Thank you everyone for your suggestions and comments. They really helped me with this chapter. Jedi Knight Padme wrote the first couple of paragraphs, and I'm sure a lot of you can pick out little bits that you suggested or wrote in your reviews. Enjoy them!
Once again, the closet is crowded! Please, please, please, if you can think of anything funny or cute put it in your review and I'll include it in the story. It's getting really hard to think of things for you guys to do, because I want to include you all but there's so many of you and I really don't have much of an imagination!
Enjoy the chapter!
XxXxX
The Closet Slumber Party
The first thing I saw upon coming to was… nothing. It was pitch black. There was no sound except for The Imperial March playing softly and creepily in the background. The hairs on my neck tingled, and a cold shiver made its way up and down my spine.
Then, from the darkness, an evil laugh made itself heard. Soft at first… Then it rose in volume and pitch…
"MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"
And then Justin, his mouth stuffed with popcorn, walked into the room. "Hey!" he mumbled around the popcorn. "Why're the lights off?"
He flicked the switch, and glaring light flooded the room.
"What are you crazy?" Padme demanded. I noticed that she was wearing PJ's that were decorated with little red and blue lightsabres. "You're totally ruining the mood!" She clicked the lights off again.
"What's going on?" I groaned. My head hurt. A lot. I touched the sore spot on the side of my head and found it covered by a thick bandage.
"We're having a Star Wars marathon!" MJ-Skywalker said. "Now, shush! Episode One has already started!"
Wait a minute…
"MJ!" I cried. "What are you doing here? I thought you left!"
"I came back while you were unconscious," she said.
"How long was I out?" I asked.
"Not long enough!"
Three guesses who said that… Could his initials be… Erik!
"Erik, where the heck are you?" I asked. My eyes were straining to adjust to the darkness.
"Under the pile of rabid phan-girls!" he growled.
"What are you doing under there?"
"Well," Don Juanita said, "we were playing Twister and we made Erik join us but then we all fell and we got so tangled up that we can't really move." She sighed happily. "But don't hurry to our rescue… I've always wanted to have Erik lying on top of me!"
Then Tad was next to me. "Oh, good you're finally awake! That means you didn't sustain too much brain damage."
"Now, that's a matter of opinion!" Alateriel giggled.
"Hey!" I snapped. "That wasn't nice!"
"Sorry!" she snorted. "I couldn't help myself. She left you wide open!"
Well, I suppose she had a point…
"Just relax, Angel," Tad said. "Doctor Tadriendra will make you feel all better!" She poked at my bandage a bit.
"What are you doing?" I demanded. "Ouch! Stop! That hurts!"
"Now, Angel," Tad said sternly. "Don't make me sedate you!"
"Could you sedate me?" Erik asked from underneath the pile of phan-girls. "Hey… I feel another song coming on… I wanna be sedated!"
"I must have missed something!" I cried. "Why are the lights off? Why are we watching Star Wars? Why is everyone wearing PJ's? Where am I? What are you? AAAUUGH!"
"Relax, Angel," a familiar voice said. "It's just a slumber party…"
I gasped. "Hollom?"
"Hi, Angel!" Emma appeared by my side and gave me a hug.
"What are you two doing here?"
"Hey!" MTL cried. "How come her muse got to come to the closet with her?"
"Cuz!" Emma said. "I asked Angel for permission and Ewik just wuvs Hollom!"
Erik growled at the sailor. "Bloody popcorn-thief…"
Hollom shifted his eyes and started whistling…
KZ grabbed me by the arm and yanked me over to the couch. The pile of phan-girls was slowly untangling itself. KZ's sudden motion caused all the blood to rush to my brain and I nearly puked on the couch. My head hurt so much!
"This is my friend, Spongekid!" KZ exclaimed. Another girl sat down beside me.
"We're best buddies!" KZ stated proudly. Spongekid nodded her head up and down enthusiastically.
"This is my favourite part!" KZ said, gesturing at the TV. "Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan are having an 'aggressive negotiation.' I love Obi-Wan, don't you? He's so cute. Only in Episodes one to three, of course. In four to six, he's old. Then again, it's not even the same actor! Unless maybe they went back in time and got the actor back when he was young and not-so-grey, or maybe they gave him a drink from the fountain of youth. Some people say that's where you get coffee. I love Obi-Wan, don't you?"
"I'm gonna be sick," I groaned.
"My neck hurts," Erik said as he sat down beside me, finally freed from the pile of rabid phans. "Someone was sitting on it."
