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The hours counting down to midnight never failed to make Ashlyn a bit apprehensive. Being thrown into a realm every night with no information as to how or why any of it is happening is quite terrifying. Still, she finds herself frustrated with her inability to at least lie down. After tossing and turning for about twenty minutes, Ashlyn relented her efforts in favor of stretching on her floor, an attempt to relax her tense limbs. With nothing in particular on her mind to distract herself from the phantom dimension, she started playing music from her speakers on its lowest volume, not wanting to disturb her parents. With the music on shuffle, she allowed it to be her distraction for the time being, judging each song that played.
A handful of songs had passed when she hears a soft knocking noise. Expecting it to be one of her parents, she gets up to turn off her speaker before opening her bedroom door, a small apology on the tip of her tongue for the noise. When she's met with an empty hallway, her brows furrow. Had she just imagined it? It wouldn't be the first time she's had auditory hallucinations.
Then, the soft knocking repeats. No longer distracted by her music, she is able to discern that the noise is coming from her window. Ashlyn lets out a deep sigh, rubbing her eye exasperatedly. She is hardly surprised when she walks over to the glass to see a familiar blonde peeking through the window, red eyes bright and completely remorseless.
Ashlyn slides the lock on her window, sliding the frame up to meet Aiden 's eyes through her window screen. Her face is completely tired, already anticipating his answer when she asks, "What are you doing here?"
"Hi, Ash!" Aiden grins. Predictably, he completely ignores her question and barrels on loudly. "Let's g—"
Ashlyn shushes him, pulling the tabs on her window screen to yank it out, setting it on the floor. "Be quiet, my parents are asleep. Hurry up and get in." If this had happened a month or two ago, she would have shut her window and bid him goodnight, but unfortunately she's grown used to his spontaneous visits enough to the point that this is basically routine.
Grunting, Aiden hoists himself inside, lifting a knee onto the window and practically diving into her bedroom with a loud thud. Ashlyn covers her face with a hand, completely jaded. "You really should just come through my front door if you're going to be this noisy."
"You always say that, but where's the fun in that?" Aiden beams, bouncing up from the floor.
Ashlyn sits on her bed, briefly glancing at her clock before looking up at him with an expectant gaze. "It's 10:45, Aiden. Why are you here and not at home? It's almost midnight."
Aiden waves a hand dismissively, smile unremovable. "Hardly. There's plenty of time to go for a walk."
She stares at him. "..A walk."
"Yeah," he says. "go on a walk with me."
Without missing a beat, "No."
He tilts his head, staring at her uncannily. If she didn't know any better, she'd find the stare uncomfortable. Now, all she feels is indifference. "Why not?"
Briefly, she wonders if there are just zero connections in his head for him to come to these conclusions. Every time they talk, it feels like she loses a brain cell, if not multiple. Despite her aversion for him going away and their relationship becoming more companionable, he still surprises her. "What do you mean, 'why not?' It's almost midnight, I'm not going on a walk with you."
Aiden hops onto her mattress, facing her from where he sits, legs criss-crossed.
Ashlyn slaps his knee immediately. "Don't put your shoes on my bed."
Uncrossing his legs, Aiden pokes her shoulder. "You need to get out, I need to get out. It's a win-win. You feel restless, don't you?"
She pauses, lips pressed into a frown. While Aiden has always had a knack for pushing her out of her comfort zone, not to mention her boundaries, he still always finds a way to see right through her in ways she can never understand.
Noting her silence, he continues. "Come on, I saw you stretching."
"And that matters… because? I do ballet."
"Nah," Aiden says. "you stretch 'cause of your like… tense muscles or something."
"That's the point of stretching."
He huffs, smile twitching. "Ash, I mean that I've only seen you do it when you're stressed. Like when we were studying for midterms here, all you'd do is stretch while we were talking."
Ashlyn falls silent again, brows furrowing. It's a little surprising to know that he had noticed that habit of hers, granted that she never realized it was a habit herself. She didn't think he'd be the type to notice small things like that, considering how inept he's proven to be in the past when it comes to being tact.
