Chapter Text
Sunny woke up. He silenced his alarm and made his bed. The suns rays from outside were annoyingly bright for six in the morning. He shut his curtains, recoiling mildly at the sight of a baby spider hanging from the top left corner of the window. Crossing the room to put as much distance between him and the satan spawn as possible, he changed out of his pajamas into a simple short-sleeve black t-shirt and khaki shorts. After pulling up his black ankle socks, he did a once over his room to make certain it was clean before stepping out. He then used the bathroom and brushed his teeth, his brain operating ninety percent on muscle memory alone.
Moving downstairs, Sunny was cautious not to make too much noise. Once he reached the bottom of the staircase, he glanced idly towards the doorways to see if either of his parents had come down already. Finding that they hadn't, Sunny exhaled a sigh of relief out through his nose. Walking into the kitchen, he made his usual breakfast of a bowl of dry wheat crisps and sat down. It's not that he disliked having milk with his cereal, but his mother hadn't gone grocery shopping and he wasn't trying to find a reason to get yelled at by using the rest of it. His mind wandered to that of his favorite escapist passtime; Captain Spaceboy. He pictured the scene before him.
Oil littered the wrecked room of Spaceboy’s ship. His engine room had been mutilated. The main console had been blasted to bits and all the emergency oil reserves had been drained. The smell in the air was mostly that of flaming industrial equipment, but something else lingered amongst it. Treachery.
Drawing his laser pistol, Spaceboy stepped intrepidly into the area. His eye focused on the shadow in the corner, and he pulled his gun up and blasted on instinct. The darkness was banished by the light of his laser, revealing the corner to be empty. Spaceboy swore under his breath, and regarded his failure silently. Suddenly, all his instincts flared up at once. He rolled sideways quickly, narrowly avoiding a shot aimed at his head. Instead it blew a hole in his cape, and continued straight into the corner he had just blindly shot into.
“Betrayer!” Spaceboy hissed, “Step out from the shadows and show yourself!” His deceiver complied. And as his mouth hung agape, Spaceboy could see that it was none other than-
Sunny’s thoughts were interrupted by the sound of footsteps creaking down the stairs. Judging by the lightness of the noise, they belonged to his mom instead of his dad. Not terrible, but also not great either. Sunny hastily wolfed down the rest of his crisps, and cleaned the bowl in the sink quietly. The only thoughts going through his head were about how much he wished he didn’t have to hear the steps creak and groan as his mother descended them. His entire body drooped, as if it had suddenly lost all its energy just from hearing the noise. How fucking pathetic are you? His usually quiet mind croaked out.
He immediately moved towards the door and grabbed his backpack off the hanger sitting by it. Stepping into his shoes, Sunny spared a glance towards the living room. His mother was watching TV with her back to him. A twinge of nostalgia pinged off through his head. He was tempted to call out “Leaving for school, Love you guys!” Like he used to when he was younger. It was a knee jerk reaction, one the rest of his instincts quickly rushed in and made sure he didn’t act on. Drawing attention to himself never went well. Sometimes he’d get hit with a snarky comment, or often would be told that if he stuck around he'd be late. Sometimes he’d be rudely reminded about whatever chores he had to do, or reminded to get his grades up. Sometimes he’d be told he forgot something important, only to have it haphazardly tossed at him on his way back in. Most times he was greeted with silence. And somehow, that stung more than anything else.
Sunny turned silently, and opened his door. He made his way to the bus stop down the street, and waited patiently for the big yellow juggernaut. This was his morning schedule every school day since senior year had started. All things considered, today’s morning had gone better than most.
Aubrey waited outside for her bus. Despite being the last person who'd hope on, she still only managed to get a half hour of extra sleep compared to the other riders. Well, excluding those people who could drive or had someone else to drive them to school. Friggin’ aristocrats could get up fifteen minutes before school started and still make it on time.
The wind blew way colder than it realistically should’ve for a summer day. Her coat flapped breezily in the wind for all to see as the bus arrived five minutes late.
Aubrey boarded quickly and muttered a fast greeting to the driver before dipping into a seat next to Basil at the front of the bus. Kim turned excitedly around in the seat in front of her to speak.
“Excited to finally be done with this god forsaken school?” She grinned infectiously, Aubrey found herself smiling in response. It was graduation day, and everyone she knew had managed to get into the same college.
“You know it,” Aubrey chuckled. Kim reached into her purple hoodie, withdrawing three pieces of taffy: She passed one to her brother Vance, who was sitting beside her. One to Aubrey, who accepted the treat graciously, as Kim was never one to share her candy with anyone who wasn’t her brother. And one to Basil, who accepted it wordlessly and stared down at it lamely. Kim drew one final bit of taffy from her pouch, and popped it into her own mouth.