"Here, let Doctor Tad take care of you!" Tad moved behind him and started massaging his neck. "Sometimes I wonder whether I should become a doctor or a masseuse."
Erik tipped his head back a bit with a look of bliss etched on his face. "That… feels… nice…" he purred.
"Hey, Erik!" Don Juanita appeared in front of him. She dangled a personal CD player in front of his face. "I'll give you this CD player along with a CD of Mozart if you tell me what the Chair of Impending Doom does!"
Erik gazed longingly at the CD player. "I love Mozart," he whispered. He reached out to grab it, then quickly drew his hand back. "No! I cannot! Must resist! I will never tell you about the Chair of Impending Doom! Do you hear me? Never!"
And so the hours past… We went through Star Wars Episodes one, two, and three… During this time we were joined by Opera Dove, InThisLabyrinth, Skibbereen, Gasp… and Darth Vader…
"Mighty Lord Vader," Padme bowed. "Now that you're here, we may escape this closet, overthrow the Jedi, and rule the galaxy!"
"Indeed," Vader said. "However, you are overlooking one teensy-weensy ever-so-crucial tiny little detail… That witchy PC ate my lightsabre!"
"Stupid (INSERT EXPLICIT TEXT HERE) bloody PC!" Padme raged. "It's setting us up! I'll bet that crumby little piece of crap is keeping us here for it's own amusement!"
"Aren't you being a little paranoid?" Invaderoperaghost asked. "It's a computer… It doesn't have a sense of amusement."
So on the night went… Now, what do girls do at a slumber party? Eat junk food, wear cute PJ's, do makeovers, and talk about boys… But what do rabid phan-girls do at a slumber party? Eat junk food, wear cute PJ's, do makeovers, and torture Erik by shamelessly discussing his assets and possible Erik pairings… And fighting over pieces of his clothes, of course…
"I got Erik's sweatband!" Mima cried triumphantly. She was quickly tackled by several other phans who desperately wrestled with her for the scrap of fabric. Meanwhile, DarkSilverMaiden slid up next to Erik and inspected his face.
"Your eyebrows are kind of funny-looking," she stated. (My Erik has the ALW half-mask, so you can see at least one eyebrow).
"You think my eyebrows look funny?" he sneered. "Wait till you see the rest of my face!"
"Wait here," she said. "I'll fix them!" She got up from the couch and returned a bit later with a pair of tweezers in her hands.
"What's that thing?" Erik asked.
"Never mind," DarkSilverMaiden said. "Just hold still…" She took hold of a single eyebrow hair and plucked it. Erik cried out, shoving her away, putting a hand to his brow.
"Ow! That hurt! What the Hell was that all about?"
"C'mon, Erik!" DarkSilverMaiden said, picking herself up off the floor. "Don't be such a cry-baby! No one wants a uni-brow! I'm just fixing it for you!"
"While you do that, I could give him a shave!" Emma offered enthusiastically, twirling her sword and smiling evilly.
"Do you wake up evil?" Erik demanded.
"No," she replied. "At least, not until after I've had my morning coffee."
"I hope you didn't trash those handcuffs," Skibby whispered to me. "I think we're gonna need them."
So we handcuffed Erik to the couch once more while DarkSilverMaiden tortured, er, groomed Erik. She was so preoccupied with her task that she didn't even notice when Elly dragged out her Fop-doll (which looks exactly like the Patrick Wilson Raoul).
"Hey this is neat!" Elly exclaimed. The 'dummy' already had a Punjab lasso over its head, and Elly found that when she tugged on it, the doll made choking and gasping noises. "State-of-the-art!"
"And look!" Chick cried. "When you kick him between the legs, he screams like a girl!" She demonstrated.
Spinner spotted a little button behind his ear. "I wonder what this does?" She pushed it and the Fop-Raoul cried out.
"I love her! Does that mean nothing? I love her! Show some compassion!"
Erik shot up in his chair, causing DarkSilverMaiden to go flying. "The world showed no compassion to me!"
Lonemutant grinned and pulled out a lighter. "Let's set his foppishly perfect hair on fire!"
"Hey!" DarkSilverMaiden exclaimed, grabbing the dummy away from the girls. "That's my Fop-doll! I need him! Erik's giving me Punjabbing lessons!"
Mrs. Malfoy sidled up to Erik. "Hey," she whispered seductively. "Can you give me Punjabbing lessons? I'll make it worth your while." She grinned evilly.
