Sunny knew a few things about his situation right now.
He was in a kitchen, in a house. He was incredibly uncomfortable, for reasons he wasn’t able to put a finger on (though that detail was not, itself, surprising). It was night, but there was a light on in that kitchen that warded Something away from his immediate surroundings.
Though, he thought idly as he looked out towards the shelves in the opposite corner of the room, the light wasn’t enough to banish that awful shape from everywhere - he could swear he saw more than just shadows behind the TV... or maybe it was his eyes playing tricks on him again.
There were pale, spindly (though identifiably human) hands in front of him holding a slice of toast, done to his liking. Following the arms down from the wrist with his gaze provided the input that these arms were attached to his own shoulders. So it was him, holding toast... that was bitten into. From the sensation of something being in his mouth that wasn’t triggering disgust in his throat, he presumed he was the reason for that last bit.
He slowly continues chewing the bite of what he presumed was the reason the slice of toast he held in front of him wasn’t whole, while quietly wondering to himself why he didn’t seem to remember actually taking the bite. He has a good memory - at least, for the details that matter. He could remember even the details that didn’t matter when he was littler, but nowadays, he’d forget what he was doing even in the middle of doing it. There were days that he got out of bed for want of the ability to sleep for any longer than he had and next thing he knew, it was some hours later, he had a mop in hand, and the kitchen floor was half-wet.
Hm. He swallows his bite of toast. Maybe he had more of a habit of suddenly showing up in kitchens than he originally thought.
The discomfort he’s feeling is bugging him. He’s never been great at identifying his own feelings; someone used to help him with it, but the questions she asked him are evading him right now. Memory issues again. He’s a bit bitter about it; one more thing that’s changed over four years. To think people used to know him for being able to reliably recall details that some people hadn’t even noticed at the time until he pointed it out later.
He looks down at his toast, taking another bite and then looking it over as he quietly chews. He finds odd satisfaction in the fact that it wasn’t buttered. Though, it’s not like it would be a problem, probably - other households are not his household, and this house he’s found himself in somehow feels too welcoming, too homey, to trigger shame in imposing much.
Sunny likes toast. He likes toast for the same reason he likes rice: a loaf of bread is pretty cheap. He used to feel ambivalent towards it, but once it was just his poor mother working herself to the bone, he would sometimes come down to eat dinner and notice that there was just a portion for himself. He was a bit too empathetic to not realize that the reason his mother wasn’t eating that night wasn’t because she didn’t feel hungry.
He stops chewing and stares at the half-eaten slice in his hands. Toast was, many days, all he ate. He hated his hunger and hated how it muddied his thoughts (and knowing how he apparently has an occasional mysterious kitchen teleportation habit, he probably needs all the mental clarity he can get), and many days it was also all he could bring himself to properly make. Rice was sometimes too much effort to wash for the rice cooker, leftovers weren’t always available to microwave (sweet, sweet microwave, he thinks to himself wistfully), and the most effort that goes into toast is getting out the loaf of bread and pushing down the handle on the microwave to get it toasting. Nice, easy calories for cheap. Butter was additional money on his cheap meal, so he developed his tastes to do without.
Sunny’s eyes narrow ever-so-slightly in amusement as something occurs to him. He remembers one time Hero made a homemade strawberry jam for everyone for a picnic. He also distinctly remembers musing on that picnic how Hero’s hard work was delicious enough to raise the dead. Maybe that’s where the idea of Life Jam came from.
Mm... jam... He’s made a decent amount of change picking up the odd job here and there during the past few days in Faraway. Maybe he could do grocery shopping for his mother with his own money when they’re in the new apartment and get himself some jam while he’s at it. Just as a treat. Ah, no, wait, his mother might appreciate it more if he just gave her however much a jar of jam would otherwise cost. She’s tried to push money on him over the years, and the only way he’s been able to get her to take her money back is to just sneak the money back into her wallet when she’s not looking. He knows where she keeps her purse, and when her wallet mysteriously regenerates after she gives him money to spend on himself, she’s often too tired to notice. Or... question. Notice or question. He suddenly isn’t sure which.
