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“Don’t you think it’s a little amazing?”
“Hm?” Sunny responds to Basil’s question and nuzzles his face further into his boyfriend’s chest. The sweater’s soft, pastel green fabric feels nice against his cheek, but Sunny knows the warmth is all from the boy currently wearing it.
“All of this, I mean,” Basil says. Raindrops lash against the window, pouring down in long trails. The night sky is illuminated by the semi-distant city lights; their house is close enough for them to see, but far away enough for the cars to not be too noisy. Basil reaches up and tugs the yellow curtain half-closed. It dims the noise a little.
The bed is nestled into an alcove, next to a large window. Yellow light illuminates their bedroom. In it, the baby blue walls are lined with photos, memorabilia, and proof of their friendship. The desk is cluttered with homework and supplies. Mewo snores gently at the foot of the bed, curled into a small bun with her tail over her nose. Basil can feel the heat on his sock-clad feet, even through the thick blanket.
“I’ve… we’ve done so much to each other. And here we are,” Basil says.
“When you put it that way, it is amazing,” Sunny mumbles. He pulls the blanket over him and Basil, having to untangle his arms from his boyfriend’s. The tension in Basil’s posture is clear, and Sunny gently coaxes him into lowering his head onto the pillow alongside Sunny’s. It’s warmer now, and Basil seems to have relaxed. Success. “I don’t think I’d have answered that way a few months ago, though. Back then, it felt like it was always meant to be.”
“Aha… yeah. It was a little rough, wasn’t it?” Basil chuckles nervously, both of them being well aware that ‘a little rough’ was an understatement and a half for the past three years. “In general. Not just the last couple months.”
“I’m sorry I left you,” Sunny apologizes, adding another drop of water to the ocean. He sees Basil open his mouth, but presses a finger to it. “Shush. Let me have this one, okay? Even if us being separated was a good thing, I shouldn’t have been gone for so long.”
“Fine, then. But let me apologize, too,” Basil grumbles. “And no offense, but I think it might’ve gone even worse if you were there.”
“Huh?” Sunny’s eyebrows raise slightly, indicating extreme confusion.
“I mean…” Basil tries to backpedal quickly. “Again, I’m not trying to be mean, but would you really have been able to survive the fallout of the truth?”
“Well, uh. No, but…”
“C’mon. Remember what it was like?” His eyes cloud as he remembers.
The confession wasn’t as dramatic as Sunny would have expected. Not the kind of thing you’d see in a movie, show, or video game. He mumbled something about murdering Mari, Basil woke up in the middle of it and said that he hung the body, and everyone awkwardly shuffled out. Hero murmured a promise to call the nurses to get Sunny back to bed, because he was clearly delusional. The shadow over Hero’s eyes told him that he knew Sunny wasn’t.
Kel roughly shouldered past Sunny, fist clenched, and he knew he was a hair’s width away from punching Sunny’s lights out, in spite of the now rather creepy smile plastered across his face.
Aubrey’s reaction hurt the most. There was no thinly-veiled anger, no attempt at faking confusion. She just looked completely lost. Sunny had to catch her as she bounced off him while trying to walk out, being completely off-balance.
Sunny sat down by Basil’s bedside. They exchanged a smile and some words, but all was not well. They made promises that couldn’t be kept: Sunny would never leave again, and they would forgive themselves and each other. The last bullet point came easily - the same couldn’t be said for the first two.
And then Sunny had left for the city, to a small suburb on a cliff overlooking New York. It’s the one he now shares with Basil. At the time he’d moved, though, it was empty and foreign to him. Shadows seemed to reach for his legs when he didn’t pay attention.
But still, Sunny sent letters to Basil, and Basil sent letters back. They promised everything would be okay. Each hoped the other would believe it, because they themselves sure didn’t.
Sunny saw a therapist. He even went to school again. And he saw people around school: a black-haired girl in the computer lab, with a pet rocks sticker on her backpack. A blond boy at the soccer field, always shouting but seeming well-meaning. And many more in the cafeteria and Sunny’s other classes. They caught his attention, but he couldn’t burden anyone else with his existence, if they’d befriend him at all.
