Chapter Text
Ashlyn slammed her laptop shut as her phone buzzed with another message for what seemed like the millionth time in the last minute. She couldn't think that it would be anything related to the phantom dimension, they had gotten the jeep almost two weeks ago and even with the incident at the arcade they still wanted to wait until going to Savannah.
As Ashlyn’s phone buzzed again, she groaned and picked it up to click on the myriad of messages from their group chat. There were well over 10 messages and everyone was online at once, a rare occasion for their group of six, often only after their shift back from the phantom realm.
Number One Phantom Fighters
Psycho: GIY SHELP I REALLY THINK I MESSED UP THI ST IEM
Evil Twin: what the hell is that even meant to say
Evil Twin: and what the fuck did you do this time to be sending a message like that at 5 pm
Glasses: Is it phantom dimension related?
Psycho: NOIT SPARENTS RELATED
Glasses: …
Glasses: Should we be concerned its taking this long for him to finish writing a single message?
Evil Twin: if it keeps the psycho quieter longer im fine with it
Good Twin: dont listen to tyler i wanna hear whats going on
Psycho: MY PARENTS DRAGGED ME TO SONE STUPID WORK EVENT A WEKEK BEFOR ETHE Y LEFT FOR THE REELASE OF A BOOK UNDER THE COMPANY THEY WOKR AT OR WHATEVER AND THERE WAS THIS COWOKRER OF THEIRS AT THE EVENT WHO HAS BEEN TRYING TO SET ME OP WITH HIS DAUGHTER SINC WE MOVED HERE BC IM PRETTY SURE SHE FOES TO IOUR SCHOOL INOUR GRADE BUT H E KEPT SAYING A BUNCH OF SHIT ANS I WAS GETTING PISSED OFF AND PANICKED SO I SAID I ALREADY HAD A GIRLFRIEND BUT OEMHOW THE NEWS GO T BAXK TO MY PARENTS SND NOW THEY R ASKIGN WHY I ENVER TOLD THEM AND THEY WANNA MEET MY GIRLFRIEND I MADE UP ON THE SPOT
Evil Twin: Holy shit.
Good Twin: HOLY SHIT THATS HILLARIOUS AND IM SO SORRY FOR YOU
Benny Boy: I don’t think I've ever gotten more second hand embarrassment from a phone call than listening to him try and explain that one
Glasses: I can’t tell whether to laugh and point at you or feel bad
Psycho: WHY ARE YOU ALL LAUGHING AT MY ANGUISH
Evil Twin: normally i would say youre being overly dramatic but this is a time ill say youre justified because dear lord
Evil Twin: at the same time this is all your fault you put yourself in this situation what the hell were you thinking
Benny Boy: He wasnt
Carrot-Top: wtf
Good Twin: ASHLYN PLEASE SAY YOU READ THE MESSAGES ABOVE
Carrot-Top: i did. how do you even end up in situations like this
Carrot-Top: was there no better excuse to think of????
Psycho: I PANICKD HIM AND HIS DAUGHETR ARE ISSUFERABLE
Carrot-Top: ffs
Carrot-Top: we are talking about this tonight, and we are ALL laughing at you
Benny Boy: ^
Evil Twin: ^
Good Twin: ^
Glasses: ^
Psycho: ALL OF YOU?????
Ashlyn couldn’t help but laugh to herself, god she would pay money to see that phone call and Aiden trying to explain everything to his parents. Her usual dread towards 12 am was now almost making her almost excited, not fully, but almost. She wasn’t even sure if excitement was the right word, but she needed to grill Aiden for details…was this why people found gossiping so fun?
Ashlyn picked up her pencil again, opening another packet from her math class. She could care less about Algebra, she had no idea how Logan was keeping up with Pre-calc, but her grade had dropped enough from the whole phantom realm thing and she could not afford it dropping any more.
After solving only a few problems, Ashlyn gave up and threw her pencil down. She had done the previous two packets assigned for the night as well as the rest of the homework she had missed that week. She had a gripe to pick with whatever evil sent them into the phantom realm and couldn’t even let them do homework there and have the answers transfer over to the paper where it actually mattered.