“No more science exams or english lectures led by racists-“ Kim paused, relishing the thought, “No more detention or getting up at six thirty in the goddamn morning!-” She opened her mouth to say more, but Vance interjected.
“You know how early some college classes start, right?”
“Yeah, but there's no way any of them are that early. That would be insane!”
“You could say the same thing about any school level. College isn’t special.”
“Shut up,” Kim grumbled, “You’re not special.”
“Says the business major.”
“OH NOW YOU’VE DONE IT!" Kim leapt up and started wailing on Vance’s side as he boomed his laughter. Her punches bounced off his shoulder harmlessly, leading him to guffaw even louder.
Aubrey turned her attention to Basil, who hadn’t said a word this entire time and hadn't even seemed to notice the scuffle before him. “Hey,” she nudged his side, “You alright?” He turned towards her. She could see his eyes were red and puffy from crying. Though his hair was usually messy, it had now looked entirely unkempt. His green dress shirt was buttoned up loosely, as if Basil hadn’t even given it a second thought while buttoning it.
“It’s nothing…j-just...my grandma isn’t really doing well-“ his voice wavered “-and I don’t think shes g-getting any better.” He sniffled, tears fighting their way into his eyes as he looked away.
A stone dropped into Aubrey's stomach. This was a conversation she's been dreading to have since she was 12. Basil’s grandma had always been nice to her, but it was clear the old sap didn’t have much time left. A lump formed in her throat thinking about it. She considered Basil like a brother to her, and to see him so miserable…
“Look,” She paused, “whatever happens, I’ll be there for you. Okay?” She never considered herself great at words, but she hoped the sentiment was good enough.
Basil being the sentimental puffball he was, promptly threw his arms around her and bawled his eyes out. Aubrey almost drew back on instinct alone, but she steeled herself and let the watermelon boy have this one. She leaned into the hug a bit and let him cry on her shoulder. Normally, she wouldn’t let herself be caught dead showing PDA to another human being in public. But this was a special case. Besides, given how rowdy the bus always is, and that Kim and Vance were busy brawling, it’s not like anybody noticed.
Generally, Aubrey was pretty closed off to most people. She only ever really confided in Kim and Basil. And the four living things she actually considered herself closest to were the aforementioned two people, her rabbit bun bun, and her not sister but totally sister, Mari. There used to be someone else as close to her as the other four were, but that was a long time ago. Speaking of Mari, now that school was ending and summer was about to start, she should be home from college soon. Aubrey didn’t have an exact date, since she kept forgetting to ask over the phone. That could be remedied pretty easy though. Aubrey sighed as the bus approached the school. She pulled away slowly from Basil’s embrace, and ruffled his hair.
“How about you go get us some breakfast? I’m starved.” She pointed towards the general cafeteria area to sell the idea. It wasn't like he didn't know where it was, but it snapped up his attention. “Don’t bother waiting up for me. I got something to do.”
Basil looked up at her, some of the brightness returned to his eyes. “Okay." He managed, striding past her to make for the cafeteria. Aubrey waited as the bus slowly emptied of its passengers, making sure to look out for somebody she hadn’t spoken to for years.
“Hey!” She called over the chattering crowd, “Sunny! Wait up!” He was one of the last people to leave the bus. Sunny looked around confused at first before his eyes widening slightly as he realized who flagged him down.
“Aubrey?”
“H-hey…” Her confidence crumbled instantly. There was an agreement between them, and this was flying in the face of all of it for something paltry and insignificant. Maybe it wasn’t too late to pretend she was calling for someone else? Yeah, that could work. Wait, I said his name didn’t I? Shit. Well, there goes that plan. Guess this was something she was just gonna have to suffer through. He was starting to look at her weirdly. “I was just, uh, wondering when Mari was coming to visit, is all.”
“Oh.” He looked away, any sense of curiosity suddenly absent. That made her feel like shit. Given the nature of this conversation, he was definitely expecting something else. “She’ll be home tomorrow.”
“Thanks.” She tried her best to grin at the good news.
They stared at each other awkwardly for a moment. The quietness gave Aubrey a chance to reflect on how much he'd changed. Superficially, you could say he had a similar silhouette and taste in clothes, but that didn't even look close to the full story. His arms and legs were thin as bone, and his clothes looked loose fitting. The bags underneath his eyes and off color skin didn't inspire confidence in terms of self sustainment. Come to think of it, wasn’t he like half a foot taller than her when they were younger? Now she definitely had an inch or two over him.
Aubrey was about to say something, but Sunny turned around slowly. I definitely spent way too long staring at him. Fuck. His hair was at least well combed.
She watched silently as he walked away. “I like the hair.”
“Oh uh, thanks.” She figured he didn’t know why she had dyed it pink, but wasn’t about to start bringing that up. This whole conversation was wrong enough as is. She waited a moment for him to gain some distance before moving in the same direction to meet with Basil and the others. Man, this morning kinda sucked.