Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Part of Basil died with Sunny that day.

For a long time, he’d known surely what the worst day of his life had been. October 12th, 1996; the day of the incident.

But now, a new date had been etched into his memory. A stain, a brand burned into his brain forever. And like last time, it had all been his fault. 

He had always been a burden to Sunny, hadn’t he?

——————

A persistent beeping flooded Basil's ears. He squinted at the glaring hospital lights. 

For one brief, blissful moment, Basil couldn’t quite recall why he was in the hospital in the first place. His mind was fuzzy from all the painkillers. 

Clearly, he hadn't been given enough. 

The harsh reality crashed into him, sending pins of panic through his body. He inhaled sharply as it set in, only to feel instantly the pain of bruised ribs. Picking at the raw skin on his bitten nails he tried to tame his erratic breaths. 

 Inhale 1, 2, 3, 4.

 Hold 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7.

You deserve this. 

Exhale 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. 

Basil wished he could forget, but his mind insisted on tormenting him. Images of Sunny with one eye gouged out, writhing on his bedroom floor, flooded his mind. His best friend's blood on his own hands. 

And, of course, what had caused their fight in the first place. That fateful October day. 

Basil felt an ancient, sinking dread stir within him, and nausea along with it. Unlike the sharp, fresh guilt of hurting his best friend, this wound ran deeper. The knowledge of what he had done to Mari that day had been decaying, festering in his mind like bad fruit. 

That grief, combined with the recent loss of his grandma, made Basil’s life excruciating. There wasn’t a day where something wasn’t looming over him, where he wasn’t swallowed in guilt. 

There wasn’t a single day where he didn’t wish it were over. 

Because it would’ve been so easy. One strike with his gardening shears, and the torture would end. In truth, he had intended on using his gardening shears not on his friend, not even on his once beloved plants, but on himself. A morbid desire, maybe, but one he'd been harbouring since he was twelve years old.  

Most sickening of all—the fight, his monstrous actions, had given him hope. For the first time in those four dark, isolated years he’d seen a fleeting flicker of light .

——————

Three friends sat nervously in a hospital waiting room. Cool lights buzzed overhead, casting an uneasy blue tint over the room. The windows offered no light—it was near five in the morning and pitch black outside. Unspoken anticipation hung in the air, thick and heavy.

The sound of an orange sneaker rapidly squeaking cut through the silence. Kel was furiously bouncing his leg, a habit which Aubrey hated. Under any other circumstance, she’d swat at his leg and tell him to ‘quit doing that, before I smash your skull open.’  

Right now, she was in no mood to berate Kel, or to smash his skull open. She was busy with the arduous task of trying not to think about what had happened at Basil’s house mere hours ago— 

a task that proved to be challenging. 

——————

The three woke with a jolt. A loud crash, followed by a guttural yell. A voice none of them had heard in over four years. Sunny .  

Hero was first to react, climbing over a still drowsy Kel before bolting down the hallway. Polly emerged from the room that had belonged to Basil’s grandma, her watery brown eyes deep with concern. Soon, Aubrey and Kel stood behind Hero. 

The eldest placed a steady hand on the door handle, which was thankfully unlocked, barging it open as he strained:

‘Basil, Sunny? I’m coming in!’ 

What waited for them in Basil’s bedroom was so grotesque that Hero—who had stayed calm and level-headed even as he plunged into the lake to save two of his childhood friends from drowning—faltered, standing frozen in the doorway. He threw a protective arm over Kel and Aubrey, an attempt at shielding them from the bloody scene, but he knew it was too late. The expressions of pure, unadulterated horror on each of their faces told him as much. 

Sunny and Basil lay motionless on the ground. Evidence of a fight was plastered on their skin in the form of bruises that were barely starting to form. Sunny’s knuckles were split. But more concerning than that— where his right eye should've been was a bloody gash. 

Hero rushed to Sunny’s side, the pale boy being closest to the door. Polly knelt beside an unconscious Basil, who was barely grasping a pair of bloodied gardening shears. 

His mind went into overdrive, assessing the two boys’ injuries as he began yelling orders.

‘Kel, call 911! Aubrey, can you find a first aid kit?’ 