She sighs, rubbing her eyes.
"…Fine. But I need to change my clothes."
Aiden salutes her, face lighting up. "Aye aye, captain!"
Ashlyn always thought she was a pretty alright kid. She never was the type to give into peer pressure, nor did she make any friends in the past sixteen years that required the dilemma of figuring out if they were a good or bad influence. However, as Aiden leaves her room through her bedroom window, she briefly wonders if he's the bad influence her parents always tried to warn her about. As Aiden starts to climb out of her window, Ashlyn pulls her hair back, tying it up with a hairband and silently hoping it doesn't snap.
"Ridiculous…" She mutters to herself, watching Aiden's figure drop further from her room, climbing down to the front of her house. Copying his movements, she steps over her windowsill, ducking underneath the frame and sliding it slightly shut behind her. Slowly, she shuffles down, hands and feet carefully sliding over the shingles.
Yeah, this is definitely the textbook definition of what being badly influenced looks like. Teenagers sneaking out the house and climbing down from a window. She looks up briefly to look at her driveway, wondering how ridiculous she would look if they were in a suburban neighborhood with passersby. Reaching the edge of the portico, she peers down to see Aiden on the grass, hands propped on his hips and a signature bright smile on his face, as if this isn't the dumbest thing she's ever done besides going on the field trip to Savannah.
"Just jump down, it's not far." Aiden whisper-yells.
Ashlyn rolls her eyes, sitting on the edge to dangle her legs. "Absolutely not."
With her legs over the edge, she shifts her hands to grip the roof as she drops down, pointing her feet to try and find the banister of her front porch. Unable to move her head to look down, she struggles for a little bit, legs swinging from under her trying to find footing. Much to her dismay, Ashlyn's arms start to shake, unused to holding her own weight.
Then, she feels two hands gently wrap themselves around her ankles, guiding them to the wooden railing. "I got you, just let go." Aiden's voice whispers from under her.
Feeling a bit more secure, she slowly let's go of the roof's edge, putting all her weight on the handrail and looking down. Slowly, she crouches over herself, hand reaching out awkwardly for Aiden's shoulders.
"Help me," Ashlyn says, and Aiden quickly moves closer, holding his arm out and around her torso. His other hand hovers cautiously, in case she needs another hand to get down. From the railing, she hops down onto the ground, grass crunching under her feet. She feels Aiden's grip around her waist tighten, making sure she doesn't fall over.
"Good?" He asks, meeting her eyes as she straightens up, brushing off her hands.
Ashlyn pauses, registering their closeness. She clears her throat, stepping back from him and shoving her hands in her pockets. His hand falls from her waist as he looks at her expectantly. Nodding, she responds, "Yeah. Let's go."
Satisfied, he walks ahead of her, practically skipping with a pep in his step. It's almost laughable how upbeat he seems about the whole ordeal, and she wonders why he decided to come get her instead of just going out with Ben. Following behind him, she breaks the silence.
"Why'd you come?" She says, kicking a rock on the asphalt.
A beat passes. "Dunno. Why not?"
"Ben wasn't awake?"
"He was," Aiden says. "just wanted to go out by myself."
Ashlyn squints her eyes, confused. "But you're with me."
"Yeah, but you're you." He says simply, shrugging. "Doesn't count, y'know?"
If she's being honest, no, she doesn't know. But she lets it go anyways, opting for the comfortable silence instead. They continue walking like that for a while; doing nothing but listen to their own footsteps and the breeze whistling through their ears. It's nicer than Ashlyn thought it'd be. She was prepared for a plethora of nonstop talking from Aiden's side, but he's been fairly quiet the entire time, which she appreciates. Looking at the side of his face, he looks peaceful with the moonlight hitting his skin, his smile softer. More gentle, almost.
The walk itself had done its duty in calming her down, also. Ashlyn feels significantly less uneasy than she was before they left the house, the pit in her stomach having dissipated. While it was a bit of a hassle to actually get out of her house, it ultimately wasn't a regrettable decision. She'll have to thank him when they get back.
