Chapter Text
Samantha James has never been to a funeral before.
Sure, there was that one time seven years ago when she found a dead bird on their porch and decided - much to her mother's chagrin - that she would bury it beneath their prized willow tree in the yard, effectively offending both her cat and her parents in the process.
Her cat, because she had the nerve to deny him such a tasty little morsel, and her parents for having to live with the fact that there is a decaying corpse haunting their beautiful garden forevermore.
This is nothing like that. Not even close.
She keeps her eyes locked on the grand tombstone that now resides on the plot of dirt covering a very expensive, very impersonal and very empty coffin.
"Sam?" Mike calls her name softly, bringing her attention to a pair of beautiful brown eyes filled with gentle concern. He smiles, taking her hand and interlacing her slender fingers with his own. They're rough; weathered and scarred after venturing through the nightmarish planes of the Sanatorium, fighting off cannibalistic monsters and - oh yes - almost losing two digits to some freaky Jigsaw-trap.
She forces a smile back and gives his hand a small squeeze.
"I'm fine."
"Sam..."
"I said I'm fine, Michael."
He backs off, but she can tell she's hurt him. That seems to be all she does these days. That, and burrowing so far down in her sheets she could pretty much out-burrow any burrowing woodland creature in existence at this point.
She pinches her eyes shut and imagines herself underground. Six feet under, to be exact. On the dot. She imagines herself lying in that empty, extravagant coffin, listening to the dirt being thrown on the closed lid and the voices slowly fading away into nothingness. She imagines her parents in the place of the Washingtons, burying their only child in that expensive box of wood as if the ridiculous price of the container could make up for the loss of a life that would never again grace this Earth.
I wonder if they would find me as repulsive and unsightly as that bird, she thinks drily. I bet they would, somewhere in their minds. Their perfect little offspring reduced to nothing but meat and bones, good for nothing but fertilizer...
Her morbid thought process is interrupted by the voice of the priest - a tall, forgettable organism more lifeless than anything below their feet - thanking everyone for coming and showing their support to the Washingtons in light of the tragic recent events.
"Do you want to stay for a while?" Mike asks quietly, still eyeing her like he expects her to fall apart at any given moment. She's grateful for his presence - she really is, especially considering the fact that out of everyone in their merry little band of misfits, including Chris, he's the only one who actually bothered showing up - but his constant mothering is starting to get on her nerves.
I can't blame him. I really can't. He's just worried about me, and I need to appreciate that. Chewing him out won't do either one of us any good, and he's all I have now. It's not like he's being a worrywart just to annoy me, after all.
"Sam? Do you want to stay for a bit?" he repeats, a little louder this time. She nods silently, watching people leave through the gates like sheep being herded into a pen, and a tiny, cynical smile etches its way onto her lips.
"How much do you wanna wager the almighty Mr. Bobby Washington had to pay these lowlifes for coming to his son's funeral?" she muses out loud. Mike looks at her, startled by the cold and distant tone in her voice. It's so... un-Sam-like, and she knows it.
She knows it all too well.
It's something Emily would say, and the last thing she wants is for anyone to compare her to Emily flippin' Davis, but she can't help it. She doesn't feel even a tiny bit like herself these days.
"Dunno?" Mike shrugs, observing the crowd thoughtfully. The slight tilt of his head and the intense look in his eyes give the impression of him trying to solve an exceptionally difficult math problem, and despite herself, she finds it strangely adorable. Not that she'd ever admitted it to him, though. Hell, she doesn't even want to admit it to herself.
Not here. Not now.
"For the gents in the front, I'd bet a fifth of whiskey and a lifetime supply of fedoras." He grins when his joke earns him a snort of laughter.
"Hardy-har, Mike." She kneels down onto the loose dirt, tracing her fingertips slowly over the golden letters etched into the smooth, polished marble surface of the tombstone:
Joshua Benjamin Washington
11/06/1995 - 14/09/2015
"They didn't even bother with an epitaph," she whispers, mostly to herself. Of course, they didn't bother with a fucking epitaph. They didn't know their son at all, not even a tiny bit. But then again, did she? Did she really know him? Could she ever - in a million years - have imagined him doing something so sick? That he could be so twisted and broken?
I did know him. But at the same time... I didn't.
Not at all.
