Chapter Text
[Content warning for very vague/brief descriptions of nonsexual nudity.]
[Second content warning for stale dialogue.]
Midnight’s solitude swallows up the house. The clock on the oven says that it’s 1:43am in the morning, and she has no choice to deny it. The living room is humid, the couch had caved in under her weight, and the woooosh of cars gliding across the street is too inconsistent.
It’s none of those things that are what’s restraining her from slumber, but rather her friend’s… confession.
After finally losing the staring contest she was having with her reflection on the television, Aubrey took in just how filthy she was. Being covered in blood, sweat, and tears with nothing but a few slices of pizza in her stomach was no way to continue through the night. Surely Polly and Basil wouldn’t mind if she used the bathroom…?
Tiptoeing through the silence, and haphazardly pausing when a specific floorboard creaked too loudly, she eventually made it safely to the bathroom. Turning the lights on would’ve risked waking someone up, so she navigated her surroundings without her sense of sight. A loose tube of toothpaste nearly clattered against the ground before she managed to catch it in the nick of time. Her heart was beating out of her chest.
Finally stumbling her way to the bathtub, it was then she found it had some strange equipment attached to it. Actually, she recognized it from something similar in Charlene’s house, but that didn’t make it any less confusing.
Deciding against messing around and finding out, she’d have to go ask for someone’s help.
The hallway was an infinite tunnel with no light at any end. Her eyes instinctively scrunched up as the floor tattled on her presence. Just as she twisted the doorknob to Polly’s room–
“If I have to wake up one more night to… Your sorry ass is gonna…!”
The girl buried her face in her stuffed toy to drown out the noise. The yelling stabbed her eardrums and pierced another part of her broken brain.
Her hand tensed into a fist as if the knob had heated up to one thousand degrees within seconds. She gulped down saliva as if it was vomit, and trudged through the swamps of the hallway to Basil’s room.
The door creaks open with a cackle, laughing at her desperation. Cocooned in a mass of quilts is Basil, with his eyes still fluttering open and adjusting to the darkness.
yawwwnn. The boy stretches. “Aubrey? Is everything alright? Do–Does anything hurt?!”
Aubrey shook her head, and then remembered Basil probably couldn’t see her yet. “No… Yes. I’m okay,” she answers.
They share a few seconds of silence. “You can sleep in here if you don’t want to be alone, I can make some room on my bed if—”
The girl’s face flushes redder than her injury and hotter than the August sun. “No! No…!” She yells in a whisper, before clearing her throat. “Sorry, not that I… I just need help using your bathtub.”
Everything under the moonlight is blue, but it’s clear how flustered Basil is by how he twists his blanket in his steel grip. Looks like he’s already gotten the wrong idea.
She follows him to the bathroom. His footsteps are careless and noisy. Doesn’t he know they’ll get in trouble? He could get hurt too… Aubrey wouldn’t let that happen.
“Ah, this stuff was to make it easier for Grandma. We haven’t taken it down yet,” Basil demonstrates. “It’s left for hot, and right for colder and/or off.”
The deafening splatter of water shooting onto the bottom of the tub nearly made her soul leave her body. Now she remembers why she stopped showering at night, and at her house in general.
“Is that all?” She asks, gathering herself.
Basil’s eyes jump from the faucet to hers, which she quickly looks away from. “Would you like help with anything else?”
Any thought Aubrey has is drizzled away like chalk in the rain. “Oh… um… what?”
“Well since you’re injured, you probably shouldn’t be moving around too much. So I could help you…y’know…!” His face is suddenly buried in his hands. “Sorry sorry! Forget about what I said earlier. This is just a friends thing. You guys saved me…I should help you, too.”
“Okay, sure,” Aubrey replies, reassuring herself. “A friends thing.”
Once the tub is full, Basil shoves his face into the corner to give his friend some privacy. The tiles on the wall feel refreshingly cold against his warm cheeks.
“You can undress to your comfortability. It’s okay if your clothes get wet,” Basil says.
Aubrey snickers. “You sound like those people at those massage therapy joints. Don’t worry.”
“I know you worry too, though.”
Despite being almost half naked, that’s what sparked her vulnerability.
“When we were kids, you were always so worried… About your friends, about the world… But you were so brave to stand up for others and be the change you wanted to see. I really liked that about you.” His voice quietly echoes against the wall. “This is still just a friends thing though.”
Aubrey fidgets with the hooks on her bra. The lack of a baseball bat in her hands felt so foreign.
“I didn’t stand up for you for years. If it wasn’t for Kel and Sunny stepping in, we would’ve drove you to suicide.” She chokes. “All because of a misunderstanding.”
“It-It’s okay!” Basil reassures.
“It’s not. And don’t pretend that it is.” Her hands fall to her sides. “I’m sorry, for what me and the Hooligans did and said to you. It wasn’t right. You should hate us.”
It was a mistake to let Basil help her, and invite her into her home. She’s an invasive species. There was a reserved seat in Hell waiting just for her.
A hand wraps around hers, and holds it tightly, as if it’s not worth ever letting go. “It was a misunderstanding,” Basil repeats, still facing away from her. “You thought I’d destroyed our precious memories. You had every right to be angry.”
Aubrey wiggles her hand out of his grasp. “Stop it.”
“Uh—Pardon?” Basil’s heart rate spikes.