There’s a sudden shout coming from a nearby doorway that clues him in to the fact that for the entire time he’s been leaned against the counter eating toast, there’s been some kind of argument going on elsewhere in the house. He thinks he recognizes the shout as... Kel? What’s he doing here?
Well. He should probably go help with whatever’s happening. But. He does have toast. He may as well finish this first.
He swallows and takes another small, slow bite of his food. The discomfort is bugging him, and the shout reminded him of it, which he doesn’t think he likes. He can deal with discomfort normally, but now that he’s remembered he’s uncomfortable, he can’t get the thought out of his head anymore.
It doesn’t help that he can’t put a finger on what this discomfort is, either.
He’s relatively certain he’s calm, but maybe he’s panicking and just doesn’t know it? He closes his eyes and steadies his breathing... collects himself... clears his thoughts... ... ...
No, still uncomfortable. Hmmm.
He wishes someone were with him now. He’s gotten better about being alone while she’s been away, but he still can’t help sometimes but to wonder when she’s coming back from...
...college?
That thought makes him supremely uncomfortable in a different way than the feeling he was puzzling over prior. Somehow - now - he knows that’s wrong, but he can’t seem to think right now about where she went. It’s like his brain, normally buzzing with thought and imagination, was tipped upside down and vigorously shaken out until there wasn’t even dust left inside it, leaving an utter silence in his head that would probably spook him if he weren’t in such a weirdly-calm mood.
Sunny’s pretty certain right now that wherever she went, she’s not going to...
...
He swallows his bite of toast and stares down at what’s left.
He should think about identifying the discomfort.
He remembers someone asking him things, a certain set of familiar questions, whenever he seemed upset but couldn’t tell her why, or even if he denied being upset at all despite everything else pointing to the contrary. (Sometimes, he could swear that she knew him better than he knew himself.) He remembered...
Right. She explained to him later how all the questions essentially boiled down to - “If you can’t tell what you’re feeling, then you should think about what you could be responding to, instead!”
Sunny takes a little bite of his toast and looks up to the ceiling.
He’s forgetting something. It’s not the usual sensation of having forgotten something important - this is different. He doesn’t remember how he got to the kitchen, nor how he got toast in his hands. At least the former was important to his situation, but half of his conundrum was because he couldn’t recall the reason for that.
Okay, so he can’t remember what he’s responding to... so what were the other questions.
He distantly heard someone’s voice: “Is there anything you’re focusing on? Is there anything you want to do? Is there anything you want to avoid?” He could almost see the way she held up her finger as though she were instructing him whenever she was explaining something to him. She was always so animate with her body language, cutesy in a way that lightened everyone’s moods.
Anything he’s focusing on...
He’s pretty focused on the toast, but that’s probably not relevant. Figure out what’s important.
What he wants to do... well, finish this half-eaten toast, sure, but that’s obvious, so beyond that.
What he wants to do.
... He lets his gaze wander around and watches the shadows.
He wants to hide. It’s a distant feeling, far from a panic at this point, but he can’t deny the urge to crawl into one of the low cabinets in the kitchen and curl up with the door closed. Does he feel unsafe?... He’s not certain. It’s like he both can and can’t picture sleeping here, which is his usually-reliable litmus test for whether a given situation feels safe or not... though, if his guess is right, the blankets haphazardly thrown about the couch and in front of the TV suggests he very well could have been sleeping here a little bit ago. So, why does he not feel safe?
Hmm. That’s probably just going to lead into more questions, and right now Sunny’s more in the mood for answers. Is there anything else he wants to do?
Is there anything else he wants to do...
He wants to...
...
He kind of wants to whimper.