Kel sent letters. They spoke of adventures in basketball. One day, they stopped.
Aubrey sent one letter. She knew it was hypocritical, but she could never forgive him. She was leaving Faraway, the state, and never intended to come back.
Hero sent nothing.
Truthfully, Sunny wondered if it was worth it. After so, so long, years of hell in the waking world and thinly-veiled escapism in his dreams, he’d finally found freedom. Peace and happiness, as the fake Aubrey had wished him, had yet to come. It went without saying, but Kel’s belief that they’d all always be best friends, Hero’s desire to keep them all together, and Basil’s hope of things going back to the way they were before… well.
Still, at least he’d set Basil and his friends free, as much as he missed those three days he spent with Kel, Hero, and, eventually, Aubrey. His only ironclad regret was that he hadn’t been able to give Basil some semblance of that happiness before he had to leave again. No, Basil had spent four years tormented and alone, and if any of their friends had apologized to him for abandoning him just as much as they abandoned Aubrey, he never mentioned it in the letters. The subject of their friends was a taboo of sorts, really.
One day, Sunny had woken up and realized this wasn’t alright. Mari and Basil would both want him to try to recover. He was never, ever going to get Hero, Kel and Aubrey back. It hurt, and he knew it always would, but he deserved it (even if his therapist insisted otherwise).
From then on, Sunny spoke to the girl at the computer lab and the boy at the soccer field. Their names were Cally and Iosef. They were nice. Basil seemed glad when Sunny wrote about them in his letters.
After a particularly long evening at the arcade, once Iosef had left, Cally asked to see Sunny behind the building. Her face was red and demeanor more nervous than usual, even though she was already quite anxious most of the time. She presented Sunny with a hand-written letter and ran off.
The letter was sweet. Poetic, brimming with emotion. Cally was sweet, too, and very conventionally attractive.
One thing that could be added to the long list of things Sunny didn’t understand was why he felt nothing romantic for Cally. He’d tried to convince himself he liked Aubrey when he was younger - she liked him, clearly, and he looked at her in pictures whenever one was taken. But, being perfectly honest with himself, he mainly did it so he’d have an excuse to huddle near Basil.
Things were awkward for a while after Sunny let Cally down, but they rebuilt their friendship. Eventually, she and Iosef started going out. Sunny felt jealous of what they had, but he knew he shouldn’t. They hadn’t killed their siblings. They deserved this.
The months turned into years. When Sunny was seventeen, his mother had to tell him something.
“I wish there was more I could’ve done for you,” Basil whispers, eyes clouding as he kneads the back of Sunny’s sweater.
“You did everything you could. That meant enough for me,” Sunny replies, resting his head on top of Basil’s. His fluffy blond hair tickles Sunny’s chin. “The one who should really be complaining is you.”
It had been rough for Sunny. He’d gotten better, though, even if forgiving himself was off the table.
Basil, though? It had been far, far worse for him. A fact they were both too keenly aware of was that Sunny had an escape route. He didn’t need to stay in Faraway.
Basil was released from the behavioral ward a few weeks after the fight, and proceeded to immediately shut himself inside again. Polly had confiscated his shears, knives… all sharp objects in the house. He saw her staring at him when she thought he couldn’t. It wasn’t like he could blame her for her caution. He should’ve been grateful, really.
He should’ve been grateful for a lot of things: that there was no Something, so there was nothing to be killed, that Polly was still here even if Grandma had left, that Sunny had saved him on the final night.
He wasn’t grateful for any of those things, though, and he hated it.
A few weeks in, Polly forced Basil to go out of the house. School would be starting soon, and he had to get used to the great outdoors again.
The supposedly great outdoors was where Basil had an unpleasant reunion with the hooligans, who awkwardly apologized for all they’d done to him, provided condolences for his grandma’s passing and his… injuries, and then asked if he knew what was up with Aubrey, because they didn’t know where she was going each day and were beginning to consider staking out her house.
