a thousand suns {Panic}

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Yogurt was good. Sunny enjoyed cooking with it. She could make all sorts of odd things...parfaits, frozen yogurt, there was even a yogurt frosting that could go on cakes, and then, you could always cover raisins and pretty much any other fruit with yogurt and it would taste pretty good. Today, she was making a yogurt-covered pound cake, and it was looking quite tasty if she did say so herself. She had already put the two layers of the cake on top of one another, separated by a thin layer of the sugary yogurt frosting she'd made, and was in the process of spreading a generous covering of it over the top of the cake.

Sunny liked it in here, in this little classroom where few people ever ventured if they weren't absolutely required to by some home economics class. She never left it a mess, so either no one noticed that she came in after hours and used it, or they had noticed and simply didn't care. Either way, she was perfectly content to go on cooking in the quiet of the room; the only thing breaking the silence was the quiet scrape of the rounded knife on the inside of the bowl of frosting, and the occasional hum of thoughtfulness from the girl doing the baking.

"Four and twenty raisins baked in a...cake..." she hummed quietly, trying to think of something that rhymed with 'cake.' She couldn't quite come up with anything off the top of her head, mainly because she was intently focused on the icing of the cake, and eventually gave up before deciding that it was time to decorate the top of the cake.

She spun in a little circle across the kitchen to her bowl of brightly coloured fruit, and came to an abrupt halt when she caught sight of someone else she hadn't even known was in the room.

"Oh!" she exclaimed, and instinctively, she chucked a blueberry at him.

[Panic]

Panic didn’t know where he was going. After a sudden burst of frenzied fear all was forgotten besides getting away as fast as possibly possible. He was sure whatever it was was huge and evil and probably capable of endless amounts of pain and horror and extra pain. In reality he hadn’t been looking were he was going, ran into a wall, assumed if was some wall-like beast, panicked, and raced off in the other direction. So Panic’s day was going just about normal, good even considering that that was his first real phobic attack of the day. If he could just find a dark, secluded place to hide and calm down he might just be able to hold this record for the day and go home feeling slightly less nauseous than normal. Unfortunately, his life had other plans.

He must of morphed into twelve different animals in his desperate attempt to get escape certain doom via hallway wall. He was a mouse when he found his way into one of the Kitchen rooms, generally used for Home Economic classes. He was mildly relived to see that it seemed vacant, though he could do without the bright florescent lights baring down on him. He was scurrying along, looking for a crevice to hide in when he saw it. The giant figure of a monster girl. So immensely socked, Panic lost focus on his shapeshifting a suddenly returned to his form as a pale, teenage boy. His mouth hung open in terror and he stared at her, petrified with fear until, without warning, she noticed him. She exclaimed something that could only sum up a fraction of his horror, and launched a little blue thing at him. He was suddenly sure it was some kind of squishy bullet, designed to look like it could do no harm, but he was so scared that he couldn’t move until, at last, the thing nailed him in the chest. At that moment he experienced such a sudden rush of chemicals to his brain that he literally flinched so violently that he fell over.

After a moment or so, he laid there on the ground, staring blankly up at the ceiling, waiting for the nonexistent pain to set in.

[Deleted]

...Oh, really. Sunny had hardly had time to be terrified of the intruder when he fell over, like he was dead or something, just from the blueberry she'd thrown at him. It was just a blueberry, for heaven's sake. It was a pretty ripe one, too, and couldn't have even hurt that badly. Her confidence bolstered by that line of reasoning, Sunny assumed that he had merely been surprised, and had hit the floor in an attempt to avoid the blueberry, albeit a little late to actually keep himself from getting hit by said fruit.

She set the knife down calmly, and folded her hands behind her back, circling around the counter to come to stand beside the fallen boy. He certainly was taking this whole thing a bit dramatically, wasn't he? Of course, he could still be an agent of Olaf, so she kept up a bit of a wall of her own as she stood over him.

