This is really late but let's treat it as the nightmare before Christmas, yea (life got interesting and I stopped writing and now it's almost February so let's pretend it's still December. To be honest my life has been kind of a nightmare since October soooooooo-)
Let's just make it interesting and hopefully funny^^
Oh yea I forgot, this timeline is kind of messed up oops but this happens before the blyke and remi chapter and the march break chapters. Hopefully, I can finish these 'school' chapters where arlo is still in wellston and move onto more future ones with jobs and stuff.
Arlo woke up to the insistent buzzing of his phone. It was aggravating since he had just managed to get people to stop knocking at his apartment door. Did people not know how to read? He already put up a sign that he did not have candy. He had to add 2 more signs, and he ended up arguing with a 7-year-old over whether he was lying or not for people to finally leave him alone.
Isen also tried to get him to join the trio in spending hours in a haunted maze mansion, he was not in the mood to deal with whoever was trying to reach him.
His arm reached out and turned his phone on silent mode, after his phone stopped buzzing he let out a sigh of relief. Finally, the peaceful quietude of his apartment, how he missed it.
He enjoyed it for 30 seconds before someone started to knock against his door, without stopping. Just a continuous stream of maddening knocks. He silently cursed in his head and hoped that the idiot that was sugar high would just leave him the fuck alone.
Whoever was knocking decided that banging was a better idea. Just from how fucking aggressive it was he had an inkling of an idea who it was and he really hoped he was wrong.
He slowly sat up, going slowly as possible, denying the inevitable. He rubbed at his temples, Arlo could already feel the headache coming. In the most dignified way possible, he dragged his feet to his apartment door. With every bang his headache got stronger, his fists clenched before he released them to open the door.
John was casually leaning on the door frame with a lollipop in his mouth, his arm raised to bang on the poor door yet again. Behind him was the chaos trio all in pyjamas, holding pillows, blankets, and 4 large bags of something.
Elaine and Sera were leaning on the wall, Sera was leaning toward Elaine to point at whatever they were looking at on her phone. They were also dressed like they were going to a sleepover.
Then it dawned on him.
He glared viciously at John, "no." He saw Isen open his mouth and turned his glare on him, "no," he repeated.
John merely scoffed, "if you read the chat you would've known that we would be crashing at your apartment for Halloween."
"Says who? It's my apartment."
"We voted, 6 to your 0."
Arlo muttered some particular unkind things under his breath before settling himself, "why?"
"Why what?" Blyke parroted as he and Isen were in a heated match of pig cannons. Even though they weren't looking at him they both felt the heat of his glare. Both flinched.
"Why did you vote to have a childish sleepover at my apartment?"
Remi let out a sheepish laugh as she scratched the side of her face, "well.... You see Isen passed out after spending 3 hours in the haunted mansion. When he woke up he FaceTimed Blyke and I, he sounded a little off as he started to recount his dream and Blyke didn't want to suffer alone so he added John, Sera, and Elaine.
Also, Isen already stole 4 bags of candy from kids which he hid somewhere so we have a lot of candy.
You didn't answer your phone. John was tired of answering the door so he suggested that we just crash at one of our places and Isen can retell his interesting dream and we could get sugar high while telling scary stories. We voted on your place!" She finished with a happy clap.
He could feel Rei laughing at him in heaven.
"No."
"Yes."
"No."
"Yes."
"We have school tomorrow."
"So? It's wouldn't be the first time I went to school with no sleep in my system. Besides, annoying you makes up for it." John retorted.
If it was even possible, the aura surrounding Arlo got even darker. He was probably spending too much time with Darren.
He rubbed his temples as he tried to piece this together, "you're telling me that you decided to disturb me because Isen had an interesting dream that he could retell another time but decided to retell now?"
"Well, technically he could have forgotten it. Honestly, I'm surprised he still remembers it right now." Blyke said nonchalantly as he destroys one of Isen's towers in pig cannons.