Basil knew where she was headed. As the sky turned pink, streaked by orange and dotted with early stars, he arrived at the graveyard. Late summer winds rustled the trees and leaves fluttered to the dirt, resting on Basil’s shoulders. He felt a thin sheen of sweat forming on his forehead from the humid air. He paid it no mind.
In front of him, sitting by Mari’s grave with the most peaceful expression he’d seen on her, was Aubrey. She looked up at him, calmer than ever before.
She was leaving, she said. She was sorry for everything. Basil responded in kind.
Watching her slowly walk towards the setting sun, Basil knew the last time she would ever touch him was when she pushed him into the lake.
Kel tried. He had always tried so hard, and even the confession hadn’t changed that. He visited Basil, invited him to basketball, and when school started, he and the hooligans stayed by his side to ward off bullies. The gang was now being headed by Kim, seeing as Aubrey had managed to move in with her father in Montana. Basil didn’t ask if they kept in touch.
Basil could tell that Kel’s heart wasn’t in it. Basil had always had the best poker face in the group, and seeing as the group now consists of him and Sunny, he always will. Kel glared at him when he thought he couldn’t see it. When they ended up on opposite teams during dodgeball, Kel seemed to throw with just a little more vigor than he usually did. Aubrey had left Kel, too, and Basil could tell.
Kel had always helped, and Basil hoped he could return the favor. Basil tried to coax him into talking about what was wrong. Over the weeks and months, it seemed to gradually wear Kel down, but it’d actually been winding him up.
His friendship with Kel had been over the moment his hands touched that jump rope, but it finally became apparent to Basil when Kel screamed at him in the back of Othermart. He’d tried to bring up Aubrey one time too many, it seemed. It was more-so the intent behind them than the words themselves which hurt Basil; he’d heard them before far too many times.
Basil knew Kel had been sending letters to Sunny. He assumed that stopped on that day.
A few days later, as Basil watched the snow fall from his porch, cup of hot chocolate in his hands and regret in his belly, Kel came to apologize. His heart still wasn’t in it. That was proven when Kel eventually vanished to college, joining Hero.
Basil had known from the very beginning that Hero disappearing around the door to his hospital room was the last time he’d ever see him.
So, it wasn’t easy. The hooligans were… alright, Basil supposed. He felt bad about it, but he’d rather avoid them. Too many bad memories. Other than that, Basil didn’t have any real friends. His hasty decision in a feeble attempt to keep them close had been what drove all of them away. It would’ve been quite funny if it didn’t hurt so much.
The seasons changed, but it didn’t feel like Basil was changing with them. Even so, he turned eighteen one day, and Polly was dismissed. They both knew it’d been coming. She’d grown closer to him over the years, and he opened up a little, until one particularly bad day left him pouring his heart out to her while sobbing on the bathroom floor. Everything he felt about Sunny, the things they’d done, Mari and how he still missed her and her picnics and his friends, knowing he’d never get any of them back.
Despite how close Basil and Polly had grown, though, she still had to go, and, in preparation for his eighteenth birthday, they set about finding accommodations for him. In the end, Polly contacted Sunny’s mother, and Basil would see his ‘best friend’ again after one and a half years of being apart.
“God, it was so confusing at first,” Basil laughs, adjusting so he can nestle his head into the crook of Sunny’s neck. He places his hand under his boyfriend’s head, soaking in the warmth of the moment. His finger brushes Sunny’s eyepatch. It’s taken them a while to build up enough trust for that to not elicit any reaction.
Sunny looks down at Basil’s face. He’s always loved it when Basil laughed. The way his eyes crinkle and gentle breath fills the room is like music to his ears. Sunny brushes a single lock of blond hair away as Basil continues. “I kind of thought you hated me, still. I know better now, of course!” he says hastily, seeing the worried expression on Sunny’s face.
