You're Who I Longed For (slow updates)

Interlude: Morning And Night

Kel woke up.

Immediately he noticed two things.

The first was that Sunny was out of bed, and the second was that Hero felt horribly cold.

And he wasn't breathing.

Flinging off his blanket, he got on top of Hero and started doing chest compressions to the best of his ability.

No response.

He went faster, desperately praying to whatever the hell was up there that Hero would survive. He started crying, tears coming to his eyes. He begged for his brother to survive. That he wouldn't lose someone else he cared about more than anything else in the world.

Still no response.

Kel was outwardly sobbing now and resorted to mouth-to-mouth. Blowing air as best he could, praying and hoping Hero would wake up with all he was worth.

No response again.

Kel was desperate, trying chest compressions again, blowing, chest compressions, blowing...Nothing woke him up. Tears flowed freely down Kel's face as he resorted to mouth-to-mouth one last time.

Hero let out a spluttering cough into Kel's mouth and took in laboured breaths.

Kel gasped and hugged him. " Oh, god-" in between each word was a chesty cough " Kel, what the hell happened?" He let go and started blubbering through his tears about how Hero wouldn't wake up and he wasn't breathing, how cold he was. Hero hugged Kel back tightly, ignoring the sharp pain he had in his stomach. " Shh, it's alright Kel. I'm fine, it was just a scary dream we had is all. It's okay." He stroked Kel's hair and let him calm down. He didn't know how long it had been, but eventually he cried himself into exhaustion and fell asleep against Hero's shoulder. When he was sure Kel was asleep, Hero placed him down on the bed and put the blanket over him. He needed rest.


Meanwhile, Basil was panicking in his own way.
He'd been watching over Aubrey for a little while now, not wanting to go and try to sleep in his own room. At first it was fine; he played on his phone, read, listened to music. But as time progressed, he felt a weird sensation on his back. It was a prickling sort of thing. He didn't know exactly what it meant but for some reason he felt...things he hadn't felt for 4 years. Frantically he kept looking over to the window, expecting something to be there. But there was no one. Over the heart thudding in his chest he didn't hear Aubrey stirring and slowly trying to get up. Now, Basil probably would never admit this to anyone, but he did let out a small yelp and started cowering when he saw Aubrey sit up.

She stared at him

 "..."

He simply stared back

"..."
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" We are never talking about this." He eventually broke the silence, sitting up rather embarrassed. She gestured to him shaking still " Basil, I don't even know what this is. I'm sure as hell not telling anyone." He smiled, glad Aubrey understood what he meant. He sure didn't. " Although..." She hesitated. " I'd like to know why you chased me around like an idiot and then shoved me into a lake when you know for a fact I can't swim." Basil winced." Oh...Right...Well, it's just-" he stopped and tried to start again " I just-" He sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. Yawning, Aubrey looked at him.
One more time, he sighed. " I don't know Aubrey. Really, I don't. I think maybe I just saw red when I looked through all those photos, those awful photos... I hated it, Aubrey. I loved Mari as much as we all did, even if it didn't seem like it sometimes. I miss her too. And I know that maybe that's a stupid thought, maybe she never knew how much she meant to us but..." He paused and let out a long sigh. " We don't know why she did what she did, Aubrey. But those photos are the only things we have left of her. And if we lose them, then," He stared down at his hands " We might lose all we have left of her too."
They were quiet for awhile. Aubrey drank some water, thinking of what to say. All Basil could think about was how guilty he felt for what he had done.

" You're pathetic."
He ignored it.
" You should die."
It wasn't anything new.

