Chapter Text
Basil and Aubrey are having a “hangout” at his house today.
It’s been a few weeks since they had their talk about everything that happened. Despite there still being tension, the two of them were starting to get close again, even if just a little.
They’re on good terms now, and Aubrey could not be happier. Even if Basil was still a little awkward around her, but… it’s fine. It’s not like she can blame him, she would’ve understood if he didn’t want to be around her at all.
Aubrey doesn’t like it. She doesn’t like that he still flinches when she’s around. She hates how sad he looks when they’re having a group hangout with Kel and Hero and she says something jokingly rude. So she has to be a little extra careful about him. It’s not just because of her either- he has a pretty fragile mental state in general. She knows he’s working on moving on in therapy and has been getting a lot of help outside of the group, but it’s not even been two months since everything went down. He still has a long way to go.
She also made up with Sunny too. Basil was kind enough to pass her his phone number, and she texted him and asked to call a few days afterward, and they did. They’re all friends again now. They have a little group chat in which they frequently chat. Things are on the up and up for them all now.
Summer was coming to a close, however. Hero is getting ready to go back to college, and the rest of them are getting ready to go back to school. There were only a few days left, actually, before the new school year starts for them.
Not for Sunny, though. Apparently he won’t be starting school for another month or two. Something to do with health complications and readjusting back into a normal school schedule. Apparently losing an eye and being beaten half to death has its perks.
But back to the topic of the rest of them, Aubrey would be lying if she said she wasn’t a little afraid for Basil this year. He was always a bit of a target, even before she became his bully. He really doesn’t need more piled on top of his already poor mental state, with everything that had happened this summer.
She doesn’t want to treat him like he’s pathetic, however. He’s still a grown-ass 16-year old teenager. Sure, he doesn’t exactly look his age, but, especially now that he’s getting help, he’s a lot better at holding his own out there.
That doesn’t mean she won’t lend a hand if he ever runs into troubles. If she needs to, she’ll be his protector. And he knows now he has a group of friends, including her own, to back him up in case something happens.
On the topic of the hooligans, he’s still on… less than cordial terms with the rest of the hooligans. After she told them about how she apologized, they all banded together to apologize too! However, maybe all going to his front door at once was a bad idea, because upon seeing them all again, he immediately sprinted to his room and didn’t come out for the rest of the day, no matter how hard they tried to apologize through his door.
Polly nearly beat all their heads in that day for overwhelming the poor boy. She can’t exactly blame her. It was a very poor decision.
But aside from that little… incident , things have been going well for them and for Basil. They’re all a lot happier. Basil specifically has been making significant strides in his mental health. He still has a lot of progress to make, but any progress is progress!
He’s… a lot happier. He goes out more often, and he’s a lot more active in whatever they do whenever he’s hanging out with her or Kel. He texts and calls Sunny often, too. Even after everything that’s happened, the two are still inseparable despite the distance. It’s good for them, honestly. They both need a friend like that.
Aubrey herself has been doing well. The guilt from what she’s done still weighs on her every day when she sees Basil, but she’s gotten a lot better at managing it, and not always self-deprecating whenever Basil shows the slightest sign of discomfort. It’s a hard pattern to break, and Aubrey still finds herself struggling to stop, but with the reassurance of her friends, she’s been getting better.
She’s been getting a lot better at managing her own mental health, too. She’s been finding healthier ways to cope, and now she feels like she can fully be honest with her friends. And not just the original group, the hooligans, too.
She never thought she’d be in a position in life where she could confidently call herself happy. Even before this all happened, it wasn’t really something she could attribute to her life, even if she had moments of joy here and there. But now… she has faith in her life. She didn’t really think about how she would make it after she turned eighteen, but now she knows when the time comes, she’ll have her friends behind her, always. Never again will they separate.
But right now, she’s just laying down on his bed. He excused himself from the room to go to the bathroom a little bit ago, so she’s waiting for him to return. She’s glad they can have casual hangouts again, even if it’s a bit awkward.
She absentmindedly opens the drawer to his nightstand out of boredom, only to find something interesting.
It was an old photo of the two of them, a little matted and with a few tears, but otherwise it was completely intact. She remembers taking this photo! It was back when Basil and Aubrey were little- littler than when the incident happened. Way long before she made friends with the rest of the group. She was like, what, 8 when she took this?