"Blueberry," she explained, as if he might realize he had only been hit by one of the smallest fruits, like that might convince him to sit up and stop having a fit over nothing. She offered him a hand, hoping he wouldn't grab her and throw her into a rucksack or anything horrible - it wouldn't be the first time that had happened to her in her life, oddly enough. He didn't look like an agent of Olaf, mainly because the agents of Olaf were usually crafty and sneaky, and not...afraid of blueberries, because that was just silly. "You're all right," she assured him, although she wasn't so sure about that - maybe he was insane. Physically, though, he ought to be okay.

[Panic]

He could feel her approaching, though he dare not look. He could hear her footsteps on the hard tile floor coming closer and closer, but he dar not move. He was suddenly sure that moving would mean his death. His body tensed, knuckles turning an even ghostlier white than his already pale skin. He tried to remember what this terrible fruit throwing beast looked like, but for the life of him all he could envision was a huge zombie like being with hungry eyes. He wondered if what would happen if it ate him. He couldn't die, would that mean he'd have to spend the rest of forever inside a stomach?! He cringed and he breathing began to come in gasps. His heart beating at a rate that surely would have killed any mortal. It was closer, closer still, The horrid beast that would lock him in its stomach for all eternity. This was it, the end. He stared up at the ceiling, eyes glazed with fear until she stepped over him and into his line of sight.

Oh. Well she didn't look like a zombie....or particularly huge really. She did look kinda hungry, but not in a flesh eating kind of way. She's a little girl as far as Panic could tell. His mind struggled to connect the horror he had felt moments ago to her calm, pretty face. His ice blue eyes shot about, taking in every bit of her to make sure she didn't have claws or spikes or a tail. His head began to hurt as his frenzied body tried to react to such a situation. She spoke then and Panic closed his eyes and convulsed in fear once again, as she had taken him off guard. After a moment or two when she didn't continue and he had actually managed to process what she said, he slowly opened one eye then the other. His mind still reeling, all he could manage was a dazed ...oh.

After a long minute or so his mind finally came to the conclusion that she really wan't some kind of monster, but just a girl, in fact, a pretty girl, to whom he'd just be extremely rude. With another rush of anxiety he jumped to his feet and practically shouted ss-s-Sorry!

[Deleted]

Goodness, he was even more skittish than she was. He didn't even take her hand, just shot up onto his feet like he was possessed or something. What was wrong with him? Maybe he was crazy, like, really crazy, the kind of crazy that got you thrown into medical hospitals. Or maybe, like her, he was afraid because...he had once had something to be afraid of, maybe someone had chased him and threatened horrible things.

"It's all right," she said, shrugging. "Don't worry." She chomped her teeth a couple times. "Only bite food. And leaves. Sometimes."

She held out a hand (again) this time so that he could shake it, since he seemed to have handled getting up all right.

"Sunny," she told him, then pointed at the fruit. "Making a cake, do you want to help?" Cooking was one of the few things in Sunny's life that seemed to be...stable, and not confusing, not...awkward. There were ingredients, and there were directions. Sometimes she made up her own recipes, but whatever the case, she didn't have to worry about explaining why she was using a certain ingredient or why she was going to make a ring of strawberries around the top of the cake...it was her creation, and she could do what she wanted with it.

She looked back at the nervous boy, wondering what exactly he thought of her and the cake she was making.

"It's not...bad, is it?" she asked, worriedly.

[Panic]

It's all right. Panic always found it impossibly astonishing when people said that; that beings outside the Underworld talked like that and actually believed that things are ever "all right." Its hard to believe in anything like that, to hope like these mortals do, once you've heard the dying wail of so many, when know where they all end up. This pretty faced girl, worried about the appearance of her cake, her soul will someday swim with countless others in a sea of sorrowful meaninglessness. Why does she deserve this fate? Why shouldn't she be spared? But she won't be and, maybe, when he is found out and dragged back to the Underworld at last, she'll meet him there just the same a millions of others. Panic suddenly wondered if it was a curse or a blessing to walk above the shadows and among the living after so many years locked away with the dead.

Face shadowed with sadness and his usual fear, he stared at her hand and then at her face, his eyes quickly morphing to match the slightly darker color of hers, but cast his vision to the ground not more than a moment later. It was surprising to see him so quickly decide that this girl was not evil, it would seem his obsession with Della really has done him some good. He didn't understand when she said her name. He figured she was commenting on the weather, which he had not been paying attention enough to notice. He didn't speak, he wasn't exactly fond of sunshine, it was always too bright and left him far too exposed. It was hard to hide in daylight. With his recent bought of woe waning, he felt his anxiety creeping up his back again when she asked him to help with her cake.

