Chapter Text
Basil doesn’t like people who smoke.
Well, that’s not true. That’s unfair, and Basil knows it. Not everyone who smokes is a bad person, or an unlikable person.
Basil doesn’t like smoking, though. He doesn’t like how the gray stains in the air make his lungs sting, doesn’t like the stubs littering sidewalks, doesn’t like the smell.
Gods, the smell. It made him gag, made an age-old irritation perk up in his stomach that he’d only barely wrestled under control. A mania, an itch he couldn’t scratch (didn’t let himself scratch), a screaming voice that wouldn’t shut up, on loop for every second a cigarette was lit - put it out, put it out, stop it stop it stop it–
…So, uhm. It was fair to say that Basil didn’t like smoking.
At least. Generally speaking.
Sunny Suzuki smoked Marlboro Menthol Light 100’s. To match his long, spindly fingers, and not-quite olive tone skin with criss-crossing veins by his collarbone.
Basil didn’t like smoking.
Basil didn’t like people who smoked.
Basil was currently watching Sunny Suzuki smoke.
The thing about Sunny was - he was an organized kind of person. Basil wasn’t sure why - (no matter how badly he wanted to know, no matter how badly he wanted to ask, maybe if he pried open Sunny’s skull all the answers would come falling out-) - but he knew it was true.
Basil wasn’t an organized kind of person.
Basil didn’t like organized people. Didn’t like the girls who showed up to class every day, binders with sticky notes popping out of their edges and made a routine of answering the teacher’s questions, who had to be smart because they thought that was a substitute for having an actual personality besides annoying teacher’s pet.
Okay. Basil didn’t like organized people. Organized people were boring people, people who didn’t have enough thoughts in their head to drive away from their routines.
Every day, during his break, Sunny Suzuki leaned against the brick wall of the school and had a smoke. Marlboro Menthol Light 100’s, which he lit with one of two things. A match from a matchbox, which he always struck by pressing it against the strip of the matchbox and flicking it towards his wrist, swinging it inward like a clock’s pendulum, or with his plain black zippo lighter.
He never blew out his matches. He always shook them out, before flicking them into the nearby trashcan.
Technically, it wasn’t legal to smoke on school grounds. Not even leaning against the building.
Basil didn’t like people who broke the law. People who broke the law were usually rude, impulsive, irritating.
Basil also didn’t like his math class. His third class of the day. Trigonometry, to be specific. He didn’t like math - it gave him a headache.
But his math class was only a few feet away from where Sunny smoked his Marlboro Menthol Light 100’s. And the blinds were always closed on the window, but Basil could peek through the cracks and watch.
He didn’t like his math class.
Sunny was a creature of habit. He always excused himself for his smoke break sometime between 1:35 and 1:40 PM.
But Basil never knew exactly when.
He wasn’t sure which was the most tense part of trigonometry class. Watching Sunny Suzuki smoke his Marlboro Menthol Light 100, or waiting for Sunny Suzuki to come out, lean against the brick wall (all long limbs and harsh edges, no peek of sunlight touching his delicate jawline, not here, leaning against the easternmost wall of the school), and have his smoke for the day.
Waiting for Sunny Suzuki to have his smoke break was a fascinating exercise in mind over matter.
The third day - the first time he’d had to wait the full five minutes for Sunny - he was shaking, paler than his tanned skin gave him any right to be, gripping the edge of his desk. Sunny Suzuki was his drug, and there he sat, in class, experiencing the worst withdrawals he would ever know.
But the teacher had caught him, and asked if he was okay, and Basil had been forced to stutter out some answer, and when he turned back Sunny was already smoking and Mrs. Rakepick had made him miss the best part.
So, it was an interesting exercise in mind over matter. In sitting, waiting, being perfectly still, not checking the time on his phone (because if he did the teacher might catch him, and lecture him, and Basil might miss some of it again), not breathing too heavy, not trembling like a leaf.
But - gods - he wasn’t sure anything could be worse than watching Sunny smoke. Today, he’d used his zippo lighter - and the burn of the tip of his cigarette was the only light in the shade Sunny was draped in. His black sleeveless jacket tight over his chest, the movements of his hands practiced, his pale lips wrapping around the edge of the filter and - inhaling–
Basil gripped the edge of his desk, tight. The only anchor for his drifting mind.
That was the thing about drugs, though - and the thing about addicts. They always needed more.
The first time Sunny Suzuki talked to him, it was after Basil’s favorite class.
He - Basil, not Sunny, gods Basil hadn’t even been ready for Sunny to be there - was rushing to his next class. He’d daydreamed too long at his desk, and half his textbooks were out of his bookbag and in his arms as he rushed not to be late.