Then she opened the drawer further. Neatly stacked in the corner, there were different paperclips with different photos in them, and she recognized one bundle immediately. This was the first day she and Basil took photos together!
She honestly thought these were lost for good. They never made it into the album, as they were taken long before its creation, but Basil still kept them. Even after all these years, he held onto the simplest of memories. She never thought she’d see these again, or even that it meant anything to him at all. It was such a simple memory but something she held onto so dearly.
“So what is it you wanted to show me, Basil?” A much younger Aubrey asked her new friend.
The two of them were having a playdate. Aubrey had never had a playdate outside of school before, so when he asked her if she wanted to go to the park after school, she begged and begged her mom to let her go, and surprisingly, she was allowed to! The two of them were currently sitting in the grass.
“Oh, um, j-just this…” He revealed the polaroid camera from his backpack. “M-My grandma bought it for me for my b-birthday a little while ago…”
“Woah!” She shouted, staring in awe. She had never seen something like this before. “What is it?”
“I-It’s a camera… you use it to take pictures of people.” Basil replied. “M-My grandma noticed that I r-really liked looking at old family p-photos, so s-she bought me it t-to take my own… s-sorry,” He apologized. “I’m s-stuttering too much again…”
“No, Basil, it’s okay! I like your stutter, it’s cute!”
“W-W-W-What??”
“Hehe, I think you are very cute!”
“A-A-Aubrey…”
“Anyways, that’s really cool!” She exclaimed, examining the camera. “Have you taken any pictures yet?”
“U-Um, just a few…” He pulled some out of his bag. There were a few blurry photos of his home, a couple of some flowers, one of the street outside his window, and a few of his grandma.
“Woah Basil, these are so good! You should totally do more of them!”
“Y-You really think so?” He asked. “I don’t really think they’re t-that good…”
“You’re kidding me!” She replied, feigning astonishment. “They’re super good! Like, the best photos I’ve ever seen! You have to take more!”
“I guess I c-could take a little more…”
“Hey!” She grabbed his hand and stood up. “Why don’t we take some now? Together!”
“U-Uh, I guess!”
“Here,” She picked up his camera, holding it up above them, and bringing Basil to stand, before snapping a photo of the two. “There we go! Now you have a photo of me!”
Basil wobbled a little, disoriented. “U-Uh, please g-give it back…”
Aubrey handed the camera to him as it dispensed a small piece of paper. But there was no photo in it…
“Basil, why is the photo all black? D-Did I take it wrong? Oh no…” A horrible thought crossed her mind. “Did I break your new camera? Oh no, Basil I’m so sorry!” She said, her voice shaking and her eyes welling up with tears.
“N-No! No, It’s okay, p-please don’t cry!” He reassured her. “These p-photos just take a little while to a-appear, that's all! It’s not b-broken!”
She sniffled. “R-Really? It’s… not?”
“N-No, look!” He waved the photo around. “See, look, i-it’s okay! The photo is fine!”
The photo was beginning to gain some color, and eventually the full image appeared.
She wiped her nose with her wrist. “Woah…”
“S-See?” He showed her the photo. It was now fully finished. It was a little blurry, and the angle was pretty weird, considering how Aubrey took it, but for the standards of two seven-year-olds messing around, it was pretty good!
“I think i-it’s really good for your first photo! I’ll k-keep it forever!”
She wiped the last few stray tears from her eyes. “W-Well, I think we should take some more! C’mon!” She explained, rising once again. “There’s plenty to take pictures of around the park!”
“S-Sure, Aubrey!” Basil replied, excitedly standing up next to her before running off with her to go take some more photos.
Aubrey holds that photo close to her chest, occasionally looking up at it. She thought it would’ve been discarded or lost, but even throughout all those years, he kept his promise to keep for forever. He never betrayed her memory. It makes fer feel all warm and fuzzy inside, a feeling that wasn't particularly strange when it came to her thinking of Basil.
I guess we never really forgot about each other, huh?
No matter what, the two of them were inseparable. Even when they weren’t on speaking terms, even when she was harassing him, they still remained lodged in the other’s mind. Ever since they first met, they’ve been each other's true, real best friend, and Aubrey hopes he still considers her as such.
That gets her thinking about their first meeting… She spotted Basil alone on the playground, just in second grade.
