Chapter Text
Ashlyn’s mind started reeling. There was no way she just said that. She watched as Charlotte’s face shifted into something unreadable while Ashlyn tried to keep her own as calm as she could. Internally, this was close to one of the biggest freak outs she's ever had.
“Is that…so?” Charlotte said, her words and face carefully still. Ashlyn simply nodded, scared that if she said anything she would just end up screaming. “Oh.”
“Well then,” Ashlyn said as she cleared her throat, “I’m gonna get going.” Ashlyn quickly shoved the last of her things in her dance bag and practically ran through the door of the studio. She needed to message Aiden right now.
Ashlyn spotted her dads car and walked up to it, seeing the unlocked door and throwing her stuff in. It was more rough than she meant to but her mind was still reeling too much to care. Ashlyn climbed in next to her bag and quickly started digging through it to find her phone.
“Hey trooper, how was dance?” Her dad asked while clicking the car keys on and the engine of the car starting up. Ashlyn barely processed the words, only replying by mumbling a few words she couldn’t even understand. Instead, Ashlyn was much more focused on opening her phone as quickly as she could and clicking on a certain contact.
Psycho
Carrot-Top: We need to talk
Carrot-Top: Like now.
Psycho: what happened
Psycho: didn’t you just get out of dance?
Carrot-Top: It was something that happened there, I just got in my dad’s car
Psycho: wanna just call when u get hoem then?
Carrot-Top: That should work
Carrot-Top: It’s Charlotte related
Psycho: waht
“Ash, you good?” Ashlyn’s dad turned his head to face her when they reached a stop light, pulling Ashlyn’s attention away from her phone, “You seem kinda stressed, something at dance?”
“Nothing! Just…” Ashlyn trailed off, she had no idea how to answer this one. She was panicking, she needed to act normal enough just for the 10 minute car ride, “Just talking to Aiden about homework I forgot about.”
“Is your group ever on top of homework? You guys seem to always be studying.” Ashlyn’s father teased, making Ashlyn acutely aware of her growing lack of sleep and undone homework. The phantom dimension was taking a toll on all of them, even with the new safety they found with the lights.
For the rest of their drive home, Ashlyn played music through her headphones while looking out the window. Her leg was bouncing out of both stress and anticipation while trying to keep her breath steady. The approach to her house couldn’t have felt longer, where as soon as Ashlyn’s father pulled in and parked she snatched her bag off the floor of the car and bolted for the door. Ashlyn ignored her moms calls and running to her room, slamming the door shut.
As soon as Ashlyn closed her door, she hastily opened her phone again and pulled up Aiden’s contact, not even bothering to message before hitting the call button. Her phone didn’t even get through one full ring until Aiden picked up.
“Ash?” Aiden’s voice replaced the previous playing music in Ashlyn’s ear, his voice offering her a small amount of comfort, “What happened?”
“I’ll do it.” Ashlyn quickly let out, close to slurring her words together. She could hear the sound of her heart beat in her ears, her leg bouncing up and down again, “That pretend-dating thing, I’ll do it.” There was a beat of silence, neither continuing the conversation.
“I–um–okay, why now?” Aiden rushed out his words, sounding like he was in disbelief. God, how was Ashlyn meant to explain what had happened, looking back on it now it was rather embarrassing.
“Well um…” Ashlyn trailed off, she had no idea how to word this in any reasonable way, “I ran into Charlotte at the end of dance and she asked who your girlfriend was and I said me.” Ashlyn simply pulled off the bandaid, stating the simple facts on what happened. It felt weird, being this unsure or afraid when speaking to someone, particularly her friends.
“Holy shit Ash,” The following silence coming from Ashlyn’s phone made her heart beat faster in anxiety, loud enough for her to hear. “We should like, talk. Before the phantom realm I mean.”
“We’re about to eat dinner but if you wanna sneak in before midnight then we can talk for a bit in person if that's easier.” Ashlyn repeatedly gripped and released the blanket under her, they would of course tell their friends about…all of this. She could envision Tyler with his jaw dropped or Taylor laughing at them.
“Sounds good to me, I’ll come over around 11?” Ashlyn thought it over, her parents had a habit of sleeping early and the tree by her window allowed a pretty silent way for Aiden to come through it. It also helped that their time in the phantom realm had been helping with their stealth and agility.
“Yeah, that should work.” Ashlyn felt herself calming down as their plan slowly started to form, “We’ll tell the others tonight, at least they can get some entertainment out of this.”