Oh, not late to class. Though, he supposed that would be an annoyance too. No, Basil walked the long way to his next class, because he got to pass Sunny in the hall if he got there in time.
Sunny Suzuki always walked to his fourth class (geography) with Kelsey Garcia-Vasquez, better known by his peers as Kel.
Basil didn’t like Kel. He was always talking, and Sunny was never talking, and sometimes Basil wanted to shriek at Kel to shut up so he could hear what Sunny had to say.
He’d heard Sunny talk before. He knew Sunny could talk, because he sat at the table across from Sunny at lunch, and unfortunately his back was always turned to Sunny (gods, what if Sunny caught him staring, he couldn’t imagine,) but fortunately he sometimes caught snippets of Sunny’s conversations with Kel.
When he sat with Kel, anyway. Sometimes Kel sat with the other kids on the basketball team, and Basil would only get to hear Sunny eat, (he always brought his own lunch, never cafeteria lunch, and on Fridays he bought two blueberry muffins from the nearby bakery and gave one to Kel–) but sometimes Basil got to hear Kel and Sunny talk.
Kel talked a lot.
(Basil didn’t like people who talked a lot.)
But sometimes - just sometimes - Sunny would add his own comments. Always quiet, (like Basil) but confident (unlike Basil). Like he always thought for a long time before a single word left his mouth. His voice was hoarse, which might have something to do with the smoking.
Basil didn’t like people with hoarse voices.
But the first time Sunny talked to him, he was running late, and he wouldn’t be able to catch a glimpse of Sunny in the hall (unfair, unfair, unfair) --
And then he crashed, full-speed, into another figure moving through the hall.
Basil glanced up - and, for a moment, his whole body shook with anger, with desperation, UNFAIR the voice screamed, and whoever had run into him would fucking DIE for it–
Black eyes peered back at him.
He froze.
(Oh, gods. Oh gods he wasn’t ready for this, he hadn’t prepared, he wasn’t - and the universe was laughing at him, he knew it, peering beyond the veil and laughing with all of its mouths and all its stomachs, and it had never been more cruel or more gracious–)
“Oh,” Sunny - He - said, and those black eyes glittered, the backs of exotic beetles, precious gemstones set into unyielding marble, limestone–
And He kneeled down, leaned closer, not close outright, not uncomfortably so, but still so so so close–
“Are you okay?” He asked, with that hoarse voice, words almost - almost awkward, careful, concerned.
The sounds of the people milling around them thundered in Basil’s ears, and when he opened his mouth because Sunny was talking to him, those eyes - Those Eyes - were on Basil, on Basil and Basil alone, and he was pinned like a butterfly in a display case beneath them, and the only thing that left his mouth was “Uhdduh.”
“Oh,” Sunny Suzuki said, frowning, concerned. “Do you - you don’t have a concussion, do you? Does your head hurt?”
Above them, a warm laugh echoed. It sounded watery in Basil’s ears - submerged as he was in Sunny’s midnight ocean eyes. “He doesn’t have a concussion, dude,” the person over them - Kel, Kelsey Garcia-Vasquez, Sunny’s ‘best friend’ - said, the words making Sunny glance up at him, making Sunny stop looking at Basil - don’t fucking look at that- that ignoramus, look at ME–
Did Basil mention that he really didn’t like Kel?
“He didn’t even hit his head,” Kel pointed out, and he was right, but Basil could fucking strangle him.
“Oh,” Sunny said again (his voice was so close, so so close), and his frown disappeared. “Good,” he said, relieved, and Basil had never heard Sunny so expressive, was he always this expressive up close?
And then Sunny started gathering up Basil’s textbooks for him.
Basil didn’t like people who touched his things.
“O-oh,” Basil stuttered, rushing to gather some up himself and cringing at his own voice, “that’s okay, you don’t have to–”
Sunny straightened. He already had most of Basil’s textbooks in his arms. “Here,” he said, holding them out to him.
Basil grabbed them gingerly.
“...I’m glad you’re okay,” Sunny added - and then walked away again. Kel’s laughter echoed after him.
Basil just stood there. Punch-drunk.
He realized, a moment later, that he hadn’t even thanked Sunny for helping him with his textbooks. That Sunny had been right there, and Basil had, had just - frozen, like an idiot, Idiot, IDIOT.
After another beat, he realized the hallway was nearly empty - and that he had roughly half a minute left to get to his next class.
With that, he started jogging down the hall.
Thank goodness, Sunny Suzuki didn’t notice him at lunch.
Things were worse now. Basil only realized that after his class had finished.
