Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a new Until Dawn one-shot, this time again revisiting the pairing of Chris x Ashley because they're adorable together and all that beautiful jazz, yeah. I do have two other one-shots in this fandom with ridiculously long title names... um, they are... let me check... ah, Wheels in the Head Turn and Visions of An Eternal Night. So, I proudly claim this piece as Puncture of the Innocent, a warped and rather messed up idea of mine with an idea that has been playing in my head for a long time, though this piece certainly will not be 10000 words or anything remotely crazy like that, golly I wish. There will be game references, but this is to be set 'after' the whole Wendigo event, with an ending that all live, plus Josh doesn't get turned into Wendigo or dies, because I hate that they didn't give him a happy ending after what he went through. Pairings in this include Chris x Ashley of course, and maybe a hint at the others if you can find them.
It takes a few seconds for Ashley to register that the love her life is behind her, hands outstretched creepily (though they truthfully are loving at a second thought), to ensnare her waist as he brings her into a hug, nuzzling in her neck, kissing and murmuring softly. The world melts away for a moment, a shard of time doused in amber with beauty wrapping her like a present. She turns around the best she can to kiss him back, but he tries hard to not let her ruin the moment of leaving that gorgeous and evident blue and black bruise marring her neck.
"Come on honey," he whines. "We've- I-"
"Shh." she kisses him back, fiercely, and it is so reminiscent of that first night with their first kiss, of that night with the snow and fanged beasts. With backstabbing friends, strangers, jump scares, mines, totems, punctured relationships... she could go on and on and on about the details that haunt her at nights. Ashley counts backwards from 10 to 0 in her head, then repeats the manner from 0 to 10 just because she can while Chris explores her body.
They've liked each other for too long to never intimately share a connection... seemed as if everyone picked up on that but them in the heat of things. It took a gun in Chris's hand for him to even yell it out, and she has to yell back in terror half because she wants to live, half because she truly loves the man in front of her; it is a war on both sides, how would you decide what was right to say?
He's smiling when they break apart, his glasses askew on the curve of his nose, blonde hair tousled, and that grin reminds her of someone with darker hair, darker eyes, darker intentions... and she freezes. Ashley's skin is crawling with festering diseases, namely paranoia and nightmares, a constant ticking of a time bomb that'll go off whenever it feels like it.
Chris frowns, there is a change in their room, a little dirty apartment with hardly enough breathing room, his hands are out hovering above her shoulders. "You okay?" he asks.
She blinks, Ashley has to blink several times before she can respond, and the syllables approach her throat in a yell but are blockaded by regret. If she mentions him, that Josh Washington, it'll get a ball rolling, it'll cause him to lose his mind, how he punched him, couldn't save him... perhaps even loved him. Ashley's face is hopeless. "Y'know, him. You reminded me of him, with the smile."
Eyes narrow threateningly. Chris backs away from her. "I thought we got away from that. The consolers and the therapists..."
"Everyone slips," Ashley chides admonishingly, turning away from him. "He punctured us. The Wendigos punctured our innocence. Here we all, all eight of us sitting around because we're terrified. We can go see however many specialists you want to Chris, but we won't be able to forget what happened. No matter how many people soothe us with gentle and kind words will alleviate the fear any less than it already is brimming at. In all fairness, I sort of don't want to forget-"
Chris throws his hands up in the air, swearing (fuck, Ashley, are you serious with me here?), and he's barring past her to the front door of the apartment, he opens it, slams it, his wave of lemonade hair is gone down the hall drowning in greyscale. She has a hand to her mouth, biting down on her palm to subdue a scream of fury as she crumbles to her knees.
This is what she mentioned, they're punctured, like a balloon and constantly air is leaking so they cannot be rebuilt back together.
It is late when Chris returns, but first he goes to the bar. He needs a drink. There's someone waiting for him, a phone call he had made on the way. Not a night for self-pity, but a night to share his self-pity with someone else. Of course, they don't show up. Someone else does, someone else he needs, but doesn't need. The sly ass himself comes sliding in, hands in his pockets of his washed out jeans from forty spin cycles. Just like the old days, his best friend could sense whenever he was at the bar needing a drink. Spidey senses or some fanged up bullshit.
"Problem, Cochise?" Josh asks coolly, sitting down next to him.
Chris downs a gin and tonic quickly, snapping a glare, his eyebrows are furrowed together, eyes bright in ruby red anger. "You despicable monster. Have the gall showing your face!"
"Haven't we already resolved the problem?" he flashes one of those smiles, perhaps the same one that rocked Ashley off her... rocker (however, it could've been a number of things, that paranoid witch, Chris snarls to himself.) so here he is at the bar with a sworn enemy on the lose.
The blonde has a wit's end within two sentences and he swivels on his stool, Chris's face is wrapped in an enraged, ferocious scowl as his hands grip the flaps of Josh's shirt, and he tugs him closer so the offending party can practically feel the hot breath spewing over his skin. "You broke us!" Chris screams. "I have no problem to resolve with you other than getting out of my life. Leave me alone. Leave Ashley alone. Leave Sam alone. Mike, Jess, Matt, Emily... they don't deserve to have some scumbag like you be around, constantly taunting us! GET OUT!"
Josh holds his hands up in retreat. "You seem wounded."
"I am wounded."
"Just as bad as her?" he asks. "She was the one tied up against me, I was the one who punched her twice... Chris, don't you see? Ashley has the issue, not you. You came along for the ride." Josh slams a hand down on the counter, eyes serious, locked with his, and Chris teeters on want, colliding a fist into his jaw.