Arlo turned to look at the two other girls that seemed to be more interested in Elaine's phone than what was going on at the moment.
Sera looked up for a moment and merely shrugged, going along with the chaos of disturbing Arlo.
He knew that this could drag on for who knows how long. Especially since they were all prepared for this "sleepover." All they really had to do was shove past him into his apartment.
He was surprised they haven't just done that already, to be honest.
"Alright, my patience has peaked." He thought too soon.
John shoved his way right into his apartment. He didn't fight it because he knew it would just add to his suffering.
He let out a sigh in defeat, moving out of the way for the rest of them to walk into his apartment.
Remi was practically bouncing, finally having the chance to cross off 'have a sleepover with the squad' on her bucket list. She also could finally give in to her sweet tooth that she has not succumbed to till now, it is the only reason she's letting go of the fact that Isen stole 4 large bags of candy from the poor children.
Elaine and Sera were still distracted by the former's phone. Arlo took a quick peek at it to see an online dress site. It took a moment for him to realize it was for prom, reminding him that he was graduating in a few months.
Someone cussing followed by a string of curses grabbed his attention. He turned to see Isen cradling his foot as it seemed that he had stubbed his toe.
He didn't even try to hide his smirk because he had recently discovered that he and John had been moving his furniture. Seeing it backfire brought him much joy.
John guffawed because Isen knew that the furniture was moved yet still managed to hurt himself. You could hear Blyke snickering and Remi failing to suppress her amusement.
"Hey!" Isen whined, "that's not fair, why am I always the one getting laughed at?"
"Because you're always the one doing something stupid." Came Blykes' immediate deadpan response. John and Sera snorted, the latter finally tearing her eyes away from Elaine's phone. She plopped the large pillow she was carrying on the ground and got comfortable.
The rest of them formed a semicircle with the multiple pillows they brought except for Arlo. He was in the kitchen making himself a very strong dose of black, bitter coffee. He was gonna need it if he wanted to survive the night without committing murder.
He would hold off on the alcohol for now.
"Shouldn't we order something to eat?" Elaine questioned out loud, "I mean it's 1 in the morning and all sleepovers need food."
"Nah, the 4 bags of candy should do. I'm pretty sure I saw crackers and cheese in one of them for some reason..." Blyke said though he look mildly offended that someone would even think to hand out crackers and cheese on Halloween. Don't get him wrong, he liked crackers and cheese but not on Halloween.
"You think that's bad? I found raisins and 7 packets of salt!" Isen exclaimed. Remi made a face and muttered something along the lines of 'I like raisins but the salt is unacceptable, pure evil.'
"I'm surprised Arlo didn't do that," John thought out loud. "Hmmm I actually think he would give little kids coffee beans or if they make tiny coffee bags," Sera added on. Elaine laughed, "I don't think Arlo would give up his supply of coffee to children."
You could hear Arlo scoff from the kitchen, "of course I wouldn't just hand out my coffee supply to children. That's just foolish."
Blyke and Remi poured out all 4 bags of candy onto Arlo's carpet and everyone picked out their favourite treats to start munching on. Arlo soon came back with a mug of coffee and a plate of what seemed to be leftovers from dinner.
"I refuse to just eat junk food if I'm staying up all night." He said once John gave him a look. Remi shrugged, "suit yourself, more for me." And proceeded to down 3 packs of pop rocks.
"So," Isen started around the chips he was chewing on, "can I start retelling my dream?"
"Do we have to start from the beginning? Can't we just start where we left off and someone can summarize for Asslo?" Sera suggested, the rest of them nodded in agreement as Isen sighed dramatically. "Fine, fine. Remi do you want to summarize? I wanna finish my chips and I think from all the candy you already doused you can talk really fast too."
Remi nodded eagerly, her hands coming up for effect. "So basically Isen woke up in a forest in an unknown world. He was dressed in really heavy knight armour too. He started to explore the forest and found a haunted castle.