“Sounds good on my end,” Aiden said, silence following for a few seconds after, almost making Ashlyn’s anxiety return, “God we’re never gonna hear the end of this from Tyler.”
“Or Logan for that point, the two are gonna be making fun of us for eternity.” Ashlyn said with a fond smile. It felt strange to be happy at the idea of two other people making fun of her, but for her friends it was different.
The two fell into a natural conversation, bouncing from topics of school, family and Aiden’s parents visiting, new episodes from TV shows airing or just the phantom realm in general.
“See I think a cooler would be a great idea for the phantom realm, if we’re gonna be driving all the way to Savannah while being chased by death monsters it might as well be enjoyable.” It was almost funny, a few months ago, hell even a few weeks ago, Ashlyn would have scolded Aiden for his lack of taking their situation seriously. Now however, she let out a chuckle at his words.
“What’s your plan, throw cans of soda at the phantoms and hope they start drinking it instead of attacking us?” Ashlyn teased as she braided her hair into one large braid instead of the double dutch braid bun she wore earlier for her ballet class.
“Who knows, the phantoms could be big Dr. Pepper fans for all we know.” Aiden said while Ashlyn picked up on the faint sound of him fiddling with some sort of fidget.
“Ashlyn! Come down and eat!” Her mother’s sudden voice startled Ashlyn, causing her to jump up and her phone to fall on the floor. The phantom realm had been making her more jumpy than she had ever been before, constantly on the look out for danger or anything that could get in their way.
“Coming! Gimme a sec, I’ll be right down!” Ashlyn scrambled to pick up her phone, finding it under her bed. She saw Aiden’s contact still connected on the other side but no sound coming from her phone, she really hoped it hadn’t gotten cracked.
“I’m guessing you need to go?” Aiden’s voice came from Ashlyn’s phone as she picked it up.
“Yeah, gotta go eat dinner. I’ll see you later tonight?” Ashlyn said as she grabbed a hoodie to wear over her leotard, not having a chance to properly get changed since coming home.
“Should still work for me, just use the tree next to your window?” Aiden asked, not seeming nervous in any way about trying to sneak into one of his friends' houses with military parents. Ashlyn couldn’t say the same for herself, not even wanting to think of what her parents would do finding a boy, even if she leaned both ways, in her room at midnight.
“I–yeah that should work.” Ashlyn got out, trying to also sound the least amount worried as possible.
“Nice, see you soon Ash!” Aiden replied, smile clear through the sound of his voice.
“See you soon, Aiden.” Ashlyn said as she pressed the red hang up button on her phone.
“Ashlyn! Hurry down!” Her mother yelled out again, startling Ashlyn again but less so then before.
“I’m coming!” Ashlyn yelled back, now actually pulling the hoodie over herself as she quickly ran down their stairs to the Banner’s living and dining room. She spotted a plate of stir fried green beans on the table next to a pan of lasagna.
Ashlyn walked into the kitchen and got out three plates along with enough sets of silverware for her and her parents, placing them down in the places they normally sat. Her father came over with waters for all of them as her mother walked drying off her hands on her shirt as the family sat down to eat.
“Who were you talking to, trooper?” Her dad asked, placing a slice of lasagna on his own plate while Ashlyn placed green beans on her own.
“Going over the homework I was messaging Aiden about earlier with him. We both had…” Ashlyn trailed off, rethinking the events of the past hour and a half, “A pretty stupid answer.”
“Well, as long as you kids can keep up with your work. Just try and get some sleep, you all look constantly exhausted.” Ashlyn’s mother chided, the conversation being one they had often. However, Ashlyn couldn’t just tell her mother that the reason for her and her friends' exhaustion was because they were fighting against shadow monsters every night, instead usually just nodding and agreeing.
The family ate their dinner in simple conversation, talking about their days between school, work, and upcoming plans. Ashlyn’s parents had already started planning for the barbeque planned for Lily’s birthday as Ashlyn pretended to ignore all the forums and social media they had been scrolling on.
It was only 7:30, giving Ashlyn three and a half hours until meeting up with Aiden and four and a half until the phantom realm. Thankfully most of her classes were assigning a pretty light load of homework, only really having to worry about her AP classes. Hopefully she would still have some time to finish it and not stay up after the phantom realm trying to complete it.
