself looking at him like that, was that it'd been a long, long, looong week. Finals had that effect on her, and no matter how many Monsters she downed outside of study hall, no matter how many vending machine packs of half-smashed Skittles she ate, there was just a certain point in the day where she got too tired of thinking, or fretting, or fidgeting, or being, and that must've been it.
Well, that, and there was something admittedly very interesting about Josh's face when he was well and truly absorbed in a project - a kind of roving intensity that started in his eyes and worked its way down to his mouth, a slow roll of thunder where his usual expressions were lightning strikes that left the air dry and smelling of ozone, and...yeah, yeah she had Finals Brain, all right.
"Know what would make this just really fucked up?" Josh asked, his words pulled strangely around the marker cap he held in his back teeth (when he glanced up at her and caught her staring, his grin pulled strangely around it too). He let the question linger, quirking his eyebrow before dipping his head back down to her hightop in his lap, only pausing in putting the finishing touches on the masterpiece he'd been drawing on its toe to tease, "If I was lying about being bored and decided this was the time to reveal I've been one of those foot freaks all along."
Ashley groaned, but didn't try to pull away; she was curious to see the finished product, she told herself, bored of the blank white canvas shoes...and maybe, just maybe, didn't mind the thought of going into her next test with a reminder of what was waiting on the other side.
miss ashley brown for the hc ask game pretty please :]
asHLEY BROWN??? are you kidding me? are you kiDDING ME?!?!?!?!
...yeah, okay, sounds like a plan ;)c heheheuehuehuehue
realistic hc: i think ashley and josh were friends wayyyYYYY before ashley and chris were friends. i think they were absolutely insufferable faux-emo kids together, and it was only after a certain period of time that josh felt comfortable enough to mix friendgroups and chris got brought in. but i think ashley and josh have roughly 10x the number of inside jokes - they just tend to deliver them more dryly and in passing, without any of the elbow nudging or finger-guns. while i imagine she comes from a single-parent household and her mom is incredibly protective of her, josh is the one person who can sleepover/have ashley sleepover and there are NO raised eyebrows. they're so good for each other - and soooooo bad for each other, lmaooOOOOO
funny to me hc: again, anyone who's read t(a) knows this one iiiiiimplicitly, but i LOVE the idea of ashley having the world's chubbiest, rolliest, polliest pug. his name is charlie brown, she and her mom like to tease him by saying "GOOD GRIEF!" over and over at him, and he is absolutely useless as a guard dog, but the world's best lapdog. the sweetest of sweetie pies 🥹
evil and heartbreaking hc: i wrote a whole thing about this too, BUTTTTTTT...i am a firm believer that, in a worldstate where ashley both (1) encourages mike to shoot emily and he does and (2) locks chris out after he chooses to shoot her in the basement, she opens the trap door for jess no matter what :T in my heart of hearts, this is the truth of ashley. i think the guilt and the regret and the shame of getting two people killed would be SO intense and SO overwhelming, that the moment, the instant, she thought she heard jess calling to her...she'd have to do something to help. i think it would be her first big moment of what she would consider to be courage, and she would think saving jess would help make up for what happened to emily and chris. it doesn't matter that she'd be alone, that there wouldn't be anyone there to see, she would feel compelled to open that door. and...she would. :\
completely ignoring canon/reality hc: time! for! more! SUPERMASSIVE CROSSOVERSSSSS!!! i like to imagine ashley's mom is an adjunct english/literature professor at a local college, and, unfortunately, that puts her squarely in the same dept as john definitelynotclarkelittlehope. they went on one (1) date. it was bad. ashley's mom absolutely ghosted him after - as best and as politely as she could - but ashley's the one who has to deal with it when she ends up in his creative writing class. asldkjfalsjdflkjsdf it's the first time she DOESN'T enjoy a writing course alskdjflksjdlfkJKSDFJ
while im at it, how about some ashley n matt!! ur choice on if thats platonic or more :0 i just think the world needs more of these guys together ;w;
She felt a little bit like her mom's ancient desktop PC for a moment after it happened - buffering, buffering, still buffering. And that was an exaggeration, obviously, but not by much; the weight, the warmth, the sudden waft of leftover cologne, it scrambled her thoughts! Shook them up, at the very least.
That was the only excuse she could come up with for the blank look she gave him, anyway. Ashley had to figure it was a heck of a look, too, because even as she was still struggling to process the fact she was wearing his letterman jacket, Matt was laughing.
"Aw man, didn't mean to make you jump like that, Ash! Sorry, you just looked cold - you're all hunched over and stuff." With a little huff, he dropped himself back onto the bench beside her, resuming the pen-tapping he'd been doing before getting up to throw their lunch wrappers out. He bent over the project outline spread between them, frowned as he started reading again, and...that was that.
So. Great.
This was a her thing, then.