He knew it was haunted because the sky suddenly became gray and bats and crows flew above him. Isen just came back from a haunted mansion so he tried to run away from the castle but some kind of magical force dragged him into the castle. Isen was yelling and trying to escape the force but whatever was dragging him just did it more roughly.
Once he was thrown inside the castle the door shut behind him and the torches around the walls set aflame. And that's where we left off!" Remi exclaimed, the sugar obviously coming into effect.
"How'd you only get to there? I would have expected you guys to at least get further into whatever Isen dreamt about." Arlo said, Blyke sighed exasperatedly. "Because Isen was busy using too many adjectives and adverbs, going too much into the little details instead of the plot of his dream."
Remi nodded her head excitedly, agreeing with what Blyke said and Arlo didn't question it. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he expected it.
"Okay, okay, I'll back off on the 'little details' and get on with my dream. But can we start now? I don't know how but my dream covered Halloween, Christmas, and New Year so it's gonna be lonnnnnng." Isen said, Elaine, let out a quiet "oh boy," already preparing herself to go to school with zero rest.
"ahem,"
Isen startled by the flames appearing around the walls. But what scared him was the patter of footsteps that came all throughout the castle. He could hear the echo of it as he slowly started to back away, towards the door. Trying to force the door open but it wouldn't budge. His back was turned away from the staircase when he heard the clack of a heel.
His body froze, menacing aura could be felt coming from the top of the staircase. Isen could feel the cold sweat drip down his face.
If possible his body got stiffer and stiffer as someone descends the stairs. The swish of fabric could be heard as she got closer to Isen. He made a quiet prayer that his death would be quick and painless.
"In your own dream, you're still hoping that people won't kill you?" Elaine interrupted, she looked genuinely concerned.
Arlo snorted and Blyke choked on his salt and vinegar chips. Remi patted him on his back as Blyke coughed.
"I've been so badly traumatized, yes, in my own dreams I hope people don't kill me." Isen sadly nodded, "it's sad that you even have dreams where someone is trying to kill you." Seraphina pointed out, John directed his lollipop at Sera nodding.
"Well can you blame me?! From the year we've had I think I'm in the clear."
"Sure, sure," Blyke nodded dismissively. Isen glared at his best friend but continued with his storytelling.
Isen's body was still as stone when the person stopped behind him. "Turn around." You could hear the commanding tone, not wanting to die he complied.
He slowly turned around to come face to face......Seraphina. In an all-black outfit; an old-fashioned black dress, black stilettos, and a black jewelled hair clip. She was adorned with some simple silver jewelry as well as some makeup.
"PFFFFT- HAHAHAHAHA SERA IN HEELS- OW!" Johns' laughing was cut short as Seraphina punched him in the arm.
"Seraphina in heels, hard to imagine," Remi thought out loud.
"I did wear heels before," John whipped his head around to look at Sera incredulously. "Since when????"
"When I was meeting contributors to Spectre, I had to dress accordingly." Isen sighed dramatically and closed his eyes, "can you guys stop interrupting? Or we're never gonna finish my story."
After a moment, he peeked one eye open to see that they were waiting for him to continue. He brought his hand up and cleared his throat, "as I was saying.....
Seraphina glared at the intruder, "who are you and what are you doing in my castle?" Isen scratched the side of his head, he gulped when her glare intensified. "I-Isen, I was lost in the woods and found your castle," he quickly explained to her. She studied him for a moment before running from behind caught her attention.
She looked behind her before quickly side-stepping out of the way.
"hOly wATeR!" Was all he heard before water was splashed in his face. Isen spluttered and coughed, choking on the 'holy water' that someone hit him with.
"Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry! I thought you were one of the pesky ghosts that are haunted and are haunting this castle!"
He blinked and saw the form of Elaine in priest clothing still holding up the bottle that contained the holy water that "cleansed" him. Elaine hastily put down the bottle and bowed in apology.