“Hey sweetie, do you know if any of your friends have allergies?” Ashlyn’s dad asked her as her mother pulled up her notes app on her phone. It was kinda cute how excited her parents were to have her friends over and be the best hosts possible now that she had finally made some.
“The twins can’t have peanuts but aren’t allergic to other nuts, Ben’s allergic to most shellfish, and Aiden can’t have grapefruit, but I don’t think anything that would be eaten at a barbeque.” Logan was mildly allergic to penicillin, but Ashlyn doubted that there would be any foods containing antibiotics.
“How much do you know about Lily? We were thinking of just grilling up some hot dogs and burgers along with fruit and a cake,” Ashlyn’s mom said while placing more green beans on her plate, “Of course your friends can bring any extra sides as well.”
“I’m pretty sure Ben mentioned she always had chocolate cake with peanut butter frosting, but I’ll see what else she likes for the twins.” Ashlyn knew her parents had been trying to perfect their plans for Lily’s birthday for the past week and a half, rarely having people over for get togethers like this.
“They’re gonna come in around two weeks, right trooper?” Ashlyn’s father asked her. It would also be a count down for when they were venturing out of the graveyard for the first time.
“They come back in about a week but Lily’s birthday is a week after that.” She had already written down all the dates Aiden talked about while they called, she needed to be as prepared as she could be before meeting them.
The family’s conversation veered off from the upcoming birthday party, going back to talking about mundane topics. By the time they finished eating Ashlyn watched the clock tick over to 8 pm, giving her 3 hours until she had to meet with Aiden and 4 hours until the phantom realm. She felt a bit more anxiety settled in her stomach while wiping off the table, they only had a week to figure this all out.
Walking back up to her room, Ashlyn hoped to at least get her homework for one class done. She was starting to regret taking French instead of Spanish, the conjugation alone was enough to make her want to quit.
Ashlyn groaned as she pulled her Macbook out of her backpack, opening up her Google Classroom. If she was gonna have to wait for 3 more hours, she might as well at least try and be productive.
~~~~~~
Ashlyn watched as the clock in the corner of her Macbook switched to 10:58. And her stupid French homework was still open on her laptop. Sure she kept getting distracted by playing Miku and Vocaloid songs and watching them instead of her homework, but she's still gonna swear by it helping her study.
Swiping her French homework screen back to YouTube, Ashlyn once again turned her attention to a new song on her screen. It was a recording of Rin and Len, one she had watched at least 10 times in the past week, and was also 10 times more interesting than her homework.
The clock finally hit 11, one hour until the phantom dimension and any minute now until Aiden would show up. Ashlyn closed her computer to place on her nightstand before flopping backwards into her bed. She only laid there for a few seconds, reaching to grab her phone before she heard the sound of something clinking against her window.
Standing up to check her window, Ashlyn spotted Aiden standing in their yard, holding a handful of stones and getting ready to throw another one. She quickly tried to make a signal for him to stop, pressing her pointer finger to her lips and shaking her head. It was clear Aiden had seen her as he dropped the rocks and gave her a thumbs up from where he was standing.
There was a tree right next to Ashlyn’s window that had a small ledge of roof next to her room. Ashlyn opened her window to try and point at the tree as some sort of signal for Aiden to climb it. She saw the boy acknowledge it as he flung himself at the tree, making Ashlyn wince as it somehow worked and he climbed up it.
As much as Ashlyn and all the others despised the phantom realm and whatever force trapped them there, they would be stupid to ignore the ways in which it was changing them, especially after the incident at the arcade. It was in moments like these however where the increased strength, speed, and endurance was helpful.
Ashlyn held out her arm for Aiden to grip onto as he climbed onto the roof and through her window. The boy stumbled in, almost tripping over her fan.
“I’m pretty sure my parents are asleep right now, but they sleep light,” Ashlyn warned as she closed her window and Aiden steadied his footing.
“No need to worry, I’m the pinnacle of calmness and quietness,” Aiden said with a fake hair flip, sitting down on Ashlyn’s bed. She rolled her eyes at the obvious sarcasm as she sat down next to Aiden and brought her knees to her chin.
The both of them were wearing normal sleep clothing, Ashlyn in a tank top and shorts while Aiden wore a long sleeve shirt and long pants despite it being the start of sweltering summers in Georgia. The breeze outside at night was a comfortable temperature but not enough so for that style of clothing plus blankets.