Sunny had seen him. He’d made a scene in front of Sunny. Sunny wasn’t - wasn’t supposed to know who Basil was, and yes sometimes Basil would daydream about being Sunny’s friend, about being by his side every single day, nipping at his heels like Kel, but–
But now Sunny knew him.
Now Sunny would notice him. He had to be so much more careful.
(But that was the thing about addicts.)
So he made sure to keep his head low at lunch. And, thank goodness, Sunny didn’t notice him.
“What do you think he was doing, running like that?” Kel was saying, and oh goodness they were talking about HIM.
Basil went tense.
Sunny hummed. Not really a response, but it was clearly enough for Kel.
“Late for class, probably,” Kel said, and took a bite of his school-issued cardboard corndog. “Maybe it was on the other side of the school?”
It was, but that wasn’t why I was running, Basil didn’t say.
“Maybe,” Sunny said. His voice a hoarse, soft croak. Basil wanted to soak in that voice.
“He looked really…” Kel hesitated over his words - something that Basil knew was very rare, from the conversations he’d overheard before. “What did you think of him?”
That was something else Kel did. He liked defaulting to asking Sunny’s opinion when he didn’t seem to know what to say.
Basil, out of the corner of his eye, caught Sunny’s shoulders rising in a shrug.
He also caught a smirk in Kel’s voice when he said; “He was kinda cute though, right?”
Basil didn’t get to see the way Sunny’s expression changed, but he got to hear Kel’s warm laugh at whatever crossed Sunny’s face.
They moved on after that. Sunny didn’t have much more to contribute than that maybe.
Basil tried not to breathe too loudly, and marinated in his own thoughts like a ripe strawberry.
Basil didn’t like people.
His last class had passed. And now, Basil was, once again, fighting himself.
Basil considered himself - for the most part - to be a person with great self-restraint. That wasn’t to say he was smart, or even rational, really. But he had self-restraint. He’d been practicing it his whole life. Surrounded by people who smoked, who talked, who followed their patterns and got in Basil’s way, and his whole life he’d been driven by some voice that screeched in his ears, every second of every minute of every hour of every day of every week of every-
Because things were supposed to be a certain way, they were supposed to be the way he wanted, toy soldiers marched where he wanted them to go and nobody ever left him–
And when things weren’t how Basil wanted, well… the voice didn’t like that.
That was the thing, though. Things were never how Basil wanted them. And he’d learned to live with that, to a certain extent. Learned self-restraint, learned not to listen to the voice no matter how loud it screamed.
Basil knew better than anyone the consequences of his own actions.
Thoughts went away. Even the really bad thoughts. Actions never did.
But that was the thing about addicts.
Basil had self-restraint. Basil was also heavily considering spending his afternoon staring at Sunny through his dorm room window.
It was– a bad idea. He knew that. Sunny could glance out, at any time, and if Sunny caught him–
But, here he was.
Because seeing Sunny smoke his Marlboro Menthol Light 100’s every day, passing him in the hallway, sitting within swinging distance at lunch - it had been so much at first, too much, but now-
Now it wasn’t enough.
He needed more.
And there were so few ways to get more. At least, with any semblance of safety. Maybe if he– hid in a bush, Sunny wouldn’t-
Shockingly enough, Basil did have some iota of self-awareness.
That was when it really hit him, that yes, he was a stalker. Full-on, obsessed, stalker.
Did he care?
…Not particularly, no.
Perhaps that was what sealed it. The acceptance of what he’d already known. Of what he was. Of who he was.
Yes, he was going to hide in a bush and watch Sunny in his dorm. For as long as he could.
Basil did not like people. Even his favorite people always left.
Basil didn’t like much of anything. And he especially didn’t like people who didn’t follow their own rules. Hypocrites.
Basil was many things. But a hypocrite was not one of them. So;
Basil did not like Sunny Suzuki.
Basil quite hated Sunny Suzuki, actually.
Basil just also happened to be completely obsessed with him.
Watching Sunny Suzuki in his dorm was… addicting. Oh, gods, he might have to do this every day. He barely got any time to watch Sunny, but now he was seeing - quirks, little ticks and habits he hadn’t been able to catch before. The way he’d always sweep eraser shavings off his paper, not with his palm, but with the side of his pinky - with the same motion as a backhand slap. The little shifts of his grip on his pencil, how he’d chew his cheek when he was considering something.
(Basil was so glad it was Friday. No homework - though apparently Sunny had some. He could sit here all day.)
(He was also glad Sunny’s only window without blinds was turned away from campus. Only Basil and some bushes ever set foot on this side of the building.)