‘There’s one beside my bed! Second drawer from top to bottom.’ Polly chimed. 

Kel and Aubrey frantically set off in search of a phone and a first aid kit. 

As Hero and Polly performed first aid, The pair fidgeted anxiously in the living room. Hero had refused to let them watch any longer. 

They eyed the door and silently waited for the ambulance to arrive. Minutes felt like eons. 

Kel spoke up, looking at Aubrey with an uneasy grin. His voice was small. 

‘Why do these things keep happening to us?’

‘I wish I knew. Those idiots—what were they thinking, fighting like that?? Could’ve killed each other…’ Aubrey grumbled. 

‘Weren’t you trying to pulverise us with your big spiky bat, like, yesterday?’ 

‘Pulverise… pretty big word for you Kel,’ Aubrey jeered, tone laced with sarcasm. ‘And you started that.’

‘Only ‘cuz you were acting like a mega jerk! You stole Basil’s photo album and—’ Kel stopped himself mid sentence as he watched Aubrey’s face turn sad. 

She turned her head away in shame. He recalled what she’d said earlier that day, about pushing them away, what she’d said at Basil’s door. He decided not to push it—she regretted her actions more than she let on. 

‘Sorry. I didn’t mean that.’ 

‘Ugh, whatever,’ Aubrey paused. She looked up at Kel, expression softening as she added, 

‘...You think they’ll be alright?’ 

‘I…don’t know. Basil seemed pretty beaten up. And Sunny…’

The pair went quiet. They could almost hear the blood-curdling shriek. 

——————

The sun crept slowly above the horizon, bringing light to the eerie waiting room. It was completely empty aside from Hero, Aubrey and Kel, who sat huddled together in the cold of the air conditioned hospital. Three heads snapped up at the sound of the door creaking open. 

‘Basil Moore?’ The tired nurse at the door asked. 

‘Ah—Yes, that’s us,’ Hero almost leapt out of his seat. 

‘Mr. Moore is awake now. You’re free to visit him in room 3004. Is there a parent or guardian present?’ 

Hero paused. Aubrey and Kel exchanged pitying looks. They all knew that Basil’s parents had left him at a young age, never having enough time for him and choosing instead to place the responsibility of a child on his elderly grandmother—not that she minded. In fact, she adored the boy. But now… 

‘No,’ Hero gave a smile, polite but ingenuine. ‘Oh, that reminds me—I should let Polly know. You guys go and see him, I’ll be with you in a minute.’  

Kel and Aubrey bounded towards Basil’s room, throwing themselves at the door. 

Basil was sitting upright and staring blankly at the wall. He was wrapped in bandages. One of his eyes was obscured by a large, purplish bruise. The pair exchanged a look that seemed to say: Damn, Sunny punches hard, but both had just enough social awareness to realise this would’ve been insensitive to say aloud. 

The boy slowly tilted his head up to look at them. His face—which was puffy and pink, as if he’d been crying— brightened at the sight of his friends. Hero now joined them, towering behind the two teenagers. 

Basil seemed ready to cry again, his watery blue eyes watching them unsteadily. 

‘Basil!’ Aubrey sighed out, clearly relieved. 

Kel lunged toward the blonde, pulling him into a tight hug. Hero followed. Aubrey reluctantly piled on—the three were now crushing Basil. 

‘Um…Ow,’ Basil squeaked. 

‘Oh, right!! Heh… Sorry Basil,’ Kel backed up, pushing Aubrey and Hero off. 

‘It’s okay. Just a few…broken ribs…,’ he winced. 

They bombarded him with concerned questions. Despite the sun having risen, warm and streaming in through a window beside Basil’s bed, the atmosphere was off. 

Something was looming over them. The group accredited this nervous energy to the adrenaline from the events of the night, or lack of sleep.

But a sharp tug at Basil’s chest told him something was gravely wrong. 

His stomach tied into knots, heart lodged in his throat. All the blood in his body rushed to his head as doubled over.

He felt a sheer drop, as though he were falling fifty feet. 

No. It couldn’t be. 

Sunny. 