“Ashlyn! Come down and help set up for dinner!” Ashlyn’s mother yelled from downstairs, and without her headphones in it made it sound to Ashlyn as if her mother was in the room with her. Ashlyn simply closed her math packets and shoved them into her backpack and throwing on a hoodie before heading downstairs.
~~~~~~
“Tell. Me. Everything.” Taylor stood up as soon as they transferred into the phantom dimension, almost tripping over as she did so. She grabbed onto Aiden’s shoulders, almost shaking him in the process and Ashlyn took the opportunity to let out a small chuckle at them.
“I did! The man approached me, started talking about his daughter and random shit, started talking about how we would be cute together and asked if I was single!” Aiden’s voice raised at the end, almost as if in disbelief at what had happened, “I panicked and said I was already dating someone and then just walked away.”
“Didn’t you say she was in our grade, who is it?” Logan asked as he also stood up to join the circle of interrogation around Aiden.
“Like, the most basic white girl name ever, Charlie or Charlotte-Ann, something like that.” Aiden said while rolling his eyes, “I only really remember her last name is Williams, and that her dad has been here for like, forever.”
“FUCKING CHARLOTTE!?” Tyler yelled out, Ashlyn quickly bringing her hands to her ears before dropping them again, only a small bit of ringing in her ears. “Oh, sorry Ash, just, fucking Charlotte-Ann Williams?”
‘You know her?’ Ben signed, the look on his face one of both confusion and intrigue.
“She was dating one of the boys on the football team last year, always showed up to our practices and would try to make a scene to get his attention, thank god they broke up.” Tyler said, throwing his head back while reliving the memories, “God, the week they broke up was messy.”
Ashlyn thought over the name, it sounded familiar. She wasn’t aware of the names of most people in her grade and much less their personalities, so why did this one sound so familiar…
Racking her brain, Ashlyn went through the people in her classes but she could barely recall anyone that wasn’t in her friend group. She could hear a specific teacher saying that name though, one she heard at least three times a week.
Charlotte-Ann Williams. The girl in her ballet class. The one who cried for a week straight after a break up. A break up from her football boyfriend. The girl whose parents were loaded, just like a blonde in her friend group. It couldn’t be the same person, could it? Charlotte and Williams were both common enough names in their area.
“There’s no chance she could take ballet, right?” Ashlyn asked wearily. She wasn’t sure she even wanted to know the answer.
“Yeah, she does. Her father wouldn’t shut up about it,” Aiden replied, his voice turning suddenly bitter at the end, “Kept talking about how her ballet and my violin would fit well together or something.”
“Oh.” Ashlyn said, feeling somewhat dumbfounded. Charlotte went to their school?
“Oh my god.” Taylor said, clearly being the only one to put the pieces together as the others just looked at the two with confusion, “Oh my god she’s in your ballet class isn’t she!” Ashlyn simply nodded her head, not sure whether to laugh or be just as horrified as Tyler.
“No, Tyler’s right, she does suck. Never shuts up and always thinks of herself as entitled.” Ashlyn said, in solidarity with both Aiden and Tyler’s complaints.
“Well doesn’t she sound like a joy, you’re so lucky Aiden.” Logan teased with a smirk on his face. Aiden simply responded by leaning back and groaning while covering his face with his hands.
“Do we even share any classes with her?” Ashlyn asked, trying to think over her classmates and if any of them matched up with her ballet class. Granted, Ashlyn did look different when her thigh length hair was tied up in a bun and instead of cargo pants and a crop top or hoodie replaced by a black leotard, but it wasn’t indistinguishable.
“Ashlyn, she's literally in our history class.” Taylor said deadpanned, “She was in our room on the trip to Savannah.”
“Oh.” Ashlyn said dumbfounded for the second time in the past few minutes, had she really been that oblivious? Remembering back, the blonde girl in their room did now look a lot like Charlotte.