Panic had never seen a cake before. He'd seen pictures, so he could identify the pretty thing on the counter as her baking adventure. No one had never asked him to...help with something. He'd been ordered to do things all his life, but he couldn't recall ever being asked, not until until Tintagel at least, or the word 'help' being used. Panic was confused. He wouldn't tell her no of course, she had asked him! and she was so pretty and kind and so much better than him, he wasn't allowed to tell her no, but he'd surely destroy her beautiful creation! His eyes flicked between the cake and her until she spoke again. oh n-no! he blurted involuntarily, covering his mouth immediately following his flub. He had to fix this. I mean! he continued through his fingers I'm I'm sssure--y-your---It's.... he struggled as he trembled. itlooksg-good he finally managed in a rushed whisper, looking paler than ever.

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Sunny had to believe that everything would be all right. If she didn't try to adhere to that frame of mind, she would probably be horribly moody and depressed, or at the very least, extremely paranoid. Enough terrible things had happened in her life that she could have been a sorrowful pessimist if she'd wanted to, but it was much more fun and much less time-consuming to be an optimist. This guy, she thought, had obviously not approached his life with the same conviction. He was clearly either trying to hide something or just afraid of the air itself. That made a little bit of sense, seeing as air could contain poisonous gases, but this was a kitchen. Sunny was cooking in it, and she obviously wasn't dying or wearing a gas mask, so she would have thought he'd realize quickly that the air was okay.

Then he seemed to be on the verge of a breakdown just because she'd asked his opinion on her cake, at which point she decided he just needed to be comforted. She was naturally sympathetic (which she'd had to work at, seeing as she had been given a lot of reason to avoid letting people play her feelings), and she didn't like the way he seemed to be horrified at everything she said or did. He was like a terrified puppy, afraid she was going to hit him on the nose or something.

Sunny reached out, and grabbed his hand impulsively before pulling him into a hug. When she was scared, or worried about things, or just sad, Violet or Klaus had always been there to hug her and tell her everything would work out, and she had the very distressing feeling that this boy didn't have anyone to do that for him. So she took it upon herself.

"Don't worry," she whispered, still hugging him (which was getting more awkward by the second, as hugs tended to do when they were unrequited). "I won't hurt you. Cake either. You can have some." She pulled away and held him at arm's length, nodding enthusiastically.

[Panic]

Panic had his arms pinned tightly to his sides and his fist clenched in painful balls. He was vaguely aware that something rather traumatic had just occurred. Where was he again? Who was he again? How did he get here? It was very possible that he had blacked out for a second. He blinked a few times, his vision still rather blurry and dotted with dark spots. The smell of something sweet reached his nose and he focused on the cake to one side of him. He couldn't move. why couldn't he move? He slowly realized that something had latched themselves around him. His head twitched to see what it was but only managed a mouth full of hair. What sort of beast was this?! What was it doing?! Draining his bodily fluids until he was nothing more than a human prune?! ACK! it was speaking at him?! what was it saying?! he couldn't stop the ringing in his ears long enough to understand. His mind raced until he was nearly hyperventilating until the monster pulled away slightly and instincts kicked in.

He was gone. In his place a little cowering hedgehog, for a moment anyway. Not more than a few seconds passed and he was something else, some type of small deer, hoofed feet struggling to scamper backward on the tiled floor. Another change. Into a sort of frightened monkey, a marmoset maybe, and then a horse that clumsily knocked over pots and pans and it searched for an escape. And it took all this time for Panic to take in Sunny's figure and remember that she was just a pretty, and rather kind, little girl. Oh. Heart still pounding even with this realization, his fragile mind immediately mimicked the thing on his mind, at this very moment, Miss Sunny Baudelaire herself.