The feeling that lifts his eyebrows and forces him to quietly look away from the ceiling once he notices it is a feeling Sunny is able to identify - surprise. Sunny’s actually surprised. After all, he’s not the sort to vocalize save for very specific situations. It’s the same with his expression, really. He’ll set his jaw and visibly furrow his brow when he’s annoyed, but when he’s sad he mostly just looks away, and when he’s happy he usually just squints a tiny bit like a smile that isn’t there is crinkling his eyes; in a similar vein, he’s been called more names than he’d like for odd behavior such as his total failure to sob in any audible fashion when crying.
He doesn’t even really whimper when he’s scared. He only does it when he’s hurt.
That realization gets him to give himself a once-over in case whatever’s in pain is immediately visible. His search bears fruit: he notices some scrapes and cuts on his outer arm that he certainly didn’t do himself. He’d have applied first aid to them by now if he had, and what’s deep enough to bleed is still very much openly bleeding.
Wounds on the outer arm are generally thought of as defensive wounds - he remembers that much. He decides to this theory by casually lifting his arms to mimic covering his head from an assailant, studying the raised limbs when they’re in position. There were no injuries on the side of his arms that he could easily see in the position he took, and what injuries were visible was just tailing trails from worse gashes, as though the strike was a glancing blow. He got attacked by something sharp.
Interesting. Was he trying to defend his face?
Wait, he should be way more panicked about this. Why isn’t he panicked? He lowers his arms and swallows. Oh, wait, he faintly remembers reading about something about food and fear. The human body likes to eat in safe places, so the tip goes that if you’re going into a nervewracking situation like a test, then try seeing if you’re not allowed a snack or some gum to chew on, since your body will associate the food with being in a safe place and calm down. He doesn’t remember where that anecdote is from, and he knows that factual information without a source is suspect, but for now, it suffices as an excuse for his current lack of panic.
Well... for some of his current lack of panic. If he was panicking, he isn’t certain that he’d have had the stomach to think about starting to eat. He’ll figure it out later.
His face. Sunny was trying to cover his face. He lifts one hand to gingerly touch along his cheek and feels wetness.
He doesn’t think he was crying.
When he pulls his hand back to look at the wetness, his fingertips are painted in red, which is mixed in with a slight glob of... some kind of clear ooze, almost? What is this?
Sunny knows instinctively - that exact shade of red - this must be coming from where his injury is. Because this red liquid, on his face, is... ... ...... ......
He’s not coming up with the word. It’s a common word, Sunny. Why aren’t you coming up with the word?
The scuffle elsewhere in the house seems to have died down since he was last paying attention. Now that he’s listening, actually, he can identify the sound of some siren in the near distance as well. He’s pretty certain that’s not a fire truck’s siren, though he’s not sure if that’s just because the few times he’s heard a fire truck siren before was when the siren was interspersed with the truck’s blaring horn, bellowing at the vehicles ahead that would be keeping it from its mission if they didn’t move. He’s not heard a police siren commonly enough to immediately identify it as one of those. Maybe it was an ambulance?
Sunny nearly jumps out of his skin when he sees actual movement out of the corner of his eye. Scampering through the open doorway is Aubrey, who seems to be in a panic for some reason. She instantly looks to the blanket pile opposite of where Sunny is and makes some kind of sound he can’t immediately place, though he can at least tell that she’s definitely scared. It didn’t sound like a scream, and it wasn’t a whimper... Hmm.
He reaches back his free hand to lightly knock on the counter to catch her attention, which causes her to jump a bit in surprise and swivel around. The moment Aubrey sees Sunny, her expression goes from terror to confusion to... perhaps rage, if Sunny really had to put a finger on it. He takes a bite of his toast as he considers why she might be mad at him right now. The group made up with Aubrey, right? So she shouldn’t have any reason to be angry because of a past slight... Maybe he did something recently that he forgot about?