It was only after his homework was finished, though, that Basil got to watch the… interesting part.
He learned more about Sunny Suzuki watching him in that dorm room than any amount of crashes in the hallway, overheard conversations across a cafeteria and peering through the windows of classrooms could ever tell him.
For instance - apparently, Sunny Suzuki played violin.
Basil did not know this. Sunny didn’t take band, or music appreciation, or any other class that would have hinted towards a love of music. Quite the opposite, in fact - Sunny’s classes were dry, boring, and purely academic.
(Basil didn’t like people solely focused on their studies.)
He wished so desperately that he could hear Sunny’s playing. His expression didn’t give anything away, besides a deep concentration and perhaps a tinge of melancholy.
Was he bad? the voice whispered, hungry, curious, a bit desperate. Was that why he didn’t take band?
Sunny’s playing gave no answers.
After he’d put the violin away (Basil noticed a scratch on its side, and wondered hungrily if anyone else had ever caught a glimpse at Sunny’s violin, ever noticed its signs of wear), Sunny spent a little while listening to music. Or, that was what Basil presumed, by the headphones and the occasional rhythmic tapping of his foot against the floor.
The afternoon waned into night. Sunny spent some time either writing or drawing in a notebook with a padlock. Basil guessed it was drawing, by the way Sunny’s hands moved.
(Did anyone else know Sunny drew?)
Basil neck started to hurt at some point. A ladybug crawled up his arm, and then a spider. He gently set both of them in the grass to the side, making sure that Sunny didn’t catch the movement of the bushes.
It was only after all of the day’s light had dripped away that Sunny put away his headphones, his notebooks, stripped off his black sleeveless jacket.
A beat.
Sunny paused. A hesitation Basil hadn’t seen before.
And then - he glanced out his window.
The window Basil was staring through.
He buried himself a little further in the leaves as Sunny’s eyes roved over the grass. The bushes. His bush.
For just a moment, Basil could almost feel Sunny’s eyes lock onto him. And, again, that feeling - pinned, like a butterfly in a display case, submerged in midnight ocean, nothing visible under the surface.
There was something in his face, though - smoky eyes, taut lips, a little tick in his expression…
Like he’d bitten into something sour. Not too sour, but moreso than expected.
His eyes roved back and forth one last time. As if looking for something.
Whatever he found must have satisfied him, though, because he took a step away from the window, and–
Started unbuttoning his shirt.
For a moment, Basil thought he was just giving himself more breathing room - but, no. As more and more of his pale collarbone was exposed to the air of his dorm, he took another step back, and went to his door.
Basil only barely caught him turning the deadlock.
His fingers were nimble as they worked through each button. He wasn’t slow or quick about it. No shyness, no sexiness. Just - button, button, button. Pop, pop, pop. Methodical, dry.
Basil watched with wide, hungry eyes.
He- he didn’t deny that some part of his obsession was likely attraction. Sexual attraction, even. Still, he hadn’t quite confronted that fact quite yet, no matter how many nights he’d spent up, thinking about pale skin and a fragile, sharp jawline, untouched by sunrays–
But now he was confronting it.
Or rather, being confronted with it.
Sunny was - pale. Every inch of him was pale, not-quite olive tone. Criss-crossing blue veins, taut stomach, ribs standing out like wounds, long-fingered hands nimble.
For a moment - just a moment - Basil was almost convinced Sunny just took off his shirt because it was more comfortable.
That was not the case.
Long-fingered hands (pale, thin, criss-crossing veins) brushed up xylophone ribs. Basil watched as the ridges of that pale paper-mache ribcage made those too-thin fingers bounce, like he was dragging them across spines of books on a shelf.
A thumb - thin, nimble - brushed gentle circles around an off-tone nipple. Basil barely caught Sunny’s lips parting, softly, in either a sigh or a heavy breath.
Basil’s nerves went white. With heat, with electricity, with - something.
(This wasn’t what he’d wanted to watch - but he couldn’t look away.)
Sunny’s eyes fell shut, and his fingers - nimble, so nimble - captured that off-tone nipple between their pads, rubbing in small, rough motions as his pale, fragile jawline lolled back, exposing a long neck to the yellowish glow of his lamp.
Basil breathed. It sounded rough in his own ears - panting, desperate, like a fucking rabid dog, gods he was better than this–
Sunny must be used to doing this, some voice perked up, always rushing ahead, always thinking - he only glanced out his window, he’s in full view of it now and he doesn’t even care. He’s used to doing this, to being in front of this window, nobody ever comes to this side of the building and there are no blinds on it - why wouldn’t he be used to doing this?