“Stop pretending everything is okay when it’s not. Please just get angry, tell me how much you hate me, scream at me, kick me out of your house for all I care!” She shouts, no longer caring if Polly wakes up to show her what’s what.
“I’m not angry with you at all!” Basil protests, his tone contradicting his claim. “Even after all of these years, after everything we’ve been through, I still consider you to be one of my best friends, Aubrey.”
Her nose twitches. She doesn’t reply any further, but she doesn’t agree. How could she return his love when she had been the key reason to why he almost died? The Hooligans had to feel guilty because of bullying she’d encouraged them to participate in.
“Um—You’d better get in the bath…be-before it gets cold,” Basil stutters with an awkward chuckle.
Aubrey does as she’s told. Her skin melts under the hot water. Compared to the cold showers she’s used to at home, this was a dystopian luxury. Basil abandoned her to finick with something in the corner, and before her eyes the dark bathroom suddenly glimmered with the brilliance of violet.
“I forgot we keep a nightlight in here,” Basil explains. “That would’ve been helpful about ten minutes ago. Haha…” His desperation to change the subject doesn’t go unnoticed.
Aubrey’s chin seats itself on her bruised, scraped up knees. She can see dirt worming into the cuts and infecting the wound.
“Is it okay if I touch your hair?” The boy asks, there’s a lull of uncertainty in his voice.
As soon as the girl nods, a small bowl of bath water is dumped down the back of her head. Her bra was dampened and the feeling of her soaked denim shorts clinging to her thighs wasn’t ideal, but her friend’s fingers weaving through her pink locs made the experience tolerable.
Basil squirted some kind of product on his hand, and rubbed the suds into Aubrey’s wet hair. The air smelled like raspberries, cotton candy, and everything good in the world. She focused her eyes on the shine of the bathtub, which somehow caught a reflection from the blue glow of her friend’s eyes.
She remembers when they were kids, and Kel asked Basil if his Grandma had dropped him into a nuclear power plant when he was a baby. Mari scolded him before Basil was able to answer… so it remained a mystery.
The bath water was now sparkling with tiny bubbles of conditioner and shampoo. Any remaining dirt on her shoulders, arms, and knees was rubbed away by Basil’s gentle hands. The surrounding room nearly faded away when she struggled to keep her eyes open.
“That should be it, thank you,” Basil says, pulling the drain.
“I should be thanking you,” Aubrey softly remarks.
Soon, it’s only her and the setting moon. It’s like Basil, so bright and beautiful, yet hardly seen by anyone. Only in the night.
She’s entranced by her reflection in the mirror. Even though it’s dark, she can see Basil did a good job, there wasn’t a speck of dirt or a drop of blood in even a single pore. And her hair felt like silk as she ran her fingers through it. She was a total clean slate.
A hand peaks through the crack between the door, carrying something fluffy and folded. “Since you’re clothes are wet, you can borrow some of my pajamas,” Basil offers.
“Are you sure?” She asks.
The boy enticingly wiggles them around, and she has no choice but to take them and sigh.
“Let me know when you’re done changing!” He reminds once more before backing off into the hallway.
Aubrey slides on the soft garments, doing her best not to lift her arms too much(which Basil scolded her about earlier.) Upon closer inspection, she realized that she was wearing pink pajamas patterned with fluffy white bunnies. They matched the exact ones Basil wore, except his were green. That made her giggle.
Once she was fully clothed, she invited her friend back into the room. ‘
“Okay, I’m ready…?” She announced unsurely.
Basil enters the room, quietly clicking the door shut, and begins frisking through the cabinet.
“Should I give you some privacy or…?” Aubrey inches her way towards the door.
The boy shakes his head, waving his hand in a motion signaling for her to come closer. “I’m gonna help you reapply your bandages.”
“Shouldn’t we get Polly’s help for that? Since she’s a nurse,” she stated.
She didn’t receive a reply, instead Basil raised half of his shirt to reveal bandages hiding the stab wound on his stomach. “She taught me how to do it myself.”
Trustingly, Aubrey pulled up her sleeve and the lower half of her shirt. Polly must’ve bandaged her up earlier, but her arm was still wrapped in bandages from Kim, who had patched her up shortly after Sunny sliced her arm open.
Basil gingerly removed her old, now soggy and infection-risking bandages from her body, and applied pristine stiff ones, ready to soak up blood and protect her wounds once more.
“Hey, Basil…” Aubrey blurts.
Her friend hums in response.
“About what you said earlier… I still consider you one of my best friends too,” she continues. “Thanks for sticking around.”
Before she can say any more, her arms are wrapped in a loose hug. That didn’t make it any less genuine, though. Basil’s arms were bony, yet it was like they were made to hold her. Reluctantly, yet surely, she hugged back.
─
Aubrey soaked in the peaceful atmosphere of Basil’s room, which harbored a floral aroma; nothing like the smell of blood that seemed to stick to the walls before. Moonlight kissed her eyelashes, and she could sink into his mattress forever.
He was even kind enough to bring in the pillows and quilt she’d left in the living room, and tuck her into bed as if she was worth the entire world.
Tomorrow, the sun would rise once more, and she’d half to retrieve Bun-bun, Mr. Plantegg, and everything else she could hang onto in that broken home. But tonight, she was in the arms of the one she loved, the starry sky was clear, and they were the only people in the world.
Tonight, she could rest under a solid roof, and not a single worry left to worry.
[BATHROOMCOMMUNITY: 2,108 words. December 2025.]