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She did the polite thing, trying to observe him in a series of subtle glances. She was only peripherally aware of his female companion. Basil noticed her, but only by the tinny sound of her feet on the bleachers. He'd been hearing that musical sound all day and found it very pleasant.

The duo made an energetic performance of getting into their seats, where Genie could get a better look at them. She saw the faint impression of wings in the sunlight—ghostly and cherubic. Velvety brown animal ears that swiveled through a doctored baseball cap in a way that reminded her of a cereal box mascot. The swirling absence of legs or a stomach commanded her attention. It was a Raevan alright.

She looked at the woman next, squinting under the bill of her hat. Trying to recognize her from the back of her head. Maybe it was because she was made so totally the focus of their attention that the woman felt the need to turn around. Upon seeing her face, Genie jumped from yellow to orange, and then catapulted into the red. A graduated scale of realization.

The name escaped her, but the memory did not. She bought a cake from this woman. Cried in front of her. Heard she was waiting for a Raevan of her own—and there he was. A fulfilled wish.

A vision in pink.

Basil only had a vague idea of how he'd come to be sitting on the steps outside his building that night, but it turned out to be just the thing he needed. Outside the air was cool and stale-tasting, but not altogether unpleasant. The moon was a pale ghost in the sky with no stars for company.

Lately, Basil had been making an ambitious effort to get back on a regular sleep schedule, and having mixed results.

After the accident he slept constantly—chronically. Which wasn't really the luxury that teenagers would have you believe.

The simple fact was that after the second day, it started to hurt. There was back-pain, neck-pain, joint-pain. All-over pain. After a certain point, you started waking up more tired than when you laid down. Sometimes your heart woke you up. That was the scariest. Staring blearily at the ceiling while your heart did a swing-dance through your chest. Fluttering and rapid without having done any activity to make it that way. Like you just knocked back two espresso shots.

That much beauty rest made you ugly after a while. Your body turned weak and fragile like a molted crab. Your skin felt paper-thin, pins and needles. Your mouth felt so dry your teeth stuck to your lips. Eventually it reached your brain and you started robbing yourself of the choice to move. You started wanting to sleep more than actually needing it. You stopped needing it sixty hours ago, and those hours added up. So did your responsibilities and obligations.

You literally couldn't face the harshness of daylight— and that was no exaggeration.

Sunlight was too much for your senses. It made you feel like a lower life-form. Like some blind, cave-dwelling creature with see-through skin. It was the reality of your real life. The life you'd been putting off. Reality was sitting at the kitchen table weepy and boneless and trembling with a heart like a caged hummingbird.

Those days weren't over completely, but they were being put in the rearview.

Basil was pushing through. Finding little reasons to stay active. Little precious moments with Genie while she tended to him, and re-introduced him to the daylight. But every once in a while he'd get clobbered by the beast again. It was different from exhaustion or sleepiness. It was just a pure lack of energy. The photo-negative of energy.

On days like that, he'd take sporadic naps through the evening and be up all night. Tonight was one of those nights, and he was trying to pass the time.

His choke-bruise was still fierce, circling his throat like a fiendish coffee-ring. But it was changing, healing. It had gone from the purple-blue stages into a red-speckled green. It was a season for changes. Even The Other was slowly coming back into the picture.

Of course he had never really left, but Basil could sense he was keeping his distance. There'd been a few talks since the accident. Fights and misunderstandings, mostly. Long periods of sulking and wound-licking. But of course—not unlike a bruise—eventually the relationship began repairing itself on its own terms. The overall mood was still very tense, and with the looming potential for nuclear fallout. But at least they were speaking again.

While Basil sat on the front steps, he watched the young people strolling by in excited whispers and their shiny clothes. He didn't seem to be giving them more than a passing consideration. They wandered arm and arm with his figments. His wisps of color and roaming apparitions. Sometimes they called out to him. A mixture of taunts and invitations.

"Party's this way!"

"Hey freak-o, no vacancy at the Bates Motel?"

Basil didn't mind. The only voices that mattered were his, and his brother's. They were playing one of those dumb "question games". A way of talking with talking. They'd already exhausted the soft topics. Favorite movies. Favorite color. Favorite noises. Favorite smells. They'd been playing for almost forty minutes now and needed to get creative. Basil was the first to up the ante, which suited The Other just fine. This was Basil's baby from the start, and a fat baby. A fat waste of time. But there'd never been a pretense of it being anything else.

"Okay. Would you ratherrrr... have someone hold your head underwater for fifteen full seconds, or eat a bottle of shampoo?"

("...Wait, the actual plastic bottle?" )

"No, like, drink it. The whole thing. And you can't throw up or it doesn't count."

("Ehhhh. Can you be more specific about the first one? Like, under what circumstances would someone be holding me underwater?" )

"Why does that matter?"

("It matters. Like, can I choose who does it? Is this someone who I can trust to let me go when the fifteen seconds are up, or is it some stranger that walks up and tries to drown me in the bathtub? Because fifteen seconds is a lot longer when you think you're being murdered." )

Basil made a long-suffering sigh, "Now see, you can't ask stuff like that, you're supposed to just pick one. Without thinking about it."

("Oh, well excuse the hell out of me for thinking things through! You know this is exactly why you never—" )

He cut himself off. Wished he could reel it back in but it was too late. Basil held his breath and sat very still, waiting for The Other to finish whatever cruel insult he was readying.

The Other cleared his throat. Pulled himself together. Reminded himself what he was doing this for. He needed to invest in Basil now. Invest in their working together.

When he spoke again, his voice was calmer, but grudging. There was an embarrassed rote to it, like when you ask a child to parrot something back to you to make sure he understands.

("I'd eat the shampoo. It's gross and humiliating, but even if it makes me sick, at least I'd be the only one to know about it." )

Basil let go of the breath he was holding but paused significantly, and the longer he went without responding the more uneasy The Other felt. Like he was being punished for something.

It was ridiculous, but more than that it was unfair. He answered the damn question. Now it was Basil's turn to keep babbling. Keep playing this stupid, insipid, time-wasting game so they didn't have to acknowledge the elephant in the room.

Basil tilted back his head, his eyes sweeping the starless sky.

"I would know." He said softly.