It’s not like some crazy fucker would ever hide in a bush just to watch him, right?
Basil was better than this. He was better than this.
Sunny - in a single, awkward movement, practiced but not performative - dropped to his knees.
One of his hands - no fanfare, practiced but not performative, habitual (Sunny Suzuki had always been a creature of habit) - ran down his stomach, palmed at his dark jeans, fumbled for a button and then a zipper–
Basil was not better than this.
Sunny was on his knees, but there was nothing - nothing sexy about this. Even on his knees, he was stiffly upright, all harsh angles and almost exposed bones and paper-mache skin. There was no performance here, not for Basil’s sake or anyone else’s. Movements unhurried but not teasing, eyes shut and lips taut. It was private, it was easy, it was almost awkward.
It was also the most beautiful thing Basil had ever seen. He was drunk on it, this - this was a side of Sunny nobody else knew, a side that was Basil’s now and Basil’s alone, and - something about the habit of it, the privacy, the ease, was more intimate than anything performative could ever be for Basil.
Every inch of Sunny was pale.
Apparently, that extended to his cock.
Basil was not better than this. Not even a little bit better than this, not a fucking smidge better, and one of his hands crawled down, and had his shorts always been this tight?
Sunny’s hands were nimble, his movements smooth - but not here, not one bit, because apparently Sunny Suzuki was sensitive.
Emotionless, cold, fragile Sunny Suzuki, lit by the glow of a desk lamp, exposed before a window, eyes squeezing tighter and tighter shut, teeth digging into pale lips, hips stuttering, thumbs flicking back and forth, back and forth, over an off-tone nipple and a shining bead of precum–
What are you imagining? Basil’s mind whispered, as his hands, warm calloused palms and blunt nails (nothing like Sunny’s perfect, thin, nimble fingers), gripped a bit too tight and stroked, rough and desperate, and his breaths were coming out heavier and heavier. Panting like a rabid dog, indeed.
What’s behind those eyelids? Eyelids that squeezed tighter and tighter, and Basil wanted to be closer, wanted to run his palms along the ridges of that pale ribcage, down the smooth expanse of that taut stomach, wanted to wrap his fingers tight around that pretty neck, grip black hair until his hands stopped trembling so horribly, grip so tight, grip Sunny Suzuki, until he stuttered and whimpered and begged, for mercy or for more–
Something syrupy stuck to the back of Basil’s throat, and a coil in his stomach wound tighter, grew hotter.
What are you fantasizing about?
(Maybe if he pried Sunny’s skull open, all the secrets would come falling out.)
Maybe he was imagining some girl he had a crush on in class. But, Basil couldn’t imagine that - couldn’t imagine someone like Sunny Suzuki harboring something as childish as a crush.
Maybe he was straight. But Basil didn’t like that idea. No, he much preferred thinking Sunny was fantasizing about someone gripping that slick black hair and fucking his pretty little mouth, someone wrapping their arms around his waist, around his thighs, squeezing him tight and taking him–
(Maybe he was fantasizing about Basil.)
Basil’s stomach clenched.
He knew - he knew, Sunny wasn’t, Sunny wouldn’t, Sunny didn’t even know his name-
(What would he imagine?)
(Maybe he likes blondes. Maybe he’d want to card his hands through your hair, get his fingers tangled in the knots.)
Basil had never seen himself as particularly attractive. Girls had called him cute before, but he didn’t really care too much about his appearance. He wore what he wanted to, looked how he wanted to, didn’t bother brushing his hair in the morning and didn’t care about the acne that had riddles his cheeks in high school before being replaced with a smattering of freckles and beauty marks now.
He’d never imagined himself in that light. Never thought about - how someone might fantasize about him. What they would want to fantasize about.
(Maybe he likes boys with a tan. Maybe he’d like your skin - he’d imagine running his hands down your chest, your stomach, your thighs, murmuring about how pretty you look in the dark.)
(Maybe he likes how your ass looks in those shorts.)
Oh, gods-
His hands (maybe he likes boys with strong hands, blunt nails, maybe he wants you to grip his neck, his thighs, his ass, dig your nails into his skin-) stuttered, his rough, too-hot palms had long since gone slick with his need, and the coil tightened, red-hot, white-hot, cooking Basil from the inside out, smoke rising and filling his skull, fogging over his eyes and all his thoughts, until fantasies smeared together, his eyes fighting not to squeeze shut as he watched Sunny’s lips form a moan, a word, and he could almost imagine Basil slipping past his lips–
Basil came with a soft, choked cry, with endless smudged images of Sunny Suzuki floating through his head.
…Basil Edevane hated Sunny Suzuki.