Suddenly, she feels a snap behind her head, and her hair falls loosely, blowing over her face with the direction of the wind.
"Seriously?" Ashlyn grumbles, stopping in place to peel the tangled strands away from her face. She struggles to do it easily, due to her vision being obscured and having such a ridiculous amount of hair. If she thinks about it, there has never been a particular reason she keeps her hair long. Neither she nor her parents are in any way sentimental about her hair, but she has let it stay abnormally lengthy and thick for some unspoken reason. This is probably her sign to copy her hairstyle in the phantom dimension and cut it all off, although less choppy and more presentable.
Too busy fighting her own head of hair, she doesn't realize Aiden has stopped walking in order to face her, reaching his hands towards her face. She squints her eyes as he moves her ginger strands gently out of the way, brushing it into the rest of her hair with an amused look on his face. Ashlyn pauses, hands resting awkwardly by her side as she lets him work, peering up at his focused expression. This side of Aiden is foreign territory to her. He's definitely calmed down since they first met, but this placid atmosphere is something she's never seen from him. Aiden feels softer like this, silently fixing her hair in the middle of the night with the moon as the only source of light.
It's very intimate, she's realizing. And when Aiden's fingers reach to tuck her hair behind her ear, she gets a fluttery feeling in her chest that is 100% weird and unexplainable. The feeling doesn't relent once his eyes trail away from her hair and to her face, lingering on her eyes for a long moment. His hand is unmoving from it's place, his fingertips brushing her cheek. Gradually, she feels her ears get warm as they just stare at each other, the air charged with some unspoken mood that she cannot decipher. While it's both awkward and slightly uncomfortable, Ashlyn finds herself unable to look away.
She continues to stare, unblinking, even as Aiden's hand opens up again, the palm of his hand meeting her cheek. The warmth of it nearly burns with the combination of her warm face.
It isn't until she blinks that she lets out a small, "Um."
Then, Aiden's retracting his hand from her cheek, a bit too quickly. "Sorry, I don't… that was weird."
"Yeah," Ashlyn breathes, because it was. It was absolutely weird, but it wasn't bad. She thinks.
He clears his throat, holding his hands up placatingly. "I didn't mean to, uh, get so close."
She nods, not quite sure what to say. Ashlyn doesn't really understand what just happened, if anything even happened. She's not sure if Aiden felt that weird energy too, or if she's just imagining it.
"That's my bad, sorry." Aiden finishes, a sheepish smile on his face as he scratches his neck.
Again, she nods. Then, "I'm not mad."
His frame visibly relaxes, shoulders slumping just a bit. Ashlyn says nothing else, hoping her small statement speaks for itself. Nothing about that, weirdly enough, made her upset in any way. She expected to feel some kind of discomfort with his proximity, but she felt nothing except that weird flippy feeling in her stomach. In her silence, Aiden reaches into his pocket, pulling out his phone and tapping the screen.
"It's 11:26, are we going back?" He asks, looking at her again.
Right. She needs to get back home, and he does too. "Yeah, let's go. I'll walk you home first."
"No, come on. We're closer to yours." He says immediately, already walking back in the direction they came. Ashlyn sighs, relenting.
The walk back is more or less the same as before— still quiet, still peaceful, but with the addition of weird tension that Ashlyn has no idea how to dissipate.
When they get back, Ashlyn looks up at the roof with extremely tired eyes. She had forgotten she climbed out through her window, and now she needs to climb back up.
She sighs deeply. The consequences of her actions.
"Help me up," Ashlyn says, already hoisting herself onto the banister to stand on. Aiden stands off to the side, a bit awkwardly, hands hovering around her legs.
"Uh… how?" He says, laughter in his voice. She huffs, exasperated.
Balancing herself on the railing, she looks down at Aiden. "Come closer, give me your shoulder."
"You can't just grab the edge of it?" He asks, but moves closer anyways. He holds his hands over his shoulder, prepared to stabilize her foot.