Because she really, really thought she did. God, she thought... she thought she understood who he was, enough to feel like they had a real connection. She still feels that way, but the uncertainty is gnawing at her. Did she really understand Josh after all? In some ways, he was always an enigma to her, but in other ways, she felt like she did know him. She did understand him, at least better than most - if not all.
How could it be possible for someone to feel so close and yet so far away? So intimate but still so distant?
"Hey, Mike?" she whispers, hazel eyes glued to the elegant golden cursive etched into the gorgeous black marble, still unable to truly process what they're seeing.
She sees the letters. She reads them perfectly.
Repeatedly.
And still... it's his name. It's not supposed to be there. It doesn't belong there. Not on a fucking grave marker! It's wrong. It's horribly, painfully, ridiculously wrong and unfair and... She presses the palm of her hands against her eyelids - hard - as if trying to manually remove the image from her retinas. Maybe if she can do that, then... then it won't be real anymore.
God... She lets out a long, shuttering breath she didn't even know she was holding. God, Josh... why? You fucking asshole! Why'd you have to go and get yourself killed, huh? Why did you have to bring us all back there? Why? For a lousy prank? We could have helped you - I could have helped you - and instead, you chose to pull something so completely messed up just to screw with us, and now we're here and I am broken and you're dead.
She bites her lip and feels the sting of tears beginning to burn behind her eyelids. I will not cry. I will not cry. I will. not. fucking. cry.
"Sam? Were you saying something?"
"Huh?" She looks at him, dark blonde eyebrows pulled together in confusion.
"You, uh, you started saying something. You said my name, and, uh... well. My name. Mike. That's me," he jokes, tapping his index finger against his chest. "Michael Munroe, Class President! Certified dreamboat and..."
"Yeah, uh-huh. Keep telling yourself that, Prince Charming," Sam cuts him off and punches him lightly in the shoulder. He grabs it and gasps audibly, staggering backward with a horrified expression etched onto his handsome features. "Milady, you wound me! My pride! My fragile, delicate pride! However shall I recover?!" he wails dramatically. She rolls her eyes at his antics, but she does grant him a tiny smirk before turning to face the tombstone again.
"I was just wondering..." Sam pauses, chewing thoughtfully on her lower lip before continuing. "Do you think anyone ever actually knew him? Josh? I mean... the real Josh. Hell, do you think even he knew who he really was?"
"What do you mean?" Mike comes up behind her, peeking over her shoulder at the polished grave marker.
"All the things he did to us. The..." She almost says torture, but the word feels wrong on her tongue. Josh never intended to torture them, did he? No. No, she refuses to believe that. He had thought of himself as a healer. Someone who - through twisted and fucked up means - brought people together.
And in a weird, messed up sort of way he kinda did.
"... The horror show," she finally says. "All that crap he did to Chris and Ashley, for starters. The whole... haunted-house-basement-dungeon crap. Do you think anyone knew he was capable of that? I mean, I know he was completely obsessed with horror and gore and all kinds of dark shit, but..." Sam trails off, stealing a glance at her somber companion.
"Do you think there's anything left at all? Anything for the Washingtons to... I don't know, maybe understand him better?"
"Well, to be fair..." Mike says thoughtfully, eyes narrowing in contemplation. "The lodge was pretty crispy by the time the rescuers came for us, and I don't know about you, but... I dunno... I mean, it's morbid as shit and everything, but..." He scratches his chin and looks off into the distance.
"What, Mike?" Sam prompts, still feeling the name of her best friend's older brother branded into her eyeballs like some kind of sadistic tattoo, all twisted and burning with regret and resentment.
"I feel like... all the work he put into those thingamajigs should at least be honored in some way, y'know?" Mike drags a hand through his dark hair, effectively ruining whatever hairstyle he decided was funeral-worthy.
Yeah. I do know, she thinks bitterly to herself.
Never mind the fact that they were designed to torture, scare and emotionally demolish the living shit out of all of us - they were definitely really fucking brilliant. You were brilliant, Josh. And I fucking hate you for wasting your talent on something so twisted. I hate you for tormenting us and making us jump at imaginary shadows. I hate you for being indirectly responsible for Jessica and Matt almost dying in the mines. I hate you for taking my fucking clothes, for videotaping me in the damn bath, and stalking me through the entire fucking house in nothing but a tiny goddamned towel. I hate you for being directly responsible for ALL OF US almost dying in those godforsaken, horrible Tunnels of Death. I hate you for making me watch you fucking die. But most of all, Joshua... most of all I hate you for actually being gone this time.