He'd stop trying to escape at least and now stood, mouth slightly open, staring with wide eyes and slightly exhausted from his recent spaz attack. Hugs. Hugs never go well with Panic. The first hug he'd ever gotten came from Della and he still found even her hugs slightly uncomfortable. It was just so....confusing and confiding. One couldn't exactly run away when someone had their arms wrapped around you. Plus, it was generally a bad thing if someone was that close to you. Most the time people were aiming to hurt you if they were that close to you and, more importantly, they could. It would probably just best to avoid touching altogether.

[Deleted]

One minute, she was hugging someone who had obviously not been hugged a lot before - if she had to guess, she might say that he'd never experienced a hug at all. That was just tragic, she thought, or would have thought if she hadn't suddenly been hugging a weird deer thing, which slipped out of her grasp easily and skittered across the kitchen while she watched in bewilderment. She'd seen a contortionist before, and she had seen someone who was ambidextrous, and she'd seen all kinds of strange things, but she had never in all her born days seen someone turn themselves right into an animal. Sure, she pretended to be a Sunnynonychus sometimes, but that was different. She didn't actually turn into a dinosaur with claws and scales and such.

There was a flurry of transformation in front of her. She thought she saw a monkey, then she definitely saw a horse, which was bad because horses do not belong in kitchens and it looked like it could have wrecked the place pretty easily before it looked straight at her...and then all of a sudden, she was looking straight at herself.

"What?" she said, baffled. "Not fair!" What was he getting at, pretending to be other people!? Turning into a deer was one thing. Turning into a horse was inconvenient, but if he really wanted to, she supposed that was his prerogative. Turning into her was entirely different, and not at all nice. "Be you!" she said, as if she could compel him to do so just by asking nicely. Her mind was working overtime thinking of all the horrible things someone could do pretending to be her. They could go back and trick Violet and Klaus and make them give money to the person they thought was their little sister.

"Be yourself!" she ordered, again, shaking one little finger at the not-her. "You be yourself right now."

[Panic]

He stared at her as she had her own little freak out, rather less dramatic and definitely less destructive than Panic's, but a freak out still. His lips where parted and his eyes wide, still trying to remember that this was just a little girl in front of him, not some crazed maniac that wanted murder him. Well, at least, he was partially convinced. Perhaps it was her pretty redish brown hair that triggered something in his mind. It held a shade quite similar to Della's. It could never catch the light just the same, but that was it wasn't it? Thats what was about her that lead Panic to believe she was a carnivorous beast. His heart slowed slightly. There was this tiny tiny beautiful spark of hope that had been ignited in him thanks to Miss Miller and this girl with her locks so similar. A hope that maybe....maybe not everyone besides Della wanted him dead.

PAnic flinched at Sunny's last shouted order, her sharp words throwing him out of his deep thought process. He blinked at her, confused, before looking down at his hands and realizing that he had unintentionally disguised himself as her. S-Sorry! he squeaked. His now girlish soft cheeks blushed in embarrassment until his skin faded to their normal grayish-white shade that gave the impression that he was constantly sick, which might as well be true. Himself again. He kept his hands in front of his eyes, forgetting Sunny's presence for a moment and giving his boney useless fingers a disapproving look. Be yourself! she had commanded. Why would anyone want that really? He didn't want that...

[Deleted]

He was a certifiable lunatic, wasn't he? Sunny was genuinely concerned. He was maybe some crazy person escaped from the dungeons of the school, someone they'd put down there maybe a hundred years ago (obviously he wasn't normal), and now he had come up here to exact revenge. Or maybe Olaf had sent him. But he did turn back into himself, which relieved her greatly. Honestly, the idea of looking straight at someone who looked exactly like her had made her skin crawl.

"Thank you," she said, her expression softening. "Are you all right? Why did you do that?" For heaven's sake she'd only been trying to comfort him. Most people enjoyed hugs, especially when they were given at a time when you weren't feeling so well. Hugs were comforting, they were meant to make you feel not-alone when you were scared or sad or angry.

"I wouldn't hurt you," she said, her usual nervousness trumped by her intrigue at his terror. Why would anyone be afraid of her? She couldn't even really bite things with much usefulness anymore. "I was only trying to help. Hurt?"

She looked him over, a little nervously, hoping he wouldn't turn into a giraffe or anything while she was trying to be sure she hadn't squeezed him too hard.