Aubrey starts shouting, animatedly gesturing at him. At this point, Sunny’s pretty sure that the shouting is proper English, even though the ability to actually parse the words she’s using is escaping him like water off a duck’s back. Not sure why he’s not parsing it. Hmm.
No, maybe she is panicking, he thinks as he chews, passively watching on. She was pretty animated in the church, but this is animated even on top of that. She must really be upset about something.
Huh. Oh, she’s gesturing at him, not just gesturing generally. She’s pointing at her eye?
Sunny reaches up and nearly touches his eye before Aubrey’s near-shriek reminds him that he probably shouldn’t do that, even if nothing was wrong with it, as his friend seems intent on trying to communicate to him. Eyes are sensitive. So, hang on... if his eye is injured... He swallows his bite of toast and closes his right eye. Nothing wrong with his vision. He opens his right eye and closes his left eye.
Darkness.
...
Huh.
That’s new.
When he opens his left eye, he near-jumps out of his skin once again upon noticing that Aubrey’s suddenly closed the distance between them. She’s still shouting, apparently not yet giving up communicating with him despite his odd, unaffected-by-his-surroundings state. Was she shouting the whole way to his side? How come his focus is so scattered? He’s scatterbrained even on his good days, especially since he first started isolating himself, but the way obvious details like Aubrey stomping into his personal space are slipping through his fingers right now really makes him wonder if there’s something wrong with him.
He studies Aubrey’s facial expression as she makes some kind of wild gesture at him. She’s clearly unhappy, that’s for certain, and... He peers at her. Oh, if only reality were more like Headspace, with its colored auras so helpfully informing him just what it was other people felt. Telling people’s emotions was a skill to him, not an instinct, and he really wishes that skill was more reliable in times like these. Let’s see, here... Her eyebrows are furrowed, but something about the way she’s gesturing is tipping him off in a way he can’t put words to that she might not be angry after all.
Oh, wait, he got hurt, didn’t he? So since he was hurt, she must be scared for him. Okay. So she’s panicking.
He’s clumsy on a good day with emotions - his own or other people’s - but he’s pretty sure he at least knows how to not screw it up and make it worse if someone’s panicking this badly.
Sunny’s solution to Aubrey’s clear distress is to gently put his free hand on her head to pat her. Pat, pat.
Aubrey stops gesturing, the energy gone out of her in an instant, and stares at him blankly.
She’s not panicking anymore.
He’s good at this.
Aubrey’s next movements come slowly, as though she were treating with a stray dog with its leg caught in a trap, as she gently takes what’s left of Sunny’s toast from his hands. Then, she heads to the garbage bin, and Sunny’s just a little too slow to say something to stop her before she right around slam-dunks what’s left of his meal into the garbage with enough force that Sunny has to stare at the bin for a moment, just to make sure it was actually still there and not a smoking crater from the force of Aubrey’s downwards throw. Then, with a marked return to her original aggression and agitation, Aubrey storms up to him to take one of his wrists and pull him towards the door.
There was flashing outside. Colors, flashing outside. What was happening?
He doesn’t have the mental bandwidth for this. All he’s thinking of right now is of the faint guilt of having his meal taken from him and thrown away. It was perfectly good food! That’s a quarter-slice of bread that no one’s going to be able to eat now! The calories, gone to waste! They probably weren’t that many, especially since his slice of toast was mostly done with anyway, but every single one counts considering the state of his diet!
Sunny has to squint to save his eyes from the flashing lights as Aubrey pulls the door open and pulls him outside. It’s hard to see with the excessive visual stimulation acting like sandpaper to his optical nerves, but he’s pretty sure he sees...
Wait, parked there, in the street. That’s not an ambulance, is it?
Wait. Wait.
His mind flits to the injuries he’s somehow managed to forget about between his discovering them and now, and it’s only as the paramedics guide him onto the stretcher that he realizes that he’s probably in shock.
Oh.