"He would have made an amazing movie producer."
That's all.
That's all she manages to say without crumbling into fifteen billion pieces right then and there. That's all she manages to choke out. So meaningless, so shallow and empty and unimportant.
Just like the last words she ever said to Josh directly.
Sam pinches her eyes shut as the memory of the last time she ever spoke to him infiltrates her mind and the overwhelming feelings of guilt and self-loathing that always accompanies it make her clutch her stomach like she's going to be sick.
Hell, throwing up on Bob Washington's shiny, polished shoes would probably be an amazing distraction right about now.
'"Okay... Josh. Do you have the keys for the cable car?" Her own words echo in her head, mercilessly forcing her to relive the worst moment in her entire life.
"Uh... y-yeah. Here." Josh's voice. Fragile, uncertain. His hands, bloodied and injured as they dug around his pockets for the keys, and all the while Sam just wanted to throw her arms around him and hug him and kiss him and scream at him for being such a goddamned idiot and a million other things fighting for dominance on her tongue. And what, pray tell, were the magnificent words of wisdom that finally managed the Herculean feat of crossing her lips?
"Oh, good."
So damn meaningless. So useless. So casual. Nothing in those words indicated how much she cared for him, how important he was and still is to her. Only the brief touch of their hands - the tenderness in it, the lingering of Josh's hand in both of hers as she took the keys from his open palm...
That small interaction spoke volumes.
Sam clenches her fist as she thinks back to how he tried reaching out to her in the basement, about how she recognized his sincerity and his vulnerability but was too scared of her own feelings to answer in kind. Her nails dig into her palm so deep they're probably drawing blood, but she doesn't care. She deserves the pain.
"You know, Sam..." Josh drawls, halting to a stop. Sam takes in the straight line of his back; that taut, slender build that made her severely and aggressively reconsider her preference for muscular males, and when he turns to look at her over his shoulder for just one brief second, her heart somersaults.
"Yeees, Josh?" she replies, her tone light and teasing.
"I just wanted to say... uh..." He pauses, the serious expression on his face catching her completely off guard.
"What?" Sam tilts her head, trailing after him as he continues his journey further into the dark, cold basement. She can feel the chill of the cement floor through the soles of her shoes, and her toes feel like icicles. Seriously, the only thing she wants in this world is a long, hot bath in the Washington's huge, enormous bathtub. Was that really so much to ask?
Josh speaks up again, that same heaviness still lingering in his low, raspy voice.
"It really means a lot to me that... everyone came back this year, and y'know, that... you came, Sam."
God. The butterflies in her stomach had threatened to burst through her skin at that moment, and she was so torn between confessing to the uneasiness of being back at the lodge and reassuring him. She had paused for a moment, wanting so badly to say something, anything, that could confirm to him that she felt something special for him as well, but what decided to come spilling out of her stupid, cowardly mouth instead?
"Josh... We're here for you. Really. Whatever you need..." Sam swore she could see the disappointment in his large, green eyes and the way his face fell, and she wanted to take back the words, wanted so, so badly to rephrase them, but she continued just the same.
Because she's a stupid, cowardly idiot.
"... whenever... we're all gonna make it through this. Together."
But that didn't happen, did it? Somewhere on that hellish mountain, the body of Joshua Benjamin Washington - or whatever remains of it - lies cold and alone and abandoned in those horrible, horrible mines, and 'together' seems like a cruel joke now.
She barely registers the gentle hand on her shoulder, but it still manages to pull her out of that familiar, black pit that threatens to consume her if she lets her guard down for even one fraction of a second.
"Let's go home, Sam."
Home. It has a strange, unfamiliar ring to it. Home? Home... where is that? Ever since she came back from the mountain she hasn't really felt at home anywhere. Her blanket burrito continues to increase in size every other night, but no matter how tightly she bundles them around her cold, shaking body, she still can't seem to stop losing herself to the dark, dank terrors of the mine.
Josh... I never should have left you.
With one last look at the tombstone with its cold, distant surface, she can't help but feel as empty and hollow as the casket underneath it. And in her mind, she etches the words of her own epitaph beneath the golden letters carved into the shiny, black marble.
So fly on
Ride on through
Maybe one day I'll fly next to you
Fly on, ride on through
Maybe one day I can fly with you