Ashley tried to go back to the project. She tried to go back to her notes. She tried to go back to thinking, end of sentence, but it just wasn't happening. There was something about the idea of them sitting there like that out in the open courtyard where anyone could see, side-to-side and leaning forward as if conspiring, their backpacks set on the bench opposite to be out of the way, the content of their conversation kept low under the distant sound of the baseball team squeezing in some last-minute practice. It was something she knew she could've named, had she not been so frazzled, something that made her face burn and her chest go tight, something...something that took on a decidedly different sort of flavor now that his jacket was draped over her shoulders.
"I, um, I'm fine, actually. Thanks, but, um, here, you should take this back." It was only half a lie - the flush in her ears and cheeks and neck hadn't taken long to spread everywhere else, turning the chilly fall afternoon into something stifling - but that half was the trickier part, making her tongue heavy and slow and stupid. Which Matt noticed.
How could he not?
"You...sure?" he asked slowly, watching her shrug the jacket off with what might've been surprise, but just as easily could've been amusement. "Believe it or not, I do actually wash that thing sometimes, so if you're worried it's just some kind of glorified sweat rag, I prooomise you it's not."
"No, it's - " She cringed at the sound of her own voice, shrill with social anxiety, tight with...well, something else altogether. " - I appreciate it, Matt, I mean, seriously, I do, but...I...I can't. So. Thanks. It was super nice of you, but...I'm fine. Really. Thanks." After a frankly ridiculous amount of time, considering all she had to do was slide the freaking thing off, she held it back out to him, doing her best to seem nonchalant.
To literally no one's surprise, it didn't exactly work.
"You...can't," Matt repeated, setting his pen down on the table before his arm followed suit, his posture loose and comfortable and cool as a cucumber as he set his head on his hand to get a better look at her.
"That's not what I meant to say. I'm just...this is due by the end of the week, you know."
"Yeah, I know, I'm just really, really curious now."
Oh God, she'd had nightmares like this. "Matt," she sighed, feeling another surge of blood shoot to the tips of her ears. "Would you take this seriously? This is the last group project of the semester, and I'd really - "
"Are you cold?"
"I...that's not important!"
"I think it is."
That got her. Without meaning to, Ashley turned, unsure whether she meant for her glare to be exasperated or pleading. Probably the latter. It usually was.
Matt, as always, met her halfway. He didn't shy away from the look, didn't roll his eyes or snicker like Josh and Chris did when playfully antagonizing her. He just...waited. The jacket hung between them, heavy in her hand; the question hung there too, unspoken but just as weighty.
Because she knew he wouldn't make fun of her, that he wouldn't tease her or try to deflect by cracking a seriously unfunny joke, she sighed, averting her eyes. "There's still a lot of people hanging around here."
"I guess."
"A lot of people, Matt," she said, taking great pains to really emphasize the point, "who...you know...might see me wearing this."
His eyebrows dropped, but only slightly. "Okay?" he replied, dragging the word out to goad her along, and oh, come on! He was really going to make her spell it out?
"People...assume things, all right? They...talk. I really appreciate the gesture, it was totally sweet of you and everything, but...people might think we're...I don't know..." She shrugged, shook her head, shrugged again, and all the while, the mean little voice in the back of her head tittered with locker room laughter and study hall whispers - harbingers of the rumors she could already hear rolling fresh and hot off the gossip mill. "They might think we're dating, or...or something."
He was quiet for a second. A second she spent waiting for the jacket to be taken from her, plucked aside without further comment.
Again, it didn't exactly work out that way.
"Would that be so bad?" He did laugh then, albeit softly, lifting his shoulders in a shrug of his own when she whipped her head around to stare. "I'm asking! You don't think there are worse things for people to say? I mean, don't get me wrong, Ash, I know after that pass I fumbled at our last away game I'm kind of embarrassing to be seen around, but - "
It was out of her mouth before she could bite down on it: "I'm the embarrassing one." And then it was just there, fogging the air in glimmery motes of frost as if to prove she'd said it, to drive home how, whoops, sorry, there'd be no taking it back now. She bit her lip a second too late, worrying it between her teeth until it ached, and...and then Matt nudged her with his shoulder, pushing the jacket back towards her.
"No, you're not," he said, and his voice was so firm, so self-assured, that she almost believed him. "But you are the cold one. So...c'mon. If people want to think I'm your boyfriend, at least let them think I'm a good one, right?"
for ur stockpile!! gonna be predictable n ask for a lil scream somethin :]
"I'm gonna ask you a question. And you're not going to like it - "
"Hoo boy," Tara said, widening her eyes at her own reflection before switching her phone off and setting it down. She had a sense this one was going to take most of her attention, if not all.
Amber's hypotheticals were like that.
" - you're not going to like it," she repeated, taking said phone off of Tara's lap and flipping it over her shoulder to land...God, somewhere soft, she hoped, "but I need you to answer anyway."