——————

Basil had never quite been sure of how to explain his relationship with Sunny. They were, of course, bound together by the accident. By the mess they’d created together. 

They were friends, best friends. Accomplices. Partners in crime. 

But it had always been more. 

Since the day they’d first met, the day Aubrey introduced the shy blonde to their friend group, Sunny and Basil had been inseparable. 

Joined at the hip, they seemed to speak a language no one in the entire world understood, except them. The boys knew each other's hopes and dreams, their deepest fears. They understood each other.

It was as though they were intertwined by fate itself—a concept Basil had always been enamoured with as a kid. Fate, soulmates, happy endings. He loved love. 

Despite having stopped believing in those things somewhere along the line, he never stopped loving Sunny. He would have done (and ended up doing) anything for him. To Basil, it was like second nature. 

——————

Basil felt a light somewhere within him flicker out and die. He tried hard to vocalise his worries, what he hoped was all in his head, but in his dazed state only managed to choke out three words.

‘..The roof. Sunny .’ 

He wasn’t entirely sure what, but something had happened to Sunny. He just knew . 

‘Oh. Sunny’s still asleep Basil. you might have to wait a while before you get to see him—‘ Hero replied, puzzled at the mention of a roof. 

Basil began to climb out of his bed. Though laboured, his movements were erratic. As his frail frame began to knock against the various hospital-machinery he was connected to, Kel grabbed him by the shoulders. Basil’s eyes couldn’t quite meet his. They were wide with horror. 

‘We could go check out… the roof instead. You should try to get some rest, Basil!’ Kel continued, ‘Hero, tell Basil to get some rest—doctors orders!’

‘I’m not a doctor yet, Kel…’ Hero sighed uncomfortably. 

The brothers' banter did not amuse Basil, who was now hyperventilating. Aubrey opted to stay with him as Kel and Hero strode across the hospital to the rooftop, wondering what could've caused their friend so much distress. 

‘I don’t see him,’ Kel frowned, still puzzled. 

‘Neither do I.’ 

The pair edged ever closer to the short barrier placed around the ledge of the balcony. The ample glass only reached Kel’s hip. Not too safe , he thought as he peered over the edge. Unlike Sunny, he’d never been afraid of heights. He’d adored rollercoasters—the thrill of towering above everyone in the entire world, the adrenaline. He couldn’t say the same for his quiet friend, who’d prefered to stay close to the ground and wait for the ride to end. 

What Kel saw as he looked down made his blood run cold. 

A tangled mess of black hair and blue hospital-gown lay sprawled on the ground. Kel’s senses were flooded by a tidal wave of nausea. It was a person. It had been a person. 

Sunny. 

Hero joined his brother, who looked ready to jump off the precarious ledge himself if it meant reaching Sunny faster. It couldn't be Sunny, it just couldn’t be. 

‘What’s going on—‘ Hero stopped abruptly as he looked down. An aborted noise escaped his throat as he tried to remain calm in the face of this. 

Oh no. Not again. 

Afraid of his recklessness, he went to hold Kel back. But Kel had already bolted in the opposite direction towards the staircase. A storm raged in  his mind as he sped down 15 flights of stairs. He tried not to wonder how Sunny could have possibly survived the fall. 

The smell of chemicals and harsh lights overpowered him as he stumbled into the reception. He barged past the slow trickle of people entering through the doors; they were invisible to him. Manners aren’t really a priority when your best friend’s just jumped off of a roof. 

Maybe it wasn’t him . 

Kel sprinted 50 metres down the pavement towards the pale mass. As he bounded ever closer, the nagging in the back of his mind affirming his worst fears grew louder. 

The figure was drenched in blood, soaking in litres of it still gushing onto the concrete floor. The black hair was matted with the dried, rusty brown substance. It’s limbs were bent at unnatural angles; the neck was craned in a way that made Kel shudder. 

Kel stepped closer as every bone in his body told not to. He clasped a hand to his mouth as his eyes fixed on the pale face, cratered where the impact had occurred. The cheekbone was exposed beneath a bloody gash. Kel felt bile claw its way up his throat when he noticed the most unsettling feature. 

The cold, hard gaze of a dead eye. Pitch black and empty. And so, unmistakably his. 