"Unfortunately, my dear," Erik responded, "Angel has strict rules about me giving lessons to phan-girls… Some of you are still minors and she really doesn't want to bail my butt out of jail."
Mrs. Malfoy frowned. "Spoil-sport."
While we continued watching Stars Wars, phans started unloading their stashes of junk food. I honestly don't know where they were hiding it all, but it wasn't long before all sorts of sugary goodness was being passed around the room.
Mariannie snuck up beside me. "Hey, Angel," she whispered into my ear. "I've brought some pop tarts just for Erik. He'll love 'em!" Then she shrugged. "Of course, if he doesn't, I guess I'll just have to cram 'em down his throat until he does…"
We had quite an array of food floating around. Floating, because Darth Vader and Darth Padme decided to show off their impressive knowledge of the Force by levitating all of the edibles… Whenever someone asked for a snack, whatever they wanted magically floated over to them. MJ scoffed and muttered something about bragging Sith lords…
Among the food we had included Chinese take-out, saltwater taffy, Fresca soda, more green olives, a jack-o-lantern filled with leftover Halloween candy (donated by Elly), and, of course, popcorn… Lots of popcorn… We also had ice cream sundaes, with really weird toppings like spray cheese and coffee beans… All the sugar was making Spongekid hyper. She was bouncing off the walls, singing strange songs… "Flatfoot floogie with the floy floy!"
However, I think someone spiked Justin's pop (soda, carbonated beverage, whatever)… One minute, he was fine… The next he was jumping onto the couch and screeching about attacking squirrels.
"They're everywhere!" he cried. "They've come to take over! We're all gonna die! Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death–"
"Will someone please shut him up?" Erik yelled after about ten minutes of this.
"Oh, don't worry about Justin," Michelle said as she put an arm around the boy, who was now foaming at the mouth (rabid phan indeed). "Caffeine makes him hallucinate. He'll be fine a few hours." Then she glared at Erik. "So nobody hurts him! Justin and I are scumbag buddies for life!"
Justin nodded his head vigorously and then went back to yelling at the imaginary squirrels.
"You shall not invade our country, you evil fuzzy creatures! God save us all!"
"Don't worry, Justin," Robika jumped in. "I'll protect you! I have a red belt in Tae Kwon Do!"
"They're evil!" Justin shrieked. "They're breaking out the nuclear warheads! They're gonna kill us all!"
"Dear me," Tad said. "I do believe we need to sedate him." She picked up a big syringe. "Nurse Darklady? Would you care to administer the anaesthetic?"
"Why, certainly Doctor Tad…" She took the syringe with a big smile on her face. "Ooooh, Justin!"
Justin's eyes went wide. "No! They've jumped ship! They're working for the squirrels! AAAAAAAAHHH!"
Justin ran around the room several times while Darklady chased him with the syringe. Finally, he collapsed unconscious from utter exhaustion. Darklady looked down at him and then looked back at the syringe in her hands.
"Guess we don't need this anymore." She shrugged and tossed the syringe over her shoulder. Coincidentally, it landed point first into Shadow's back.
Shadow winced. "What was that? Are there bugs in here? I think something stung me." She put a hand to her head. "I feel kind of funny." She yawned and staggered a bit. "I'm… kinda… sleepy…" Her knees gave out and she collapsed onto Erik's lap, who was unable to do anything anyway because his wrists were handcuffed to the couch.
"Oh, Erik," she said in a half-yawn, smiling sleepily. "You broke my fall… You're so sweet… Come here and give me kissy…"
"No!" Erik cried. "Not that! Anything but that!" Erik had had a rather nasty experience with kissing another phan-girl, once. What was meant to be a harmless peck on the cheek turned into a fifteen-minute make-out fest. Erik never really fully recovered from that. But now, he was helpless to defend himself as he was restrained. Shadow smiled as she drew closer to his lips.
"Mr. Phantom, you're so cute… Cutie-pie! I wuv you… Gimme kissy…" Her lips were a hair's breadth from Erik's when the sedative finally kicked in and Shadow went limp in his lap.
"Praise God!" Erik sighed in relief.
"That would have been an E/OC pairing I wouldn't have minded watching," Rowena grinned as Shadow's head lolled to one side. In her drug-induced sleep, she drooled on Erik's chest.
Erik made a face. "Ew."
Mrs. Butler shook her head. "E/C pairings are best… Hello? It's obvious that Erik and Christine are mad for each other. If it weren't for stupid Fop-Raoul-Wussy-Patrick-Pretty-Boy they would have ended up together!"