---

Hero paced up and down the room, thinking to himself about why they had such a strange dream. What could something like that even mean? They'd had joint dreams before, of course, but most of them were weird or enjoyable. Very few were slightly unsettling, and this was the first that was downright disturbing. How could something like that be caused? Stress? No, it couldn't have been that. Anytime they did have a stressful day and had a joint dream, it was pleasant. They hadn't watched anything scary either. So, what then? A general coincidence? Was it possible Sunny had shared a dream and they had seen his dreams? It all made Hero's head hurt. He resolved to ask Sunny if he had shared the dream, only to realise Sunny wasn't in his bed. Standing up, Hero walked out the door and carefully down the stairs. He checked the kitchen and wrinkled his nose at the state of it. He'd need to clean it up by tomorrow. The dining room was just dusty, and smelled like a house that hadn't been lived in for awhile. The living room was much the same. Hero placed his hand on the sofa and smiled to himself. He remembered the old memories of everyone spending time together, and how happy they'd been. But now he felt worried.

Where was Sunny?

As Hero looked around, thinking some more, realisation slapped him in the face.

Sunny has been in this place for god knows how long. Alone. Without any company or reassurance, without anyone to talk to...

While he was grieving, did he start to believe...

Believe that Mari's Death...

Hero's eyes opened wide.

He panicked and opened the backdoor to the garden, running to the stump. He wasn't there, thank god, but that didn't mean he was safe. Hero ran back inside and searched more desperately. He checked the bathroom, Sunny's room, the closet, but he was nowhere. Nowhere at all. Hero came to the last room. The room he hoped Sunny wouldn't go in.

The piano room.

He raced inside and let out a sigh of relief.

Sunny stood there, staring out the window. He turned his head as Hero came in. " Oh, hello." Hero stood there for a moment and waved awkwardly. Sunny waved back. " So, why are you down here?" He shrugged. " I felt lonely. Plus, I miss Mari. She's probably working really hard in college, you know?" Suddenly, in Hero's mind, it clicked.

He'd forgotten about Mari's death.

A shaky laugh almost escaped Hero, but he kept it in. This sort of thing...This was the sort of thing that really only happened in stories. The type of stories he used to read Kel late at night. How could someone like Sunny forget something like that? Something that shaped the last entire four fucking years of his life?

Maybe that was why Kel acted the way he did?

" Uh, yeah. I miss her too Sunny." Sunny's eyes narrowed. " Miss her? You saw her two days ago, didn't you?" Hero panicked slightly. " Well, uhh, we go to different collages. You know, I'm doing med school and she's doing art school." Sunny nodded, seemingly satisfied with this. Hero let out an internal sigh of relief. Thank god Sunny trusted him enough to believe something like that. A pang of guilt ran through Hero for lying, but he ignored it. It was for the best he lied. Turning his head, Sunny looked back at Hero " Did you need something?" Blinking, Hero realised he'd been standing in silence for the past few minutes. " Oh, no. We were just worried about you because you-" forgot about the death of your beloved sister Mari who is probably still watching over us " -got out of bed and we didn't know where you were." He grinned bashfully. Without another word, Sunny walked past Hero and back up the stairs into his room. Standing there, Hero felt prickles along his back. He could swear he heard a whisper, a laugh, a word, a sound. But Hero wasn't a superstitious person. So he simply followed Sunny upstairs, and tucked himself into bed. Kel was still fast asleep, except there were trails of tears down his cheeks. You couldn't really tell in the dark though. Both closed their eyes and drifted off into a deep, peaceful sleep.

---


Morning came, the sun shining through the blinds of Aubrey's current room. It was a lot nicer than the one back home, that's for sure. Basil lay slumped against the edge of her bed. Snoring, It was surprisingly loud for someone who was so quiet. Well, it's not like he'd changed all that much, but he had this whole tough guy persona now. It practically vanished when it was just them and Hero or Kel though. I never figured out why that was, why he couldn't just be himself outside too. Maybe a part of him was so scarred from Mari's passing, he just clammed up to anyone who didn't share his pain. Him and Hero talked about Mari a lot when they thought everyone else (everyone else being me and Kel) weren't listening, but we both have pretty good hearing.

Sometimes they would sob into each other.