‘Sunny.’  Kel’s voice broke. 

Despite the discomfort, he found himself scouring the lifeless void for a flicker of light or life or anything. Sunny’s dull eyes only gazed through him. 

Kel fell to his knees over the body, clutching Sunny’s bloodied hand. Reality crashed into him like a tidal wave, breaking the numbing trance he had been under mere seconds ago. 

A visceral wail clawed its way out of his throat. His entire body shook as he howled and cursed. Grief swallowed him whole as tears mixed with blood. 

He struggled to pick the stiff body up. 

‘You’re okay, It’s okay. The doctors can—they can help you. You’ll be okay…’ He whispered reassurances. But the words were shaky and uncertain, muttered through sobs. 

Kel stumbled as fast as he could back to the reception, despite tears obscuring his vision. He locked eyes with his brother who, now joined by a mortified Aubrey, was standing at the foot of the stairs.

‘Oh God. Kel…’ he strained to keep his voice steady. 

 When Hero saw the hideous scene, then the  helpless expression on his brother's face, his legs sprung to action by their own volition. It was an expression he’d never seen on Kel’s face before, but recognised from his own reflection during that dark stretch of time after Mari’s death. 

‘Hero! Someone… please…help. Fuck!’ Kel cursed loudly, desperate. 

Aubrey made her way over with a hand pressed to her mouth, stifling sobs or vomit she did not know.

‘What the fuck…’ she swore under her breath. 

A commotion began to arise around the group, who were now in a heap on the floor. The eldest wrapped his steady arms around Kel and Aubrey as they sobbed. 

Chapter Text

5, 10, 15 minutes had passed. A droning tick, tick, tick from the clock that hung above the door rang through the white room; 3 minutes behind. Basil was restless. He rose with a start from his interia, his every muscle aching with knowing–the world had just ended. He had been too late. The sun, the centre of the solar system, had fallen right out of the sky leaving him without light, pulling the very Earth out of its orbit.

Knocking about the hospital equipment with frenzied desperation. Hot panic swelled in his throat. He tore the iv from his arm and didn’t even feel the pain, only a warm trickle down his forearm like the nosebleeds he’d get in class. Come to think of it, he couldn’t feel his broken nose anymore. He couldn’t even feel his feet, which were compelling him towards the door.

Towards the crumbling world.

Peering over the glass ledge, Basil was whipped with vertigo. In the centre of the white pavement was an ugly, arterial red blot. A sharp ringing pervaded through his head. Bone-crushing dread overcame him as he broke into a half run. Everything spun and darkness loomed.

He clung weakly to the cold, unforgiving railing, staggering down the stairs. The ground lurched. As he neared the bottom his blue eyes flew wildly around the unforgiving room, searching for clarity. Moments later he found it in the huddle now standing, in an embrace so tight they may have melded into one. Sunny was nowhere to be seen.

Basil glared fixedly at them, eyes glazed over and empty. Only Hero turned to look with compassion at the wiry boy racked with grief. His chlorotic face was pitiful, aged rapidly by years of turmoil and loss. The sunken exhausted eyes, one bruised, were overrun with dark circles. His face creased in places it wouldn’t be if not for the strain placed on it–he’d been stripped of his innocence far too early.

‘...W-where is he?’ The words were a strangled whisper, ‘where’s Sunny?’

But Hero only watched him benevolently.

Basil's demeanour changed abruptly, tone growing distraught, ‘Where is Sunny? Where–’

‘I’m sorry, Basil.’

Tears tainted his glistening cheeks, yet he continued to glower at the wall behind his friends. He felt nauseous. The hysterics had ceased. He knew what he was going to do, what the only option Sunny had left for him was.

Hero rushed over, brows knit tightly together. Aubrey and Kel followed. Hero was saying something, but Basil couldn’t hear it, only a sickening ringing.

——————

Basil was discharged from the hospital the following day. The journey home was stiff and unpleasant, Polly’s car suddenly and suffocatingly devoid of oxygen. Basil seemed to have aged five years within a day, glowering at the window with hollow eyes, face marred with creases reflecting the strain of his worries. A bright gash streaked across the left side of his face in rusted scarlet, from jaw to cheekbone. An aching reminder of his final interaction with Sunny, who had grappled furiously for the gardening shears. Sunny, who was now dead.