The group spent the next hour or two talking, mostly complaining, about Charlotte. With the lights now installed, it was almost peaceful without the constant threat of phantoms breaking into the graveyard, Ashlyn was close to even calling the moments with her friends enjoyable.
Slowly as the hours passed and the clock stayed at 12, the rest of the group started to nod off, falling asleep on the seats of the bus, or in Logan’s case, in an extra tire. Ashlyn had always found sleeping in the phantom realm more difficult than the others, whether it be the sound of phantoms or the anxiety from them keeping her up.
Ashlyn watched all the others fall asleep in their designated areas, Taylor and Tyler on her left, Aiden and Ben in front of her, and Logan diagonal to her in his tire. She closed her own eyes, hoping that she could get even a few minutes of sleep or at least a way to pass the time.
The sound of something shuffling caused Ashlyn to snap her eyes open, looking around to see if there was a phantom nearby. There was a distinct lack of ringing sound that usually accompanied them and no figures present.
Ashlyn looked in front of her and a very awake and guilty looking Aiden now hanging upside down from the seat he was on, playing cats cradle with a random string.
“Oh, it was just you.” Ashlyn said relieved and feeling the tension leave her body and sunk back into her seat.
“Sorry, didn’t mean to wake you.” Aiden said while unraveling his string and starting over again.
“I wasn’t asleep anyways.” Ashlyn said matter of factly, “Have you been awake this whole time?”
“Fell asleep for about maybe 5 minutes, but barely anything in the grand scheme of things. Got bored and took a random extra string off the table.” Aiden replied as he held up what Ashlyn recognized as Jacob’s Ladder. She used to play with them when she was younger but her interest waned as she got older and more into stuff like ballet and other special interests.
“When did you learn to make those?” Ashlyn said, pointing at the string which Aiden had now turned into an intricate criss cross pattern. Aiden fully sat up and turned to face Ashlyn in a criss cross position while unraveling the string again.
“Only a couple days ago, wanted to have something to do with my hands and found a video on tiktok and tried to learn it.” Aiden said, setting up the familiar structure to the start of a two player cat's cradle game before holding it out to her, “I’m guessing you know it?”
Ashlyn simply nodded as she grabbed the two crosses in the middle and pulled them over before holding it out for Aiden to now grab. The two exchanged the rope for a couple rounds until Aiden pulled the string over wrong and the rope collapsed in his hands.
“Damnit.” Aiden said simply, carefully keeping his voice low, or considered low for Aiden, and picking up the rope again.
“I can show you how to get through that one if you want.” Ashlyn said. The two of them continued playing the game until they got to the step where Aiden had gotten stuck. This time, Ashlyn placed the rope on top of Aiden’s fingers as she explained how she pulled the rope over into a new pattern.
“Well that’s a lot easier than expected,” Aiden said as Ashlyn pulled the rope over onto her own fingers again.
“I used to play a lot with my mom, but mostly the single player version or making the designs.” Ashlyn said, giving the rope back to Aiden.
“Yeah that tracks pretty well with you, doesn’t it.” Aiden replied teasingly while handing the rope back to Ashlyn. While she would normally find the statement offensive, coming from one of her friends like Aiden she let out a small laugh at it.
“Turns out some things do actually change, look at this now.” Ashlyn gave the rope back to Aiden to examine the new design of the rope. She was almost embarrassed, being so cliche around her friends or even just having friends around in general. “So, Charlotte, huh?” Ashlyn tried to change the direction of the conversation and from getting overly sappy.
“You don’t gotta remind me,” Aiden said, sighing but also smiling slightly, “I…did come up with a really stupid solution, and I know you’re gonna slap me for mentioning it, but I have to admit I did think about it.”
“I feel like nothing would surprise me from coming out of your mouth anymore.” Ashlyn said with a laugh while she took the string back into her own hands.
“No, this one you’re really gonna kill me for.” Aiden said, looking off to the side and not taking his turn to take back the string.
“Tell me, we can see how I’ll react then.” Ashlyn said, dropping her hands down but not letting go of the string. Aiden stayed quiet for a few seconds, opening and closing his mouth while avoiding eye contact.