Even if they didn't share their feelings, it was nice to know they had each other. Kel refused to open up about his emotions though, he always just said he was doing fine. Aubrey never tried to push it. Her stomach rumbled, breaking her from her train of thought. It was still relatively early, but she figured she might as well make breakfast. It should really be Basil's job but he wasn't an early riser given how stressed he normally was at night. Night was when his paranoia and hallucinations really set in. Multiple times Aubrey woke up to calls in the middle of the night from him, where he was so worked up he convinced himself that she was in danger, or he had disembowelled  his guts in a suicide attempt and now regretted it, or he was seeing Sunny, or, one particularly bad time, that he had a mask stuck to his face and he needed Aubrey's help to come cut it off since it didn't work when he had tried.

When she got there he had a large kitchen knife and several cuts over his face.

They weren't shallow either.

As she got out of bed, she wobbled slightly and made her way out. The hypothermia hadn't exactly up and vanished, but it wasn't clinging in her bones as she had imagined hypothermia would do. Her mind dragged her back to thoughts of Basil as she started to cook.
Normally, all he really needed to calm down was a hug from someone. He was quite a physical person and even small gestures like patting him on the shoulder calmed him down immensely. If you could hug him, he would relax in a matter of minutes. On some rare occasions he would be perfectly fine when she arrived and she wouldn't have to unlock the front door. When she asked him how he had calmed down, he just told her Sunny had visited.

 She cracked some eggs into a pan and started to mash them up. With sunny-side up ones she always didn't put enough grease in, so they'd stick to the pan. She let it sizzle for a moment and took out some bacon and some sausages she found. Basil could cook, yes, but it was just Norwegian food. And while Smalahove and Fiskeboller I Hvit Saus were fantastic, they weren't the light breakfast most people enjoyed. After the eggs were done, she plated them and started on the sausages and bacon.
Of course, now that she thought about it, Basil calling her frantically in the middle of the night as the only person he could reasonably rely on was nice and all, but she couldn't keep doing it. She needed sleep too and almost all of the time Basil needed her to stay over with him so he could have someone who would hug him back. This was one of the many times she wished her home wasn't such a shit-hole, so he could stay over there. But her mother wasn't keen on guests as much as she wasn't keen on Aubrey's father, which is to say, she viewed them as useless scum who didn't warrant being in her life while she fed her gambling addiction at the cost of her daughter. Another thing that concerned her about Basil was what he told her multiple times over when he panicked. He would talk about how he had killed Mari, he had a  hand in her death and stuff like that. Whenever she asked for clarification however, he just repeated it again and again. So he probably didn't mean it. Or, if he did, it was mixed up. But the idea of Basil killing anyone was fucking absurd. Hurting? Sure. Injuring them so much hospital was needed? Maybe. But killing? Killing? Taking someone else's life?

No.

No way Basil would do something like that.

She plated the rest of the food and made a tea for Basil, and grabbed some juices.

As much as she told herself Basil wouldn't do something like that though, a small voice in the back of her mind reminded her of how he had looked when he pushed her into the lake.

Eyes full of rage.

Teeth in a grimace.

Tongue twisted inside his mouth-

She shook off the feeling and walked back into the bedroom. Basil was already awake, and he sat there scrolling on his phone. She tapped him on the shoulder and he jumped, then relaxed again. " I made some breakfast, and I didn't want to wake you." He stood up, stretching.
 " Thanks Aubrey, but you didn't need to do that. And you should be resting anyway! " She shrugged " I feel a lot better." A concerned look rested on his face. " Still, you shouldn't really be out of bed yet..." She rolled her eyes and grabbed his arm, pulling him into the kitchen. " Basil, if I can make breakfast, how bad can I be, physically?" He hesitated and let out an exasperated sigh. " Fine, you've made your point Aubrey. Now lets just eat, okay?" Through breakfast they talked about various topics, the incident yesterday seemingly completely forgotten. 

Except, of course, the fact that Basil felt a strange pressure on his neck.

He ignored it.

heyy im sorry this is shorter than the other ones lol. ive been burnt out and had a lot of personal stuff going on, i cut out a lot of toxic people and im kind of recovering still. but anyway, the next chapter is gonna come out soon. a lot happens. kel. just kel :) .