Basil knew all too well what his next course of action would be. After the brief but maddening hysteria surrounding Sunny’s death, a wave of reassurance washed gently over him at the suggestion.

Death beckoned him; the prospect of calming the tumultuous, ever roaring sea of emotions within him, existing merely as an unfeeling void. His sentimentality had seemed to be his driving trait as a child, known and loved by his friends for his capacity to feel. As Basil grew older, tarnished with grief, this capacity became monstrous and wildly volatile.

So, his demise offered him great comfort. If he were to die, the Truth of that day would be buried with him, left to rot. He would die innocent, unspoilt. Guilt gnawed at him as he thought of what Mari would do—she certainly wouldn’t take her own life. What would she think of his cowardice? Basil hoped that death would be atonement enough, and knew deep down it was not.

Inscrutable colours and shapes swept past. They were all a blur to him.

‘We’re almost home. Ten more minutes,’ Polly said softly.

Open the door. It would all be over. Basil turned to glance at the raised child-lock.

Clear silence rang through the car, reverberating off of the windshield.

‘You must be so tired.’

The pallid boy only continued to stare ahead solemnly at nothing.

——————

The car rolled slowly into the driveway. Basil stalked towards his room, hardly sparing Polly a glance, before she stopped him.

‘Basil?’

‘…’ He glowered at her.

‘I know we aren’t exactly the closest… but if you ever need someone to speak to, you can come to me. Or if there’s anything you need, anything at all I can help with—‘

He shook his head slowly.

‘I won’t push you. I need to go get some groceries now—I’m sorry. I’ll be quick, Okay?’

‘Ok.’

Basil watched her uneasily for a moment, feeling sorry that she would be the one to find him. He glanced around the living room, the house he’d grown up in. At his plants, which stooped gravely. The door clicked shut as Polly closed it. A gust of still July air drifted inside, warm breeze ruffling his thin shirt.

Basil stretched to seize a pair of gardening shears from the top shelf of plants, trembling hands toppling a particularly devastated tulip. The white ceramic pot swayed ominously before clattering to the ground. The clamorous impact echoed. Rich soil sprayed at his still feet. He glared at the white shards as his stomach tied to painful knots.

Anguish whipped at his sides. Taking hold of the gardening shears, his shaky body was dragged to his bedroom.

With a used-up pen, he scrawled a note through heaving breaths. His hands quivered worse than ever, but he wrote until the blue ink had depleted, and the pen gave its last sputtering breaths.

Shears in hand, Basil fumbled with the lock.

——————-

‘Hello?’ Hero’s tired voice, crisp through the receiver.

‘Henry?’

‘It’s me. Polly, are you okay? You sound quite—‘

‘Please, come. It’s Basil,’ Polly said gravely. The line disconnected immediately at the mention of the boy. It rang shrill in her ear.

Minutes later, Hero was pounding at the door. He hurried after Polly, who had been waiting anxiously on the other side. His dark eyebrows were strung together worriedly. Glancing at the fragmented vase strewn across the carpet, his heart sank.

‘He’s in his room. The door, it’s locked, and he took his gardening shears with him. Naturally, I came to the worst conclusion—‘ she choked, ‘I’ve called an ambulance. I desperately hope I’m wrong.’

Hero’s mind brought him to the very same conclusion as he bounded once again to Basil’s rescue.

Never again. He’d never lose one of them again.

He grappled with the handle, which only rattled coldly. The door wouldn’t move. A sense of crushing helplessness overcame him—why couldn’t he ever save them? Maybe if he had paid closer attention, to Sunny and especially Mari, none of it would have happened.

‘Basil?’ Hero cried, still clattering the doorknob somewhat desperately.

Met with shrill silence, he threw himself at the door with all abandon. His broad shoulder thrashed wildly against the wood, hand struggling to maintain its grip on the clanging handle.

Hero grunted in frustration upon every failed impact, though his resolve never withered. With a final great thud, the door swung open, the force of it sending him staggering forward. There was a metallic snap as the lock broke.