She leaned over on the couch, glancing around her to check on her phone. In the blanket nest, thank Christ. "...okay."
"Ah, ah, ah," Amber admonished, poking a single finger into Tara's cheek until she had no choice but to meet her eyes again. "Eyes on the prize."
Okay, that got her. Snorting a laugh, Tara let herself be turned, but threw her eyebrows up as high as they went to show how very, very little she appreciated it. "And you're the prize, huh? Any chance I could get my quarter back from that claw machine?"
"How would you murder me? If you had to."
Aaand that...got her less. Her laughter tapered off into an anxious exhale as she suddenly felt the weight of Amber's eyes, the unexpected gravity of her gaze. The living room had never felt so silent - and, on her own as often as she was, Tara knew silence.
"Murder you," she said again, hoping she'd misunderstood somehow. "Not just kill, but murder. Like. With intention. Premeditation. How would I purposely end your life, is that seriously what you're asking me?"
Amber's smile didn't change. "If you had to."
"If I had to."
"That's...what I just said, yeah."
"Okay, but," she nudged Amber's hand away, that finger in her cheek feeling awfully stabby, all considering, "why would I have to kill you? What's the context?"
Like a ragdoll, she went limp and floppy, collapsing back onto the couch with her legs across Tara's lap. With the sort of groan usually reserved for long-running soap operas and short-running dating shows, she whined, "Why are you like this?" before sighing, lifting her hands into the air to gesticulate. "Okay. For the sake of this hypothetical."
"Uh huh," she nodded, getting a brief taste of revenge by poking her own finger right into the arch of Amber's foot, making her squirm and recoil.
"Let's say...I've lost my mind."
"Not seeing what's so hypothetical about that, but..."
"Let's further say," she continued, nudging Tara's hand away with her toes, "that it's a kill-or-be-killed kind of deal. There can only be one."
"I don't know if I'm cut out for being the Highlander, honestly..."
"You're not. That's why this is a hypothetical. So there's your context: I've given up the very last vestiges of humanity and thrown my compassion by the wayside, I've decided you've gotta go, and your only chance to make it out of this temper tantrum alive is to stop me where I stand." As if hoping to take her by surprise, she sat up again, the couch cushions all but melting under her weight to leave little more than a hair's width of space between them. "How do you do it? How do you kill a killer, killer?"
For a beat, she let the moment sizzle, knowing there wasn't much Amber enjoyed more than a dramatic pause, but when she felt it'd sat long enough, she smiled and did her very best to ruin her fun - as always. "I'm assuming 'with kindness' isn't an acceptable answer?"
"That's it," Amber said, grabbing one of the decorative throw pillows and pretending to push it over her face, "you've gone and done it. You've triggered the snap, and the hypothetical has become thetical."
"Not a word."
"Shut up, smothered people can't talk." She leaned in closer, pretending to put more of her weight into the act, and all the while sighed, "We could've avoided this. You could've just killed me, and none of this would've - "
Moving quickly, Tara sprung her trap, poking the tv remote - hard - into Amber's stomach as she mimed her little suffocation routine. "I'd wait until you were distracted and monologuing," she said with a sly smirk of her own, defiantly meeting Amber's gaze when she dropped the pillow, "then I'd just...absolutely wreck you."
The living room was quiet again as Amber looked down at the remote pressing into her stomach. Her eyes narrowed a fraction of a fraction of an inch, as if thinking, imagining...and then her eyes found Tara's, and her grin couldn't've been more pointed if she'd put her mind to it.
ooo how about "is everything okay?" "i just need a distraction.." from that midnight calls prompt list with josh n ashley :]
There was no excuse, really. She couldn't say she was 'in the zone,' couldn't say she was trying to get there, couldn't say she was lost in her thoughts, couldn't say she was attempting to find them...she couldn't even say she was asleep, or dozing, or skimming through which of her nine thousand fantasy universes she'd be using instead of counting sheep when bedtime actually did come around. Ashley jumped because jumping was, well, her body's natural reaction to most sudden sounds (and sudden movements, and sudden stops, and sudden realizations, and, and, and...); there wasn't an excuse that applied.
Didn't mean she had to tell Josh that.
She hit the button to answer her phone on speaker, dropping her head into her hands immediately afterwards. "Hello?" she sighed, doing her best to cover the adrenaline-quakes in her voice.
Now, a normal person probably would've noticed anyway. A normal person would've stopped and reconsidered. A normal person would've said something like 'Oh, is this a bad time?' or 'What's up with you?' or maybe even 'Augh, is it too late? Sorry, I didn't even think about that!'
But this wasn't a normal person.
This was Josh.
He blew right past her, full steam ahead.
