#and apparently ash and josh without chris anywhere in sight or even the topic of conversation

[love-fireflysong]

Day 6: Meeting

Fandom: Until Dawn Character(s): Ashley Brown, Josh Washington, Hannah Washington, Beth Washington Words: 1852 Rating: General Author’s Notes: Until Dawn babies time! And by babies, I mean like they’re like, 12 or so. Looking back, I think this is the first UD fanfiction I wanted to write, I’m pretty sure I came up with the rough plot for this one not long after I played the game for the first time back in 2016. So this is a 4 year old idea finally breaking free! And in keeping with the theme I’ve apparently been starting, I have also never read Murder on the Orient Express. Maybe one day I will actually have a side plot revolving around something I have actual experience with.

Ashley had always loved the library. And today didn’t change that thought, no sir it did not. And just like any other day she visited, she pushed open the door and breathed a sigh of relief at the air conditioned air that felt so jarring against the mid-afternoon heat of July’s summer at her back. Greeting Miss Jennings who was sitting at the check-out desk by the door, she walked further into the building, past the children’s section where they were doing a craft of some sort with Mr Harper. Cut pieces of construction paper and glue were scattered across the table, and the hands of little kids were eagerly reaching to try and beat the others from grabbing their favourite colors.

Further in she reached the stairs that would lead into the more sophisticated, at least in her opinion, reaches of the building. In its deeper depths, she would find the tables and desks set up for people studying and working on projects. Ashley couldn’t wait until the day she was old enough to have a reason to go downstairs, to be able to go down there everyday. She imagined that once down there, she would never want to leave the peace and solitude that the desks with it’s high privacy partitions would provide. Instead, she headed into the higher reaches of the building. Her hand grabbing onto the stair’s rails, feeling the chipping paint beneath her hand as it glided up the bar, already bracing herself for the wonder she knew would greet her upstairs.

Reaching the top floor, she felt the large smile come to to her face at the sight before her as it always did. Green eyes brightening as she took in the seemingly unending rows of shelves, packed so full of books that they threatened to spill out sometimes, and so tall and high that the tops almost brushed the ceiling. Ashley took a deep breathe through her nose and let it out in a happy exhale. As always, the room carried in it both the hint of paper and ink from the newer books recently added to the library’s extensive collection, but it was the overlying sweeter, muskier scent of books that had been here longer than she had been alive that felt like coming home.

She stepped in further, already knowing exactly where to go. Any other time, she would peruse each and every one of the shelves, fingers brushing across the well-worn and cracked spines of favorites and the unblemished spines of treasures yet to be discovered, wondering what adventures—what knowledge—she would find within its pages. But not today.  No, today Ashley Brown was on a mission. In fact, one could say that she was on a case: the case of the Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie. Eagerly, she rushed to the mystery/thriller side of the floor and gave a cry of victory when she managed to find the well-loved spine of the book, thankfully not needing a stepladder to reach it, and rushed towards her favorite chair in the corner. Finding it thankfully unoccupied, she sank down into it’s extremely worn and frayed depths.

Around her was silence, the only thing interrupting it was the occasional turning of pages and the shocked gasps when the two darker haired girls pouring over a book on the table nearby found something particularly exciting. It was the best kind of silence, the best kind of noise. Ashley let herself curl up deeper into the armchair and opened the book and began to read.

Finally. Finally. She was home.

ONE: AN IMPORTANT PASSENGER ON THE TAURUS EXPRESS

It was five o’clock on a winter’s morning in Syria. Alongside the platform at Aleppo stood the train grandly designated in railway guides as the Taurus Express. It consisted of—

“Hey.”

—a kitchen and dining car,—

“Hello?”

—a sleeping car and two local coaches.

“Hey!”

With an angry sigh, Ashley reluctantly lowered her book to glare at the boy sitting in the chair across from her with all the hatred her tiny twelve year-old body could muster. Only to have it flag in dulled surprise when she realized that she had in fact been glaring at his legs crossed over the back of the chair. His head was actually hanging upside down, dark hair hanging straight down, and a wide, cocky grin on his face.

“Yo.”

Rolling her eyes in annoyance, Ashley returned his greeting with an extremely terse ‘Hi’ and continued reading.

By the step leading up into the sleeping car stood a young French lieutenant,resplendent in uniform, conversing—

“So, what are you in for?”

She wordlessly lifted her book higher and continued to read.

—conversing with a small, lean man, muffled up to the ears, of whom nothing was visible but a pink-tipped nose and the two points of an upturned curled moustache.

“I mean, what crime did you commit?”

Ashley wanted desperately to ignore the boy but somehow knew even now that it was a lost cause. So instead, she hesitantly lowered her book with a tired sigh. “Crime? What are you even talking about?”