"I'm not your height. I'm not tall enough to reach," She says simply, lifting her leg to put her foot over his deltoid. "Ready?"
Aiden looks up at her, holding a thumbs up. "Whenever you are, Ash."
Taking that as her sign, she puts her weight on him, essentially using him as a step-stool to reach the roof. Grabbing the ledge, she raises herself up with a grunt, lifting her elbows onto the shingles. Letting out a rough breath, she splays her palms flat to push herself the rest of the way up, swinging one leg over followed by the other.
Sneaking out and sneaking in is so much work. She does not understand why some people do this on the regular.
Once successfully on the portico, she sits there for a moment to catch her breath before standing up, looking down at her front lawn expecting to see Aiden, only to notice him climbing his way up, too. As expected, he takes way less time to fling himself up onto the roof, swiftly making it up in half the time it took for Ashlyn to.
"Why are you coming up?" Ashlyn asks, not looking at him. Reaching her window, she puts a hand under the sash and pushes it all the way up, ducking through the small opening.
She looks behind herself to see Aiden crouched by her window, not coming in. "Just saying bye."
Ashlyn squats down to his eye level, raising an eyebrow. "You could've said bye downstairs."
He shrugs, clearly not going to specify his reasoning.
"What made you come?" She asks quietly instead, eyes focused intently on his face.
Aiden pauses, eyes darting away for a moment, and then back. His smile changes, somehow. Less unserious, and more genuine. Ashlyn doesn't know when or how she started noticing the difference. She just feels it.
"Just felt like seeing you," He says finally, eyes flicking between hers, checking for a reaction.
She blinks, sensing the same weird energy as before. Just like earlier, she finds herself transfixed for some reason, not wanting to break eye contact. Which, in her case, is terrifying and weird, because for all of her life, she's kept her head low and away from other people, wanting to avoid as much interaction as possible.
Now she sits here, with a boy at her window, looking at her so intensely as if there's some urgent confession on the tip of his tongue that he's refusing to say. Yet, she doesn't even know what he'd say. Nothing has ever happened between them that would require a confession, as far as she knows. Unless there is.
"Do you need to say something?" She blurts out, bluntly.
Aiden blinks, broken out of the daze. He tilts his head, confusion etched on his face. "No?"
"Oh," Ashlyn swallows. "okay."
Silence passes between the two of them.
"Well… bye." She says slowly, reaching for her window screen to put back into the frame, clicking it into place.
"Ash," He says, peering at her through the netting.
She looks back at him, one arm above her head holding the top of the sash. "What?"
Aiden smiles, waving a hand. "See you in a bit."
Ashlyn sighs, slowly pushing the window closed. "Hurry up and leave before you pass out in the middle of the street."
She watches as Aiden laughs, noise muffled by the glass. While he starts crawling back down, she suddenly pushes the window back up.
"Aiden," She calls out quietly.
He turns his head, surprised.
Before Ashlyn thinks twice about it, she whispers, "text me when you're home."
She can see the exact moment he gets stunned by her request, eyes blinking in mild disbelief. Which.. yeah, that's reasonable. Ashlyn's never been big on texting, or just talking, for that matter.
In response, Aiden gives her a small salute, "Will do. Night, Ash."
Ashlyn closes her window then, flipping the sash lock to keep it closed instead of opening it again, this time. She watches Aiden's figure disappear from her rooftop as he jumps down instead of slowly lowering himself, much to her dismay.
Letting out a deep sigh, she collapses back onto her bed, her hair spread out from underneath her.
Pulling out her phone from her hoodie pocket, she opens messages.
ASHLYN | Sent at 11:48 PM
Stop jumping down from places.
You're going to sprain your ankle again.
Ashlyn sees Aiden read the message almost instantly, his typing bubble popping up as soon as she finishes sending her second message.
AIDEN | Sent at 11:49 PM
i'm still durable :P
don't worry abt me!!
She sighs, closing her phone.
What a night.