Sirens blared distantly as Hero looked to the unmoving figure propped against the wall in sheer horror, blonde head drooping limply forward like that of a marionette with cut strings. He wrapped an arm around a distressed Polly, who was berating herself guiltily for having let such a thing happen. Paramedics streamed through the front door, which had been left ajar. Polly had been right to call an ambulance.

Basil was carried swiftly past them, laid on a stretcher. A pale arm, littered with jagged scars and hands with fresh blood, swung by. His chest rose and fell in trembling breaths; the shears, still lodged in his side, rising with the lungs.

Chapter Text

‘Sunny, what’s your worst   fear?’

Sunny and Basil lay in the placid, swaying grass of the meadow, watching the clouds pass, distantly aware of Aubrey and Kel shrieking and playing nearby. The sunlight shone merrily, warmth seeping to their very bones.  

Sunny rubbed his watery eyes—his hayfever was always worst at this time of year, as spring stretched to summer—and sniffled as he answered. 

‘Hm…not sure. It’s embarrassing I’ve got so many. But my biggest…’ he pondered the array of childish fears which pestered him as he found himself needing to talk to someone, or to turn off a light. ‘Heights.’

‘That’s not embarrassing! Really, it’s perfectly reasonable; heights are dangerous!’

‘I guess. What’s yours, then?’

‘I’m scared, terrified, that the people I love the most will leave. Like…our friend group leaving me behind, or falling apart. In my head it’s kind of an inevitability—they always do.’ 

Sunny paused before saying matter-of-factly, ‘That’s silly.’

‘Sunny! I was nice about yours,’ Basil huffed, feigning annoyance. 

‘I meant —I like to think we'll all stay friends for a long time. But… I get where you're coming from.’

Basil was quiet.

‘You know what,’ Sunny sat up cross-legged. Basil did the same. He stuck out his hand, his little finger extended towards Basil. His nails were bitten to the beds. 

‘I can't promise for the others, but I’d never leave you. Pinky swear.’ 

Basil would not have believed it if not for the way his best friend looked at him while saying this—sunburn plastered to his nose (despite Basil and Mari’s combined efforts, Sunny detested sunscreen), almost expressionless besides a flicker of light in his eye. He’d said the words so simply, in such a monotone, that Basil took them as fact rather than an empty promise. 

He held out a shaky, pinkish-pale hand and locked his finger with Sunny’s. 

‘Pinky swear,’ He smiled. 

——————————

Sleepless nights like this one were not uncommon for Basil. He’d long grown numb to an array of sleep medications, being an experienced insomniac since before he could remember (the incident only worsening it—this being when he started needing sleeping drugs in the first place).

Basil sat upright in his bed, eyeing the digital clock beside his bed carefully. He watched as minutes ticked by in luminous red; 11:57, 11:58 . Huddled in his sheets, Basil didn’t dare look away. his eyes had grown accustomed to the dark, but not enough to stop his mind playing tricks on him—not enough to stop the silhouette of his dresser, his door from transforming to something more sinister. He clung to the tenuous light as though it were a lifeline. 

One thing, though, set this sleepless night aside from the rest. The glaring date on the calendar that hung on the door, a dreadful reminder that had been eating at him all month.

 A year had passed since Sunny had thrown himself off of the hospital roof, leaving Basil with nothing in a matter of milliseconds. 

The world had kept turning. For a while, Basil was furious at the fact. In the sea of his apathy and of nothingness he found a flicker of rage. At the fact that Sunny would leave him, at the fact that this absence didn't lead to the collapse of the very universe. 

At the fact that Basil couldn't even kill himself properly. After two surgeries and a painful recovery in the hospital–every second of which he dreaded knowing that Sunny had been there and living not even a week ago–he’d been hauled to a psychiatric ward in The City. It was by no means a pleasant experience, but several months of intensive therapy alleviated his suffering, even if he couldn’t be entirely truthful about the incident. 

Behind the clock, now flashing 12:02, Basil noticed a faint shimmer. The air wavered in places, vibrating in geometric swirls like cut crystals. He squinted, pressing his dry palms hard into his sockets. He really needed some sleep, he thought. 