“I was thinking…” Aiden finally started, “about getting someone to pretend to be my girlfriend for when my parents next visit.” Ashlyn gaped at the blonde boy and dropping the string in her hands. It didn’t take a genius to guess who the ‘someone’ Aiden was thinking about, considering their friend group was practically the only people any of them talked to anymore and everyone else was asleep.
“Aiden Lee Clark you cannot be serious.” Ashlyn said, voice carefully still. She wasn’t angry, more just unsure of how to react.
“I told you! It was a stupid idea, I shouldn’t have said it.” Aiden said, looking away and waving his hand at her. Ashlyn almost wanted to laugh at the pure absurdity of the situation.
“Why not one of the others, telling me you don’t wanna take Tyler home as your boyfriend?” Ashlyn attempted to joke, still somewhat reeling from his suggestion earlier.
“My parents would kill me if I came home with a boyfriend,” Aiden started, almost looking like he was about to laugh but also weirdly uncomfortable.
“So you…” Ashlyn started before trailing off. She wasn’t one to say anything, she had known she liked both men and women since she was young, finding both Harry and Hermione attractive, but she still hadn’t told her parents. She never could imagine her parents reacting poorly, she wasn’t scared, in all honesty she just would forget to tell them or that she needed to.
“Haven’t told them that I’m bi? Nah, I barely see them, I don’t need them to be uncomfortable over the fact that their son likes multiple genders.” Aiden said as he ran his fingers through his hair.
“Why not ask Taylor then, she would probably be more willing and find it funnier than I would have.” Ashlyn asked, trying to control her face now both at Aiden’s suggestion and his parents' actions.
“I couldn’t do that to Ben.” Aiden said simply. Ashlyn understood, it was obvious enough to see Ben’s clear crush on Taylor. She knew about Taylor’s feelings towards him as well, but figured it would be better to let them figure out their stuff alone instead of trying to poorly wingman them together, Ashlyn had basically no experience with relationships.
“I…” Ashlyn started before letting out a sigh of her own, god she can’t believe she was doing this, “I’m not saying no.” Ashlyn watched as Aiden widened his eyes in shock, snapping his head up to face her.
“Ash, you don’t need to, it wasn’t that serious–” Aiden started before Ashlyn cut him off.
“I’m just saying I’m not denying it. I’m not saying I’m on board, but I’ll think about it.” Ashlyn said, holding up her pointer finger to Aiden and looking away, feeling an embarrassed blush creep onto her face. What was she getting herself into, why was she agreeing to this?
“I–okay. Okay.” Aiden said, shock on his own face. The two sat in silence for a few seconds, simply looking at each other. Ashlyn was about to open her mouth, ask about some question like when Aiden’s parents would be visiting or how long they would need to play this out for, but got cut off by the beeping of Logan’s watch and the feeling of a shifting realm.
~~~~~~
The bus ride to school was horrible. Early in the morning, full of screaming high schoolers, and caffeine yet to take effect on Ashlyn’s body. All Ashlyn could do was sit down in her seat and layer her ear plugs and noise canceling headphones on top of each other and let the time pass. Her stop was the second to last, meaning practically everyone else had already gotten on the bus and started their morning screams.
Going to sit down in her seat, Ashlyn spotted a very asleep Ben behind her and Aiden hunched over on his phone. She placed her bag down and twisted her body to make eye contact with Aiden. In the process she spotted Charlotte, sitting towards the end of the bus and screaming her head off with her friends.
“Ash? Ya good?” Aiden had looked up from his phone and was now looking at Ashlyn with concern.
“Yeah yeah, just…” Ashlyn attempted to subtly point at Charlotte, “Has she always been on our bus?” Aiden turned around with the least amount of subtlety Ashlyn had ever seen, almost making her face palm as she saw Charlotte make eye contact with the two of them, offering a sweet smile before turning back to her friends.
“Charlotte? Yeah she’s at the same bus stop as me. Did you really only just realize she's been here the whole time?” Aiden laughed at her, causing Ashlyn to flick his forehead. “Hey! What was that for?”