“How the hell are you wearing that in this temperature?” Ashlyn asked as she turned on her fan in front of them while lifting her braid off her neck to relieve some of the heat from it. There was a reason she often preferred her hair in two dutch braids or a bun but she couldn’t find the energy in herself to do her hair in anything beyond a normal single braid.
“Because my house has air conditioners in every room that me and Ben have set to like, 17 degrees,” Aiden said with a laugh before turning his attention also to and pointing at Ashlyn’s hair, “Do you want me to try and put it up for you?”
“It’s not that big of a deal, just a bit heavy,” Ashlyn said before she swept her braid to rest over her left shoulder, “Plus, it took forever to brush out earlier, I don’t need to do all that again if you end up doing something to it,” It wasn’t that Ashlyn fully lacked trust in Aiden, but she was very proud of her hair, and the trust she did have was very minimal.
“Hey! I know enough about hair to at least do a bun,” Aiden replied in mock offense, “Plus I’ve been watching videos and need practice before Lily comes. She’s gonna be all over how long your hair is.”
“...Fine, but if you do poorly this is your only chance,” Ashlyn figured that her hair being knotted at 11 pm wouldn’t be the worst, and both Ben and Tyler had been able to do her hair neatly, Tyler practically being an expert on it.
“See, you can trust me,” Aiden said, causing Ashlyn to snicker. She watched as Aiden grabbed all her stuff off of her dresser where she had her hair products and tools and placed them behind her on her bed. Ashlyn swept her hair off her shoulder and back to her back where Aiden was sitting.
She could feel as he undid her braid, carefully running his fingers through every section until her hair was fully down. Ashlyn heard Aiden pick something up and start brushing her hair, from the bottom tips of her hair and slowly working his way up.
Ashlyn felt as Aiden bunched her hair into a ponytail in the middle of her head, splitting the ponytail in two sections and tossing one side over her shoulder while starting to braid the other.
“Do you wanna…talk about it?” Ashlyn asked while running her fingers through the half of her hair Aiden wasn’t currently braiding. The ‘it’ in their conversation didn’t need to be said. Ashlyn felt as Aiden briefly stopped braiding her hair for a few seconds in silence before resuming again.
“Yeah, no we probably should before the phantom realm,” Aiden tied off the end of her first braid then grabbed the unbraided half and sectioned it to braid, “How many people know yet first of all?”
“The only people who were there when I was talking to Charlotte were two of her friends but I don’t know if they go to our school,” Ashlyn tried to remember what their names were, one of them was a brunette and the other another blonde girl, “Olivia Johnson and Ava Davis? I’m pretty sure that's the names on their dance bags but I can’t remember which is which,”
“Ava’s in one of my classes but I don’t know if there's an Olivia at our school,” Aiden replied, around halfway through Ashlyn’s braid now, “So that gives us my parents, Charlotte, her dad, and two friends?”
“Yeah, but according to Taylor she used to be in a friend group with Charlotte in middle school and she was a huge gossip back then, so who knows how that's gonna change,” Ashlyn said as she picked at some of the skin around her nails, “We probably should at least pretend a bit around school.”
“Yeah, we should play it safe there just in case, but it’ll need to be more to convince my parents,” Aiden said before going silent for a few seconds to finish off the second braid and tie the hair band around it.
Ashlyn felt her heart spike a bit with anxiety, “How far into this pretending thing are we gonna have to go, we should make some sort of plan instead of winging it,” As much as she had improved on improvising in life or death situations in the phantom realm, human interaction was a whole other level.
“We can come up with a story and a few rules maybe?” Aiden asked while twirling Ashlyn’s hair around the base of the ponytail and placing in a bobby pin every few sections of braid, “Do you wanna tell your parents anything?”
“No, they would freak out at either of those and that’s something we really don't wanna deal with on top of everything else,” Ashlyn said as Aiden took her other braid and also started to twirl it around where the first braid was pinned up, “A story would be easy to come up with considering your parents think we’ve been friends since the first day of school.”
“Hey! Are you saying our friendship wasn’t instantaneous as soon as we met on the bus?” Aiden clearly teased, placing the last bobby pins in her hair before leaning back and flopping down on her bed.
“I considered you a ‘friend’ maybe three weeks after getting stuck in the phantom realm, and that's being generous,” Ashlyn said, smirking as she turned around to face Aiden who was now staring up at her ceiling. She had to give it to him, the bun was pretty stable. Sure, not as good as her moms or her own, but overall she would wear it on an average day and it kept her hair off her neck.