Still upside down on the chair, the boy shrugged, the movement doing little to jostle the hands laced over his stomach. “You know, what you did in order for this to be your punishment.”

If he thought that this clarified the earlier question, the he was very wrong. It had only left her more confused then before. “Punishment? Are you talking about the library? Or the book?”

“I dunno, both I guess?” He narrowed his eyes at her. “Wait. Are you saying that you’re here by choice?”

“Yes?”

“And reading by choice?”

“Yes?”

“Oh I can’t believe this.” With a grunt of effort, the boy pulled himself up so he could, very clumsily, maneuver his way on the chair so he was sitting in it properly. Now right side up, and the red in his face lessening as the blood in it returned to the rest of his body, Ashley was able to see that the boy was around her age, if not a year or two older. “You mean to tell me that you not only came here—for fun—but to read a book—for fun?”

“Well, yeah. What else would I rather be doing?”

He looked at her like she was insane, which she found to be very rude when they didn’t even know each other. “Oh, I don’t know, playing outside? Hanging out with friends? Playing video games? Pulling pranks? Cleaning your room? Literally anything else?”

Ashley bristled. “Why are you here then? If you don’t want to be here then just leave!” She pointed towards the stairs behind him. “The stairs are right there, no ones stopping you! So if you could go and let me get back to my book, I would really appreciate it.”

The boy snorted. “Would if I could, Red. But as I mentioned earlier, I’m currently being punished.” The boy stood up and walked behind Ashley to look down at her book and began to read aloud from the page she was open on. “’You have saved us mon cher—’” Ashley couldn’t help but wince at the worst approximation of a french accent that she had ever heard “—said the the General emotionally, his great white mustache trembling as he spoke. Wow. This is what you read for fun? This? It’s so boring.”

Ashley closed her book as she glared back up into the boys face. “What did I do exactly to deserve you bugging me like this?”

He snorted as he looked at her. “Don’t know what you did, but sure know what I did. Me and my best friend got caught pulling a prank on old man Zimmerman next door. He’s at home grounded, and I’m on baby-sitting duty for the foreseeable future.” He pointed with his thumb towards the two dark haired girls reading at the nearby table. 

One of the girls turned to speak. “Not our fault that you decided to play ding-dong-ditch with Chris.”

The other girl, this one wearing a pair of glasses, joined in. “Yeah Josh. And leave the poor girl alone. She would clearly much rather be reading then dealing with your sorry butt.”

The boy (Josh, Ashley reminded herself, not that she really cared though) turned to better respond to the girls, who she was able to identify as his sisters by the same dark hair and nose that they all shared. “Say’s you Hannah. I will have you know that she is probably vastly preferring my company to that musty old book she’s reading.”

“I’m really not. In fact, the quicker you shut up, the quicker I can get back to it.”

The look of outrage on his face was so comically over-exaggerated that she couldn’t help but laugh. “I can’t believe this. Hannah and Beth I can understand, but you don’t even know me? And you’re already dissing me like this?”

“Oh I think I’ve learned all I need.” Ashley closed her book finally, and started to tick off her fingers with each point made. “You’re an annoying, egotistical, cocky prankster who loves the sound of his own voice. And who is also being a pain in my butt right now.”

The silence in the library was now far heavier than it normally was, and Ashley put her hands over her mouth as she realized in shock what it was she had just said. She had never been this sassy before, especially to a stranger, but something about Josh had just brought out the, well, sass in her.

Hannah, at least she thinks Hannah’s the one with glasses, reacts first by throwing her hands over her face to muffle what could possibly, though there is no way that’s what they are, be giggles. The one she thinks is Beth glares at her. “I don’t know who you think you are, but how dare you talk to my brother—”

The sound that interrupts her is one that Ashley never expected. It’s Josh, who’s holding his gut as he cries tears of laughter, going so far as grabbing onto the back of her chair to keep himself upright. Somehow, he manages to squeeze out what he says next in-between huge, gaping breaths of laughter.“Oh man, you really have my number don’t you?” Eventually, Ashley starts to smile and hesitantly laugh along with him, having no clue what just happened.

It’s takes one of the other library patrons on the floor with them, an older white-haired man Ashley vaguely recognizes from her visits here, shushing them sternly, and her hiding her rapidly reddening face behind her book, for Josh to finally settle down.

“Oooh, I like you. What’s your name, Red?”

“Oh, um, Ashley.”

“Well, Ash—”

“Ashley.”

He ignores her correction and sticks out his hand to her, smiling with the same wide grin he had on when he had been hanging from the chair. “I think we’re gonna be great friends, Ash.”

And god help her, Ash agrees with him as she tentatively grabs the hand offered to her and shakes it.