Chapter Text
Everything about him is appetizing, right down to his beautiful beating heart.
Ever since the mountain, things haven’t been the same. It’s hard to remember the end of it, and until a few months ago the treatment center has only been one long, painful blur. Josh has never done hard drugs, but his time spent in there was like withdrawals from all of them combined. He’s sick, and he’ll never be well, he knows that. The hunger consumed his mind so long ago and so entirely that he can’t remember what it was like before and it’s terrifying. It’s like a snake lying in the pit of his stomach, churning with every scent and movement. He clicks in the depths of his throat with every urge to bite, to tear, to rip apart the tendons he sees before him. Every second wavers with uncertainty at what he will do next, but that’s not the worst of it. Not by far. Josh has endured illness before, felt his hands shake with paranoia and fear just like this. He can ignore the persistent cold and the beast on his shoulder whispering into his ear; he can block it out with the medications and self help tools and safety plans. Just please, for the love of God, don’t let him be alone.
Nevertheless, fear strikes him when he’s told he’ll be leaving the treatment center. No, he hasn’t seen a soul since he’s been admitted and no, he doesn’t know if he’s prepared to face them. They insist he’s ready, that they’ve determined he’s no longer a danger, but he knows. He knows that that monster inside him is also ready- ready to pull him down from the stability he’s worked so hard to build as soon as he’s outside of these institutional stone walls. Knowing this, his hesitance persists. It persists until he is shown the documents entailing what’s to come. When the bold black font asks who will watch after him, he is surprised to read his best friend’s name in neat blue ink. His fear dissolves, and is instead replaced with a different kind of uncertainty. Has Chris forgiven him, even after all he’s done? There’s no way of knowing, not until he speaks to him face to face. The prospect intimidates him, but they remind him that all of this is “essential to his recovery.” How can he argue with that?
The sun is just setting as he takes his first steps outside, but its last hostile rays still stab painfully at the back of his eyes. Whatever followed him from the mountain has sentenced him to life as a creature of the night with sadistic finality. There is no sense in fighting it. The staggering reality that he’s leaving- really leaving- doesn’t hit until he recognizes that gray SUV pull into the parking lot. The urge to run takes hold of Josh, but dissipates moments later. After so long, it’s consoling to see that dirty blond hair and inoffensive stride. And yet, he can’t bring himself to meet his friend’s protective gaze. Even after the fifth joke, even after the silence settles as they drive, even after they arrive at a house stiff with unfamiliarity, he avoids it like the plague. Every inch of Josh Washington’s body is frozen, and one glance from those blue eyes would crack him right in two like an ice cube.
HUNGRY…. SOFT, PINK FLESH...
Shut up, shut up, shut up!
In a panic to escape his own intrusive thoughts, he abruptly opens the car door and steps out; the slam grounds him with reassuring finality. An uncertain tone reaches his sensitive ears.
“Josh? You okay, buddy?”
It is Chris, whose voice is an unexpected blanket of warmth around his cold shoulders. Beneath his surgical mask, a permanent grimace cracks open to attempt a response. Instead, a crackle shakes itself out of his throat like an echo of hunger. In a panic, he thanks his lucky stars that it’s not audible from the other side of the car. With a frown of concentration, he clears his throat and tries again. “Yeah.” Tired eyes don’t dare leave the ground for fear of his curiosity betraying him. “Sorry.”
“No worries.” He only opens the back to grab a duffel bag, seemingly unaccustomed to this new, quiet Josh. He must have so many questions, and yet not a single one has been asked.
The soft spoken man ignores the snarl that rumbles in his stomach and instead asks his own. “Where are we?”
The other chuckles sheepishly, just like he always used to. “Your parents wanted you to have a place of your own to recover in, I guess. Y’know, away from… everything.”
“Away from them.”
“Er… yeah.”
They both know this is the truth, despite the facades put on for the rest of the world. Neither of his parents have been able to look him in the eye after what happened. After their first visit went so horribly, how could they?
There’s a muffled, “He’s lucid, but not completely,” before a beep and the mechanical sound of locks letting go of a thick door. They enter his world of drug-induced fog and mist, heartbeats plucking the strings of his hunger with every pulse.
...EAT... EAT SNAP AND CHEW… TEETH SINKING INTO MEAT… FRESH BLOOD...
“...Joshua?” Melinda Washington speaks to her son, the first real voice he recognizes after being found in the mines. His head jerks in her direction, but lazily bobs in his partially sedated state. There is a thin thread of humanity left in their boy, and for a moment, her lifeline of love and concern seems to connect; for a moment, it holds.
But in another, it is broken. That green gaze that was once so thoughtful and troubled is muddled with something else. It clouds his eyes and reduces him to a shaking, growling mess. Josh feels himself falling back into the dark hold of the beast; it’s hard to hold on, and so easy to let go. He lunges against his restraints, and his father pulls his wife away. With every click of his teeth as they snap together, that look of horror solidifies in Bob Washington’s eyes. He cannot believe what he is seeing, but he must- he must, and so must she. Their last child has been tortured to even further insanity by his mental illness, and there is no telling whether he’ll ever return.
And yet, even as he fights with all his might to free his hands and claw and shred and break, he is reaching for something else. Josh is reaching for salvation. ‘Help me,’ he is saying. ‘Help me, I can’t do this alone. I am so alone.’
They never visit again.