"It's fine but did you just say ghosts?????" He was starting to feel faint, all he wanted to know was why the fuck he was here and now spirits were involved? Someone might as well kill him now.
"Yea, 3 days ago ghosts started appearing. I think I've seen two so far....but who knows how many there are. They keep on disappearing before I can banish them. Oh, I'm Elaine by the way, third rank priestess."
"I'm a priestess in this?? And I use holy water to banish ghosts?????" Elaine asked incredulously.
John guffawed, trying hard not to choke on the raisins he was snacking on. "Honestly, that mental image is hilarious, Elaine you should be a priestess next year for Halloween."
Blyke snickered, Remi put both her hands over her mouth, trying not to laugh out loud.
"Huh, that's not a bad idea. Thank you subconscious." Isen thanked himself smugly before brightening up like a light bulb went off in his head. "Hey, maybe we should do a group costume, dressing up as all the characters in my dream!"
Arlo grimaced, not pleased whatsoever, "absolutely not."
Blyke took the lollipop out of his mouth, "hard pass," he said lazily.
John scowled, annoyed. "Yea, no."
"I am not putting heels back on," Sera vehemently declined.
Remi shrugged, "I don't even know what I play," not having an opinion on the suggestion.
"I'm not Christian," Elaine pointed out.
John spit out his orange juice, Arlo snorted but covered it off with a cough. Isen stopped for a moment before putting his arm down and nodding, "good point."
"Now back to the story..... wait I think forgot what happened," Isen said blankly. He put his index fingers on his temple, trying to remember what happened next.
Blyke sighed, expecting this to happen. Most of the time when Isen tried to get him to listen to his dreams he forgets what happens not even 2 minutes into telling what happened.
He was honestly surprised that he could remember what happened for so long.
"Uhhhhhh I think Remi, John, and Arlo were spirits..... no wait Blyke was a spirit. Uhhhhh what was John again???"
"I think he's gonna start rambling," Remi points out, scooting away from Isen. Everyone followed suit, they all experienced what Isen could be like when he started rambling.
"Urgh, please don't be like that one time he talked about what he was gonna do with his own collection once he died. He went on for 3 hours straight, without taking a break once!" Blyke exclaimed, clearly getting annoyed from just remembering the incident.
When he was resting at the infirmary Isen skipped the rest of his classes to hang out with his best bro and ended up talking about what to do with his pens in case of his death :D
"He doesn't stop even if we continue talking..." Elaine paused, looking at Isen to see him completely sucked into his own world.
"Once in our first year, we went on a snowboarding trip for Christmas and got snowed in the cabin we were staying at. He went on and on about different characters from shows that he thought would be his perfect partner. He got beat up by 4 different first years that day, including Blyke." Seraphina recounted, John pat Blyke on his back, totally agreeing with him.
Elaine and Remi laughed, "I remember that day. I spent most of the day with a pillow over my head. Somehow Isen talking got the teacher to fall asleep."
"I'm hardly surprised by that fact. Though, could we just hit him to get Isen to stop." Arlo suggested, John and Blyke were already halfway up, ready to assault their friend :3
"Wait! I wanna hear the rest of the story. We could just leave him be and put on movies to watch." Remi butt in, Sera nodded, also curious to see how Isen's subconscious worked.
John hung his head, disappointed he wouldn't get the chance to hit Isen. "You could also LEAVE my apartment and go to sleep." Arlo aggressively suggested, annoyed that they were still in his apartment.
"All in favour staying, say 'ay'." John says smugly, knowing full well what the result will be.
"Ay."
"Ay."
"Ay."
"Ay."
"Annnd majority rules, we're staying." Smugness was rolling off of John in waves. You could feel how proud of himself he was for getting Arlo annoyed and yet he was still in his apartment. Which he was feeling conflicted, on one hand, he was kind of disgusted being in his personal space. On the other hand, invading his personal space is quite satisfying.