“I thought you were the one that hated me.” Sunny raises an eyebrow. He recalls the early days of living with Basil. His mother had mostly moved on from the incident, despite knowing the truth, but Basil was still deathly skittish around her. It’d been hard early on, and neither Basil nor Sunny seemed to truly trust each other.
That was until a day some weeks in where Basil awoke from a nightmare, face streaked with tears. Sunny held him close as years of grief, guilt, loneliness and regret came pouring out. Wishes and empty hopes that Basil knew would never come true.
For the first time in a long time, Sunny became the one to vent to Basil. How he’d felt love, hate, and confusion for him, trying to keep his violent thoughts confined to his dreams because the last thing he ever wanted to do was hurt his best friend.
And things got a little easier after that. Their friends hadn’t come back and probably never would, but Sunny and Basil had each other.
Basil held Sunny’s hand and stood on his blind side when they went out in public. It was to help him see. Sunny liked the hand-holding, but would rather have Basil stay where he could see him. It wasn’t a security thing; Basil was just pleasant to look at. More-so than Sunny felt he should’ve been, but, being perfectly honest with himself, he didn’t mind.
From there, they tried to make things work. The two visited Sunny’s therapist together, and she became Basil’s therapist, too. Together, they decided that maybe it was good to have some boundaries. No, Sunny shouldn’t dedicate his life to becoming the perfect person Basil had seen him as. He probably should’ve realized that already, considering how it ended for Mari.
Basil had even more to work through, which said quite a bit. But he’d gone more than five years without Sunny by his side, four without any contact whatsoever. He could live life just fine, even if it was hard without his best friend. There were other people he could rely on. When Sunny left on a school club trip to the mountains for two weeks, Basil was anxious, but he made it work.
This didn’t mean they had to stay apart, of course. They learned. Sometimes, one had to hold the other accountable for their mistakes, because not everything was their own fault. When Sunny had a bad day, Basil held him close and said he was there, not that everything would turn out fine, because that wasn’t a guarantee. But he was there, and there was enough for Sunny.
Bit by bit, it got better. The snow melted, plants grew, and it stopped feeling like the lilies of the valley on the windowsill were watching Basil and Sunny. Spring brought warmth they hadn’t felt in years.
When school let out, they’d walk hand-in-hand through the fields of hyacinths behind the grounds, feeling their skin prickle under the sun. If it wasn’t a lazy day, they might head to the convenience store and pick up some ice cream before heading home, listening to music, reading, and failing to play video games together. When the sun began to set and Sunny’s mother told them to get ready for bed, they bade each other good night and slept on opposite sides of the room. It was only when one had nightmares that they’d share a bed.
Coupled with the freedom that day at the hospital had given them, it felt like they had a chance. Their friends were gone, yes, but at least they were still here. Sunny never wanted it to change, and Basil certainly didn’t. But the last time he had tried to stop things from changing, Sunny ended up with one eye less. Nowadays, he’s done waiting for things to happen.
Their first kiss was nothing special to most people, but it’d been a long time coming. Basil had hoped he could stop his feelings from pouring over, but every small smile, gentle laugh, and squeeze of the hand from Sunny gradually pressed on his heart until he couldn’t take it anymore.
It was on the ferris wheel at the fair, at the beginning of Basil’s first good summer in forever, feeling his t-shirt stuck to his skin with sweat and ankles aching after spending all day by Sunny’s side. The sky had darkened by this point. Though Basil couldn’t quite see the stars due to the light pollution, the distant city lights were a nice substitute.
They’d just passed the crescendo of the ferris wheel. Basil stared awestruck at the city, but his attention was ripped away from it when Sunny gripped his hand and quietly asked, “So, how do you feel?”
Truth be told, there were a lot of things Basil felt. All this time, grief, fear, love and hope. The void left by Kel, Hero, Aubrey, Mari. There were too many things for him to properly put into words, so he put them into action instead.
Their first kiss was nothing special to most people, but they certainly weren’t most people, and Sunny’s flushed cheeks and gentle smile were enough to turn it from a good summer into Basil’s best.