An even younger Aubrey is running around the playground. It was a rough first few months in second grade… First grade was already a little rough for her, and she hasn’t had any better luck making friends this year…
The other girls at school don’t like her. They think she’s too weird or too loud, they always separate from her whenever she tries to play, and she doesn’t have any of the cool toys they have… and she hasn’t had much luck trying to befriend any of the boys, either.
She wasn’t giving up, though! Surely there had to be someone out there who would want to be her friend.
She spots a boy sitting alone on the pavement, eating his lunch.
…And an opportunity arises! She sprints quickly over to him.
“Hi! I’m Aubrey!” She greets him.
The sudden loud greeting surely started him, as he fell over, completely dropping the rest of his sandwich onto the floor.
“O-Oh… My sandwich…” He muttered sadly.
“Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to scare you… oh, your sandwich is ruined now! I’m so sorry!” She apologized profusely.
“It’s… It’s o-okay… d-don’t worry about it. I’m not that hungry anymore…”
“Oh, okay, if you say so…” She replied. “Anyways, I’m Aubrey! Do you wanna be friends?”
“H-Huh? F-Friends?”
“Yeah! Friends!”
“Um…” He mumbled meekly. “N-Nobody has ever wanted to be m-my friend before…”
“Me too! The other girls call me stuff like gross or weird, but I don’t listen to them! I’m sure you’re not weird!”
“Uh… The other b-boys don’t like me much either… but it might be b-because I can’t m-muster up the courage to talk to them…”
“Well, that makes both of us, then!” She cheered. “So, do you wanna be friends?”
“Um… S-Sure… you seem nice. My name is Basil.”
“Yay!” Aubrey exclaimed. “My first friend! Oh, we’re gonna be the bestest of friends ever!”
“U-Um, yeah! Haha… b-bestest friends…”
She plopped down next to him.
“So, what do you like to do?” She prodded.
“U-Um, I like flowers… my grandma has a lot of p-pretty plants…”
“Really? I like flowers too! Especially the pink and purple ones. My mom doesn’t have too many around the house, though.” She responded enthusiastically.
“U-Um, that’s cool… What do you like-”
“Why are you talking like that?” She interrupted.
“H-Huh? L-Like what?”
“You repeat the first letter of some words when you talk.”
“Um… I d-don’t know…”
“Is there something wrong with your mouth?”
“No…”
“Well what is it then? Did it take you a bit longer to learn to talk? Do you have trouble talking?”
“Um…” His eyes began to well up with tears, and he sniffled a little. “I…”
“Basil? You’re crying…”
“U-Um…” He wiped his face with her hand. “It’s just… how I t-talk…”
“Oh, did I make you upset?”
He nodded. “Mhm…”
“Basil, I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean it in a mean way, I was just curious!”
He sobbed a little. “I-I-It’s just… E-Everyone e-e-else is s-s-so mean a-about it!”
“Oh, Basil.” She pulled him into a tight hug. “I don’t think it's a weird thing, you’re just a little different! Thats okay, I am too!”
“R-Really?” He replied, voice still shaky from holding back tears.
“Really!”
“Oh… T-Thanks, Aubrey…” He said, wiping some more tears.
Just as they part from the hug, the bell rings for them all to line up to go back to classes.
“Oh, that’s the bell! Let’s go back to class!” She grabbed his hand, rushing off to the other side of the playground where they and the rest of the kids would soon be herded inside and go back to class.
“O-Okay!” He responded, a little more enthusiastically than before.
Aubrey let out a content sigh as she recalled the memory. She wishes their relationship could go back to that, that they could be that innocent once again, unaware of the world and just being content relying on each other, nobody invading their bubble. Trusting each other unconditionally with any of their worries. Just the two of them, forever by each other’s side.
The door to Basil’s room creaked open, and he entered the room.
“Sorry that took so long…” He apologized.
“It’s fine. I’m just glad you’re here now.”
“Oh! O-Okay… Anyways, what did y-you want to do today?”
“I dunno. Maybe we could watch a movie or something? Like, maybe we could find an old one, and relive some memories.”
“S-Sure, that sounds nice. I would like to watch a movie with you. Let’s go!” He exited the room, a little more cheery than he was before entering.
She lingers a bit. She sighs to herself again.
She doesn’t care how long she has to repent, she doesn’t care how much guilt she’ll have to face, she will always be there for Basil. She will never, ever drift apart from him again. No matter how he changed, and no matter how she’s changed, she will never leave him behind.
They will always be there for each other, forever and always, for better or for worse.