"How'd we survive March break if this is only a few hours of us being together...?" Blyke asked as he watched Isen continuing his onslaught of thoughts and John and Arlo butting heads. How the fuck did they work better together when people were trying to kill them versus them hanging out casually?
"Good point, maybe we shouldn't make any plans together for New Year. Remi, Elaine, and I always hang out for Christmas." Sera brought up, she munched on her milk tea flavoured taffy while enjoying the show of John and Arlo.
"Uh-huh, sleepover with the girls is always fun. Also, Arlo has a fork not even a foot away from him. Shouldn't we move it? Before he uses it on John." Remi pointed at the finished plate of food and fork as she bounced from the large amount of sugar she had. Blyke cringed when he looked at the fork, the incident from his first year still haunts him.
"Nah, John can handle himself even if Arlo seems obscenely stronger with a fork." Blyke waved off, "wait were you guys already planning on doing something for New Year already?"
"Yea," Elaine nodded, "there's this festival happening, street vendors and games where we can win prizes." Remi, still high on sugar, nodded up and down swiftly. "Yea! It was going to be super fun. Even though when I was younger and I won a fish, it died only after 4 hours. Kind of have been traumatized since but I realllllllly wanted to go with you guys this new year."
While in the background Arlo and John were arguing and insulting each other.
Arlo saw the glint of the fork and quickly snatched it from his plate. Johns' smirk wavered slightly at the sight of the utencil. John tried to get the damn fork out of his hand as Arlo tries to stab him with it.
It kind of looked like they were roughhousing toddlers.
"Look, the kids are getting along," Remi pointed at the duo. Blyke snickered and quickly snapped a photo.
"Remi, hunny, I think you should tone it down on the sugar. You're gonna pass out and wake up with cavities." Elaine said slowly, trying to pry the gummy bears out of her hands.
"Nooooooooooooooooooooooo," Sera also joined in on trying to get the gummy bears out of Remi's hands. "I'm 110% sure that Arlo keeps an obscene amount of healthy foods in his fridge. We should give her a few carrots or something."
"Oh he does," Elaine mentioned casually, she finally managed to get the gummies out of her grasp.
"Excuse me?? How do you know Elaine?" Blyke asked incredoulsy, she paused for a second before her face went up in flames.
She dropped the pack of gummies and waved her hands, denying it. \
"No, no, no, it's nothing like that! I was going out on a walk when it started pouring so I ran to the nearest building which happened to be Arlo's apartment. He saw me in the lobby and offered me somewhere to stay until it stopped raining. I was only here for a few hours that's it!"
As she was explaining herself, her voice got increasingly higher. The kids even stopped fighting to see what the loud explanation was about.
"Nope, you're not getting out of here without the full story. Spill." Sera demanded, she did not hear about this story and as Elaine's roommate she was greatly offended.
"Same, Isen is still stuck in his coocoo world so it's not like he's going to write an article about it." Blyke stated, he looked back at Isen to see that he changed positions. Now he was lying down and staring straight at the ceiling but still going on and on about his dream, trying to remember the details.
"Me too, me too. Tell us." Remi stared into her eyes with her puppy dog eyes. Elaine struggled to maintain eye contact and relented with a sigh.
And so they spent the rest of the night telling stories and planning for New Year. Blyke got sucked into planning with the girls as well. From where they would start and what food to eat first to what games were rigged and what was easy to win. Arlo and John who watched them at first quickly became bored and somehow put up with each other to watch horror movies.
And Isen,
well he spent the rest of the night trying to remember his dream before he passed out at 5am.
Okay, wow, so I went on a very long hiatus which I apologize for. This was supposed to be posted in October 🤡 I actually was writing it while I was in the hospital. I'm fine-ish....kind of. Life threw a very unexpected curveball but I'll survive.
Anyways, I feel like my writing got a little rusty but hope you enjoyed the very, very late chapter.
✧ Astraea