Looking up, and finding that the space beside his dresser remained kaleidoscopic, Basil tread lightly to the kitchen for a glass of water. 

The cupboard clattered noisily in the dead silence of midnight, and the cool water slid down his throat with ease. As he retreated back to his bedroom, pushing the door creakily open with his free hand, Basil dropped his glass. His veiny hands quivered. A high pitched clink rang through the room as it shattered. 

Beside his bed, hovering a few centimetres from the ground, was Sunny. Frozen in time, he looked not a day older than he had a year ago, still wearing the baggy hospital gown which enveloped his thin frame. Amidst powder blue fabric was the crimson shock of blood-splatters. 

His appearance had some ghostly quality—he shimmered and wavered, blurred around the edges. His skin was so pale it was translucent, reflecting beams of moonlight which streamed through the window in silvery pallor. Without the underlying fatigue which plagued his expression in life, his face was entirely blank. One mercury eye watched Basil curiously. The other was shrouded in a bouquet of flowers; tulips, sprigs of baby's breath, lilies and budding sunflower. They concealed the scarlet gore beneath, blooming down his cheek.  

Basil gaped at the thing before him with wide watery eyes. Surreal as the sight of his long dead best friend was, the true horror lay in the horrible wrenching pain in his gut. Memories he’d fought to bury or thought he’d overcome resurfaced. 

He reeled dizzily as his pulse quickened. The ground gave a tremulous jolt beneath him. Ears ringing, he clutched at his chest with a clammy hand still wet with the condensation of the now shattered glass. He took rapid, trembling inhales as he felt his lungs constrict impossibly. An overwhelming concoction of longing and grief struck him at once, knocking the wind out of him. That desire–which had been strongest in those terrible days leading to his death–to be both so permanently close to Sunny they became one entity, and so far he could cease to feel the hurt, came back to him. Now that Sunny had disappeared irrevocably, the sight of him, even if it was merely a figment of Basil's worst nightmares, hurt more than anything. He was all the wrongs which Basil had committed, he was his best friend. And he was gone. 

Oh God. Why am I hallucinating again? He’d been taking the medications they’d given him at the psych ward for months—maybe they’d stopped working. He’d been getting better. 

The mirage, feet never touching the ground, glid sharply towards him, extending an arm. The eyebrows were strung together in…sympathy? Something in his expression told Basil that he knew more than anyone what he was feeling. Basil flinched, flinging himself backwards through the door frame. 

‘Get away from me!’ He shrieked, batting at the space before him. 

The thing obliged, lowering its ghostly arms as it retreated. Hurt flashed across its otherwise expressionless face as Basil trembled, now sliding down against the wall into a crouch, hands clutching at his pale blond hair. As he sank against the green wallpaper, he was hurled from one place in time to another, one tragedy to the next, reliving every second. He shook violently as he muttered strings of words and failed reassurances; You’re not real. 

A flat voice broke hazily through the flashback in disjointed pieces. 

‘Basil, You’re okay. Breathe… None of it was your fault…You’ll be okay.’

The sound of that monotone voice he hadn’t heard in so long, deepened by time yet still having maintained that quality, was jarring. He’d heard snippets of sounds before in flashbacks, Sunny’s scream of anguish, but never anything so clear, so real. Pinpricks jittered down his spine. Still, the words pulled him from the icy waters of those memories. He lifted his face from between his knees, continuing to study the thing before him. It now watched him with that same expression Sunny would, barely decipherable if you didn’t know him. 

Carefully, so as not to startle him, the apparition inched forwards. It fluttered down to sit beside Basil, keeping a large dark eye trained on him. They watched each other silently. 

‘…Looks just like him,’ Basil mumbled to himself, voice hoarse. The resemblance of his mind's creation to the dead boy was truly uncanny. 

They stayed like that. Basil tried hard to ignore the thing sitting beside him to no avail. In his state of shock, he resolved it was virtually harmless, and after half an hour of unsettled silence, Basil eventually succumbed to sleep. Puffy eyelids weighing down on his eyes, he buried his face into his knees which were pressed to his chest.