Chapter Text
At seven-thirty PM on the second night of their mid-term holiday, he had been surprised when Kai had asked him if he wanted to join everyone at Zane's for a movie night and a sleepover.
No one had ever invited him to a sleepover or a movie night before.
Zane's apartment was on the very top floor of the seven-story building, meaning most of them (Nya, Lloyd, and Kai) had quite a few staircases to ascend.
But for Cole and Jay, they only had two and four sets of staircases respectively to ascend.
What the green hoodie-clad boy didn't expect when Zane opened the door was to find another boy who has a similar appearance (he had brown hair and brown-gold eyes, whereas Zane had platinum-blonde hair and blue eyes).
"Hello, I'm Echo, Zane's older brother. It's nice to finally meet you, Lloyd," said Echo as the three entered the apartment.
Wait, Zane has an older brother? What?
"Same to you, Echo. I guess Zane's told you about me?" Another rhetorical question. Out of everyone in the group, he knew Zane the least. Lloyd was still learning things about his friends, three months ago, it felt weird to think of them as friends.
"Yes. you should go get your boba before it gets warm,"
Cole and Jay had arrived only minutes before and had brought boba for everyone (so that's why Jay wanted everyone's boba order) and a collection of snacks (that included fish-shaped ice-cream cakes and candy shaped like a toilet?).
They all chose to ignore the redhead's strange choice in snacks as they all settled down in the lounge room. Everyone except for Nya was in relatively normal positions, in the end, Kai ended up mostly on top of Cole, Zane and Nya was mostly under the 'L' shaped sofa.
"Zane, Echo, is your Dad okay with this?" Cole asked before he chucked the tv remote to Jay, much to Kai's annoyance.
"Dad isn't meant to be back until at least Friday morning," Zane answered. It was currently Tuesday evening.
"So we should be all good, he trusts us enough anyway," Echo added. They all turned their attention to the tv, they had yet to choose a movie (or three).
Le time skip [I'm lazy]
In the end, by the third movie, everyone except for Echo had fallen asleep, It was nearing two AM, after all.
Not before Echo was able to get blackmail-worthy or at least, teasing-worthy photos of mostly everyone (without them knowing).
Kai and Zane were asleep on the beanbag together. On the other side of the sofa, Jay and Cole were fast asleep rather close together.
As for Nya and Lloyd, the latter had fallen asleep partially under a blanket that someone had brought with them while the former had climbed mostly out of her strange position from earlier that evening and was now fast asleep leaning against the sofa.
There would be some interesting photos to be seen in the morning.
Echo and Zane were brothers, or rather adopted brothers. Echo was older by only a handful of weeks. Strangely they looked quite similar despite not being biologically related at all.
Inviting everyone for a movie night and sleepover had been on a whim. They were all in the middle of their mid-term holiday week so none of them would have to rush off somewhere. And Echo just wanted to meet Lloyd in person, Zane and the others had told him about the younger boy.
But Echo had always been busy with school clubs or volunteering somewhere or work (Zane had told him one morning that he 'does too much') and last night had been his first completely free night in what seemed like months.
Although he would never tell him, Echo was proud of how far his brother had come from the scared young boy he had been that night their father had brought him home.