"I think I figured it out. What ruined the whole thing, I mean. And before you say it, no, it's not even the choice to have the kid do all that rapping. I know that's hard to believe, but stick with me on this one, okay? I've put a lot of thought into it."
There went the spike of fear, deflated like a discount grocery store balloon. If there was any benefit of being in Josh's quote-unquote inner circle, she had to figure it was that; he could use his crappy Psych 101 powers for good sometimes (when he deigned to), finding the precise spot to apply pressure until you forgot all the stuff that was bothering you and you were left so flummoxed that your brain chemicals miraculously balanced out.
Still, that...didn't mean she had the first idea what he was talking about.
Blinking hard, she checked the time and pinched herself for good measure, ruling out all the obvious explanations. But no, no, she was awake and it wasn't even that late, so Josh's word salad was sort of just that - word salad. She ran through the greeting again, scanning it with the searching eye of a reading comprehension test expert, aaaaaaand...nothing. Narrowing her eyes, she stared down at her phone, watching the seconds tick, tick, tick away between them.
"...what?"
"I figured. It. Out," he repeated, proving once and for all that nope, nuh-uh, no explanation was forthcoming. He was leaving her high and dry, trusting that - sooner or later - experience or context or straight-up telepathy would bridge the gap between them. "It isn't the diaper to the face either. Again, not a choice I would've made, but it's not the heart of the issue, know what I mean?"
Gap? Had she said it was a gap between them? Screw that - this was the Grand Freaking Canyon.
"Josh," she sighed, pressing her fingers hard to the ridge of her eyebrows as if it would help organize her thoughts. "I have...no idea what you're talking about. Is this some weird new crank call you're trying out? Because I have to be honest, it's, like, not...good."
The nerve of him, he sighed back at her from the other end of the line, acting like she'd been the one to call him in the middle of the night. "You know what I'm talking about."
"I don't!"
"You do! The Visit!"
"The...what?" At that, she took him off of speaker, pressing the phone to her ear. Why she did it, she couldn't say, but hearing his voice concentrated down like that had to help something, didn't it? "What visit? We haven't gone anywhere!"
"No, The Visit. Remember?"
Her eyes rolled to the ceiling. "I don't."
"Sure you do. The grandparents were dead all along?"
"I - what?"
"And then the kid rapped."
Squinting, she stared at her ceiling fan, her mouth tracing words her voicebox was too confused to push out, and - then it hit her. Ashley rocked forward where she sat, her body going slack as the connection was finally - FINALLY - made. "Oh my God...that movie?! That awful movie we watched?!"
"Uh, yeah, duh."
"Josh, that - " Shaking her head, she glanced towards her planner, feeling her confusion bubble right back up again. " - that was three weeks ago! Why are you still thinking about this?!"
"What can I say, it stuck in my craw."
"It stuck in your - " But before she could finish the thought, before she could tease him too badly for being weird or obsessive or weirdly obsessive, her eye caught something else.
The date.
And there it was, the experience, the context, the straight-up telepathy. In that instant, it all made sense.
How was it February already? How hadn't she noticed? How -
There wasn't any quiver to her voice that time. Honestly, she wasn't sure it had ever sounded as calm and even as it did then, her weight on her elbows and her eyes slowly shutting to block out tomorrow's date. (Today's, really, if you wanted to be pedantic, but, whatever.) "Okay, if it wasn't the rapping or the diaper thing or the grandparents, then, like, what's the problem?"
"The squandered potential. That's what it all comes down to: That twist could've knocked my fucking socks off, but it didn't, and you know why? Every. Single. Fucking. Plot beat. Was making it clear that a twist was waiting to happen. It was hardly even a surprise at the end! Could you imagine if the whole thing had been played straight right up until that revelation? Bam. Instant classic. Instead, we got, like, what, ninety minutes of winking and elbow-nudging like 'Aw shit, I bet a twist is coming any second now...' Ruined the whole fucking thing."
Another side-effect of being in Josh's quote-unquote inner circle: Sometimes the Psych 101 bullcrap rubbed off on you. Because of that, Ashley thought she could hear their real conversation, the true one, happening loud and clear, lost somewhere between the lines - "You doing okay?" "Nah, not really." "Want to talk about it?" "Nah, not really." "Is this about - " "You know what it's about." "What can I do?" "Help me not think about it. Just for a second. Just for a minute. Help me, help me, help me."
She could do that.
Ashley leaned forward until she rested with her arms on her desk and and head in her arms, the phone still tucked safely between her ear and shoulder. "How would you fix it then, Mr. Genius? Obviously you have some ideas."
"How would I fix it? How would I fix it? Ohoho, Ash, I don't think you know what sort of can of worms you just popped open...how much time you got?"
"For you?" she asked, closing her eyes again as she settled into the sound of his voice, pretending they both weren't fully aware tonight was the anniversary of the twins going missing. "All the time it takes, I guess."
