Fallout and Future

Chapter 22: Christmas Comes But Once Every Four Years

A/N: I had a job. Specifics aren't important, it was an internship at one of those old people homes. Not a volunteer position. Out of the dozens there I met one old person who wasn't at least a little demented. All I could think about was: this was what I used to fear. Aging and dying. Very simple, common problem. Which I replaced with worse and worse ones up till now. Three years of once-a-year updates lol, technically four I think? I'm just so tired. Can't remember the last time I felt awake. Maybe it's my medication, which seems to mostly have a placebo effect anyway according to the psychiatrist? But atp they're all I have left. Every solution is temporary. I guess every problem is, too, because like I said. Keep getting worse. I'd like to say I've finally hit rock bottom. But you can always go deeper. I don't wanna jinx myself again. Ah well. Self-indulgent, self-pitying A/N over. This isn't what you guys read this fic for, if you still read it at all lol, and I won't keep you any longer. Sorry for the wait

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Christmas hadn't existed for Sunny in four years. He'd never really thought about it, consciously, until his mother had brought it up when he'd said he'd stay with Kel and Hero in Faraway. Technically, he now would be staying with Kel and Hero... but just for Christmas, and with his new boyfriend, neither of which Akane approved much of. She made this clear for the entire walk toward the Darwishes, having come to 'pick Sunny up' from Basil's house, as though he didn't know the way through a town with a population of a few hundred where he'd lived his whole life.

"Well, doesn't it get terribly lonely, staying with just... him?" Akane warbled. Basil, saint that he was, didn't bother reminding her he had a name.

"No," Sunny replied.

"But two friends are better than one, right?"

"He's my boyfriend."

"Okay, maybe three friends are better than two... what if you had him stay with you and Henry and Kelsey?"

"That'd be weird. Basil has his own house already."

"The Darwishes are Muslim, which is a lot closer to being Shintoist than... um, Basil, what religion do you practice?"

"Only Mrs. Darwish is Muslim," Sunny said quickly, so Basil wouldn't have to reply. "Mr. Darwish practices an obscure form of scientology considered heretical by all other sects. He thinks Tom Cruise made it too mainstream. Scientology, that is."

"Alright, fine," Akane finally said as they reached the Darwish house. "I give up."

For now, Sunny thought wryly.

The door swung open before any of them could knock, revealing Hero and Kel standing side-to-side. Kel cut his brother's 'hello' off with, "C'mon! You guys have already missed the boring gifts from my parents. If you don't hurry up, you'll be late for the actual cool stuff."

Sunny and Basil both glanced uneasily at Akane, who'd spent the entire morning taking absurdly small steps so as to have more time to try to convince Sunny to stop staying with Basil.

Mr. and Mrs. Darwish had both prepared gifts for Akane, as she'd prepared for them, and they went out onto the porch to exchange them, smoke, try to convert each other, and talk about the weather. Sunny, Basil, Hero, and Kel, meanwhile, found Aubrey slung over the couch in the living room, holding a suspiciously bat-shaped present that Basil had brought over yesterday.

"Oh, there you guys are." She looked up- or down, technically, tilting her head back over the armrest so she could look at the newcomers. "Basil, this what I think it is?"

"Am I too predictable?"

"Well, I asked for a new bat, so I'd be the predictable one in this case." Aubrey sat up, cracking her neck from side to side and then sighing like a much older woman. "What else is yours? I can guess which ones Kel got."