“Wow, harsh,” Aiden said with a laugh while sitting up straight to have direct eye contact with Ashlyn, “But, what’s important is that my parents don’t know that part, so they’ll be easy to convince about practically anything going on here.”
“Then we can just say that things developed over time and we’ve been ‘dating’ for a few months,” Ashlyn refused to say the words feelings, that made it too realistic for their strictly fake dating plan, “How long are your parents staying for?”
“Knowing them, probably less than two weeks, they never stay for very long, especially since Ben started living with me,” Aiden said with a lack of any inflection in his voice, “Anyways, we should probably come up with some rules.”
“Yeah, rules, that’ll be good to do,” Ashlyn felt awkward as the topic fell back onto something more romantic, “What would your parents even expect?”
“Some level of physical…touching,” Aiden trailed off quietly, Ashlyn spotting a faint red blush across his cheeks, “We should make some boundaries on all of that.”
“What about…hand holding,” Ashlyn said, her own cheeks becoming slightly red. It wasn’t like she had never touched a person before, hell she’d even hugged Aiden before. But physical touch was never something that Ashlyn did often.
She knew Aiden liked physical touch and she knew her parents would sometimes hold hands but when growing up without friends the rare surface level of physical touch she had seen was either her parents to her or her parents in a romantic sense.
“Hand holdings a good start I think, but we’re probably gonna need to have a bit more than just that,” Aiden laid down again, but this time putting his head next to where Ashlyn was sitting so they were facing opposite directions but able to see each other, “What about hugging..?”
“Some hugs would be okay, but nothing too over the top or unbelievable,” Ashlyn looked over to Aiden’s hair now that it was clear to see from where they were sitting. It looked fluffy, as usual, but she could see his dark roots growing out.
Ashlyn ran her fingers through his hair, playing with it and getting a better look at his dark roots. It was rare that she ever saw any bits of his untouched hair, much less this much of it undyed, Tyler even had started to help him dye his hair recently. His hair felt less damaged than she would have guessed for the amount of bleach in it.
“Should we talk about, um…” Aiden’s face was redder than Ashlyn had seen before, his tan skin being the only thing keeping him from becoming a tomato. Ashlyn stared at him in confusion for a few seconds, confused as to what he could be referring to before it clicked. There was one more thing couples often did that they would need to talk about. Kissing.
Ashlyn’s own face set ablaze, her pale skin hiding her blush a lot worse. She gripped her hands tighter, causing her to pull on Aiden’s hair slightly. She rarely saw her own parents ever share a kiss, much less any person her age, the biggest exposure she had to romantic interactions like that was through movies.
“Not on the lips.” Ashlyn felt her face heat up even more at the suggestion alone, “At most on the cheek or hands.”
“Yeah! No um, definitely not on the lips, and maybe not even the other ones only if for something important,” Aiden replied, also flustered and now avoiding eye contact. Ashlyn let go of Aiden’s hair, choosing to turn her attention away from him and to the clock on her phone.
It was already 11:50, they had already been talking for around 45 minutes and had limited time before the phantom realm. The walk back to Aiden’s house would take around 15 minutes if they were fast, meaning if he left now Aiden would end up passed out in the middle of a sidewalk at midnight.
“You’ll have to stay for the phantom realm tonight,” Ashlyn said, changing the topic from their previous conversation as far as she could. She twisted her body to face the same direction and lie down next to him. The two’s faces were next to each other but neither were looking at each other, Ashlyn looking at her phone and Aiden looking in the opposite direction to her.
“I’ll just head back after the switch then,” Aiden replied, pulling out his own phone and opening TikTok. Ashlyn looked over to watch whatever was on his for you page, figuring it was better than just lying down and anxiously waiting.
Ashlyn noticed how Aiden moved his phone screen closer to in between them, but she mainly watched the clock in the corner of his screen. As the clock hit 11:59, Aiden placed his phone down next to them before turning back to stare at the ceiling. Ashlyn did the same, able to clearly hear the sound of both their breaths and heart beats while not wearing her ear plugs.
As the minute was about to pass, Ashlyn turned her head to watch Aiden. His signature smile wasn’t on his face, instead replaced with a look of calmness while he stared up. She saw as he caught her eye for a brief second before the familiar dizziness took over causing the two to pass out and shift into the other realm.