"Felt better this time." Chris rags, standing up, Josh sprawled on the floor, tending to his bruised cheek, looking back precariously as if the blonde will explode any second.
Josh struggles to his feet, waving off the bartender who has finally noticed the commotion amid his washing of glasses. "You know exactly what she needs Chris!" he calls after him, running out of the bar. "Give her an apology! For expecting her to be perfect, for you to be perfect. That's all she wants to hear. You're wounded. She's wounded. We're all punctured!"
Chris pretends not to hear him, but does flip him off as he walks back, admittedly drunk, but he waves the middle finger around as if he's flipping off the entire sky, street, all the trees, and Josh stands back, smiling, but the pain in his jaw resurfaces.
The night is quiet, Ashley deduces quietly to herself, as she leans over the balcony railing, examining the street down below with her besetting sin of curiosity. Her phone has been going off all night with apologetic texts from Chris, enticing messages from Sam, and one idiotic dark haired male with a new number who felt graced by some higher up power to let her know that her lover is drunk. Drunk as a skunk type of drunk, with slurred speech and stumbled steps and definite mood swings.
She grips her phone tighter and the slamming of the door. "I'm home!" Chris announces as if the door slamming was not enough to alert everyone of his presence. His voice slurs together like a rewound tape or old record player, the speed fifty times faster so the noise is dissonant and painful. Ashley covers her ears up. The harsh noise reminds her of Wendigo cries, of gunshots, saws, Josh's anguished (albeit fake) screams, and moreso, her pain that will not go away.
"Where- where the fuck are you?" Chris yells out harshly, stumbling around. There's a resounding crack, Chris rammed his fist against the sliding glass door, there is a clink clank noise as shards of glass fall to the balcony, and he enters dangerously through the newly made opening onto the terrace. With the bright lights of neon signs that remind him of prostitutes and brothels, he can see somewhat better, and there's Ashley, looking beautiful, cowering away from him. Cowering.
"Any- anything to say to me?" she catches off a sob, looking up slowly. "You were gone almost the entire night. Midnight is in like an hour."
"I let the hurt go away." Chris shamefully admits, drifting off to the railing.
"Heard from you-know-who that you punched him." Ashley says, though it is almost accusingly said, like nails down a chalkboard type of accusing.
Chris's jaw locks again, the clenching of his fingers against the railing suggests violent tendencies approaching, but he simmers to a boiling pot of water cooking raw carrots. "He got in the way again. Perhaps wanted to ruin us once more."
"You were the one who texted him, Chris. I know you wanted to contact Mike, but in your rage you selected Josh's number-"
He's up and pointing a sharp finger in her face, stern, angry, drunk. "Don't mention him to me! He's a disease."
"Like my paranoia?" Ashley lets a single tear fall down her face.
Chris feigns back, shocked. "I-"
"My paranoia of everything in the world is a disease, Chris. You-" she stops, carefully considering her words. "Josh started the problem, he's the root of it all," she breaths heavily, but there's more, she's drawing back, and she's drawing back on purpose. "I can't say it."
He leans down, places a hand under her chin, he kisses her softly on the lips, and Chris is back to smiling. "You can tell me whatever you want."
Ashley swallows, it is a swallow of dire consequence. He has given her permission, so she speaks. "Josh started the problem. You're perpetuating it."
Her gaze falls, she can no longer look at him. Hurt spreads across his face, almost painstakingly obvious that he's devastated to hear such... such bullshit on her behalf. Chris begins to yell so belligerently that pigeons fly away from their coops, but Ashley cannot listen to him now. She wants sleep, she wants a nap. She wants to read over the messages sent from Sam on her and Mike's trip to the Bahamas. Something happy for a change, not the man she loves who is so dead set on trying to patch up the balloon that is punctured beyond belief. Chris is crying, he is crying. (Come back to me, Ash, please! Don't do this to me! Explain!) Ashley decides, no, she chooses to ignore him.
She had been right all along, she is still right. Josh hurt them, hurt the seven them in unimaginable ways, but there's an underlying issue there. He helped them too, revealed that life (though expected) won't be easy, their innocence had been punctured, there were dark things out there and all Chris wanted, wants, to do, is forget those dark things. That they don't exist. That they can't harm her, or their love.
Ashley hugs herself tight, closing her bedroom door as Chris's sobs wail louder than an orchestra at the Sydney Concert Hall.
"Josh started the problem. You're perpetuating it."
She, perhaps, in that moment, broke Chris's innocence again. She's a new Josh to him.
Not like she can take back what she said, right?
While that ending may have pissed all of you Chris x Ashley supporters off, they're okay. They're totally fine. Now, if you are absolutely confused, here's the bottom line hahaha, Ashley does not want to forget everything that has happened in her life on that night because it has shaped her, however it is in Chris's mind to fix themselves and forget Josh, the Wendigo, the pranks, the sobs and nightmares but things do not go that easy. They love each other, but that value right there is a wrench in their relationship. But, anyways... I hope you all enjoyed! Let me know what you thought, it'd mean a lot to see how my 'short' writing works versus my longer pieces (this did only take me like an hour to do with pure plot bunnies... is there a plot to this?) If you did like this and want to read my other Until Dawn one-shots, go right ahead, it'll mean so much. Don't know what I'll do next with this fandom, but thank you so much for reading. Have an amazing day! I love you all! Bye!
~ Paradigm