“Could you have gotten any less attention from that dramatic twist around?” Ashlyn asked, masking her joking with a stern tone that she hoped Aiden would pick up on. Luckily, it seemed he did as he just let out a small laugh in response.
“And when have I ever been known for subtlety?” Aiden joked back, now resting his head on the back of Ashlyn’s seat.
The two spent the rest of the short ride to school discussing menial topics, bouncing between different school subjects or missing homework they had. Before they knew it, the bus arrived at the entrance of Alto High School. Ashlyn sighed at the sight of the school, eliciting a small laugh out of Aiden and he shook Ben awake.
The three walked to their history class, the one they all met in. Ashlyn was now also acutely aware of Charlotte's presence behind them, walking to the same class.
As they entered the classroom, Ashlyn saw Logan already sitting in his seat but the twins still not there yet. Thankfully due to their project, all their seats were close together as the group of them approached Logan and plopped their bags down on their desks, names brightly labeled.
“Hey guys,” Logan said, his head still buried in a science textbook in front of him. All of them had been struggling with school work since the phantom realm started, but Logan’s work in advanced classes was one Ashlyn pitied him for.
“Boo.” A voice said from behind Ashlyn, making her flinch in her seat. She heard another female voice behind her start laughing but also the sound of a punch on an arm.
“Tyler, c’mon be nice.” Taylor said as she sat down in her own seat next to Ashlyn, “Hey Ash, do you finally see our topic of conversation last night?” Ashlyn rolled her eyes affectionately, knowing such words from her friends were harmless.
“In my defense, I don’t know anyone here, it’s not just her.” Ashlyn replied, pulling out her own notebook and pencil case to place on her desk as Taylor did the same next to her, and based on the sounds around her the rest of her friends did as well. Ashlyn already knew she would most likely sleep during this class, Mr. Thomas was always lenient about it, but she would like to at least have the impression of caring about this class.
Watching Mr. Thomas stand up from his desk, walking to the podium where he would start his lectures at, Ashlyn twisted her torso to crack her back when she made eye contact with Charlotte. She sat behind her and to her right, but Charlotte was clearly looking at their group, sending shivers up Ashlyn’s spine.
“Alrightly, let's get class started. Everyone sit down.”
~~~~~~
Ashlyn finished rubbing her Tiger Balm on her ankle as she threw it back into her dance bag. Dance had been rough today, they were rehearsing for a show they had coming up in a few months, which Ashlyn always enjoyed but found exhausting.
“–I know right! Like, how can you be here for only a few months and barely talk to any of the girls here and land yourself a girlfriend?” Charlotte came barreling into the locker rooms, talking loudly to a few of her friends who were also part of Ashlyn’s ballet class. She tried to tune them out like normal, but they seemed extra loud this time.
“I’m just saying, taking me to more events might’ve actually given me a chance. I'm really trying to convince my father but he keeps insisting on staying home to focus on either school work or this.” Charlotte continued loudly, Ashlyn quickly getting fed up.
“Do you even know who he’s dating?” One of Charlotte's friends asked her while jostling her dance bag.
“I’ve never seen him hang out with anyone but that group, although–” Charlotte started before quickly stopped her sentence, “Ashlyn!” Ashlyn froze in response, not prepared to get called out from their group
“Uh, yeah?” She said, throwing her deodorant back into her own dance bag and turning to face Charlotte and her gaggle of friends.
“You hang out with Aiden right, you’re part of that group?” Charlotte asked, sounding almost innocent. Ashlyn didn’t want to talk to anyone at the moment, just try and get home and eat before the shift to the phantom realm.
“Yeah, why?” Ashlyn responded simply, trying to get the conversation over with as quick as she could.
“Is there a chance you know whoever his girlfriend is? It seems strange, he’s only been here a few months.” Charlotte said, making Ashlyn still. Was she meant to make up a name? Reply honestly? No she couldn’t do that, not without consulting him. She really should have asked him for a plan in the meantime. Technically, she did have a plan but she never fully agreed with Aiden, but she was running out of ideas so…
“Yeah, it’s me.”