VagrantCandy rolled her eyes. "She's dumb and shallow. Christine never would have made Erik happy. Meg Giry, on the other hand…"
"No, E/OC pairings are definitely the best," InThisLabyrinth insisted. "The Other Woman is usually a Mary-Sue, meaning she's absolutely perfect and everyone loves her. What could possibly go wrong?"
I smirked. "My last fic was an E/OC pairing… Someone actually thought that Fantine was a Mary-Sue!"
Blueflamewolf laughed. "Fantine the sword-clashing Phantomess? Fantine the chorus-boy-lusting chick? Fantine the run-away-come-back-run-away-come-back lady? Fantine the kick-Erik-in-the-b–"
"We get your picture!" Erik snapped, not wanting to relive painful (literally) memories. "Clearly, Fantine was not the number one candidate for Best Mary-Sue in Fanfiction."
"Fantine?" Gasp repeated. "Wasn't she the prostitute from Les Miserables?"
"By name only," I said.
"Oh, I know!" Phantasy piped up. "How about an Erik-Raoul fic?"
Everyone just blinked at her. Gasp grabbed her water pistol from her holster and squirted the phan in the face.
"I was only kidding," Phantasy pouted.
Erik shuddered. "You've just conjured up some pretty bad mental images. I hate the Fop! A FopxMe fic? Ew! Someone put out my eyes, please!"
Opera Dove slid into the seat beside him. "You know, I bought Raoul off E-bay! Maybe I could bring him over!"
"No!" Erik cried. "That would be a bad thing!" He shifted under Shadow, who was still lying on top of him. "I can't feel my legs…"
"I think you and Madame Giry would make a great pair," Annie told Erik as she sat down on the other side of him. "She's much closer to your age, and just think of all the trouble she went through to save your life!"
"Forget it, Jane!" he snapped. "I am not asking Madame out!"
She rolled her eyes. "My name is not Jane! How many times do I have to tell you? I'm Annie!"
"Yeah, yeah, whatever…" he muttered. "Do me a favour, Jane? Will you pass me a butterscotch sundae with gummi bears on top?"
Annie scoffed and went to retrieve the aforementioned sundae.
Meanwhile, Skibby was doing Elly's toenails. "Pink looks cute on you," she told her. "It sets off your hair."
"Oooh, let me see!" Mariannie cried. She leapt over to them, accidentally knocking Skibby's hand that held the nail polish.
"Mariiiiiiiiiii!" Skibby shrieked. "Look what you did!" She secured the lid on the nail polish and grabbed a cushion off the couch. "Pillow fight!"
Skibby beat Mariannie mercilessly while Erik watched with amusement. "This is better than TV!"
"Say," Opera Dove spoke. "That reminds me… What do you think of the Charles Dance movie?"
Erik shrugged. "Never seen it… Sounds like a chick-flick, though."
Skibby beat Mariannie until they both collapsed of exhaustion. Spongekid bounced off a few more walls and then accidentally hit her head on my desk, knocking herself out. DarkSilverMaiden fell asleep cuddling her Fop-Raoul doll. Tad shrugged and administered herself an local anaesthetic then joined the other phans in sleep, who were all dropping like flies now.
Only the Dancing Egg was still semi-conscious. She trudged around with a fuzzy blanket around her shoulders (which was fuzzier than any other I had ever seen). Annie yawned and tried to grab a corner of the blanket to cuddle up with, but the Dancing Egg yanked it back possessively.
"No! My fuzzy blanky! No touchy!" She paused. "Unlesth Ewik wantsth to share!"
But Erik was already dead to the world. Before passing out herself, Darklady administered one last dose of anaesthetic – to him. He was sleeping like a baby in minutes.
The Dancing Egg shrugged and curled up with her blanket, stuck her thumb in her mouth and went to sleep.
I sat at my computer chair and rested my head on the desk, using my arms as a pillow. I was having a good time. I really was! But I also really wanted to go home again. After all, wasn't my family worried about me? Didn't I have school to go to? Didn't my performing arts team, Spirit Borne, miss me? Weren't my friends wondering what had happened?"
I sighed and cast a glance over my shoulder at the other girls who were now all asleep. I could hear a lot of heavy breathing and some soft snores.
"They may be rabid," I thought. "But they're great people… I guess things could be a lot worse…"
"Good night y'all," I said softly. Then I closed my eyes and fell into a deep slumber.