A few months have passed since that day. The warm winds of summer give way to autumn, the leaves turning dark and covering the pavement as they walk to school together. Sunny’s mother and their therapist are still concerned, as are they, but they make it work. That’s basically their tagline by this point.
The presence of fall is made even more clear by the rain pounding against the window. It creates a stark contrast between the harsh outside world and their little slice of heaven. Their life feels a little empty without Kel, Hero, Aubrey, and Mari. It always will, they know. But they have to make it work.
“Thinking of them?” Basil asks, already knowing the answer. They both were.
After Sunny gives a slight nod, Basil reluctantly sits up, earning a whine of protest from his boyfriend. “I wish things were different, too,” Basil says, hearing his back pop as he stretches. He walks over to the desk, picks up the still-warm tea kettle, fills two flowered cups with boiling water, and tosses in their favorite mix.
Sunny watches him work. He’s always liked seeing Basil absorbed in something; his eyes are completely focused, posture perfect, and hands unshaking. Basil walks back to the bed, his pastel green sweater visibly covered with Mewo’s hair. His bed shorts are too, but they’re too dark for the fur to stand out. He sets down the cups of tea on their nightstand, brushing aside a copy of Dorian Grey to make space.
Basil sits down on the bed again, legs crossed and rubbing his shins against each other. He opens his mouth, unsure of how to continue the conversation.
Reflecting on life up to this point… Sunny and his best friend have spent so long hoping they could make things better. They had tried for years, but it wasn’t enough. It’d never been enough.
Sunny suddenly hugs Basil from behind, pressing his head into his shoulder. “S-Sunny?” Basil squeaks, flustered. “What-”
“…Do you ever feel like it was for nothing?” Sunny whispers, eyes clouded. “All this work, pain, and our friends still left us.” He clasps his hands over Basil’s chest, tugging on his own black sweater sleeves. “I-it was naive, but I’d hoped they’d forgive us… or you, at least.” Sunny’s voice cracks.
“Hey, c’mon…” Basil leans his head against Sunny’s. “We have each other. And even if we didn’t, we can go on.”
Sunny sniffles, looking at the pictures lining the walls. Their days together, Sunny or Basil alone, the old album photos. Those were times they’d never get back.
“…Maybe we should be glad they ever happened at all…” Sunny whispers to no one in particular.
“What was that?” Basil asks curiously.
“Oh… nothing,” Sunny responds, planting a small peck on Basil’s cheek. Even after months of dating, it’s still enough to turn the blond into a stammering, blushing mess.
“Ah… I-I-” Basil stutters, short-circuiting as Sunny finally released him and picked up both cups of tea.
“Anyway, though. I’m thirsty, and we’ve got that test in Mrs. Adams’ class coming up tomorrow.” Sunny hands Basil his mug. The poor boy holds it with a limp grip, still recovering from Sunny’s ambush earlier.
Sunny has had enough of the self-pitying. They’ve all made their choices, and they all have to live with them. He and Basil aren’t out of the woods yet, of course, but they’ve at least found a path.
“Y-yeah…” Basil responds. The two clink their mugs together and lean on each other’s shoulders. Basil tugs the blanket over their feet, and Mewo stands up, stretching, meowing, and curling up right next to them. Sunny strokes her fur with one hand, taking a sip of his tea with the other. The liquid burns his tongue a little, but the heat is a nice contrast to the pouring rain against the night sky. And even still, he can make out the flavor.
Mewo is warm. The room is warm. Basil is warm. And, after so long, Sunny is warm, too. Basil places his emptied mug on the nightstand and hugs Sunny’s left arm with both of his own. Hearing the rain on the window and whirring of the heater, seeing the gentle rise and fall of his boyfriend’s chest, Sunny feels like he could fall asleep right here and now. Basil already has, judging by his closed eyes and quiet snoring.
Sunny takes another sip of his tea, not minding the slight burn. Reflecting on everything that’s happened, he comes to a decision.
It is amazing, and he thinks Mari would agree.