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Avery squints, his fuzzy consciousness slowly coming to him. A cold, stiff mass shifts beneath him. He mumbles sleepily, slowly realizing his surroundings. He’s resting half on top of D3rlord’s chest, his chin resting on his sternum with an arm wrapped around his side. Even in his half-awake daze, he can recognize D3rlord’s routine. He’s woken up ridiculously early. Not willingly, of course. D3rlord’s told him he wishes he could just sleep, but even in the peace Avery has brought him, a primal fear still controls him.
“…D3r,” Avery whispers against D3rlord’s linen shirt, “…go back to bed.”
D3rlord blinks. He tries to push past the thousands of possibilities and different strands of information clouding his processes to focus on the current moment. He almost feels flustered to be caught in a personal, raw moment. His routine, that’s slowly been peeled back to show its ugly underbelly the closer he’s grown to Avery.
“Avery,” is all he can muster, “I didn’t mean to wake you.”
He tries to silence his thoughts for the time being. Unfortunately, the noise still occasionally pokes through, like how it keeps reminding him casually Avery smothers him (D3rlord doesn’t want to call it cuddling, even though that’s what it is.) despite the lack of relationship between them. He tells himself it’s for warmth, although Avery simply started doing it one night and he never stopped him. He knows why, but he tries hard not to think about Avery’s motivations, otherwise he might go down yet another internal rabbit hole and totally snap.
Avery whispers tired jargon to nobody in particular before gathering together a coherent string of words.
“…It’s too early, dude…”
“Yes,” D3rlord says passively, “it is 5:15 A.M.”
Avery huffs, breath lingering on something of a sleepy laugh at D3rlord’s bluntness. Against his desires, he unfortunately feels himself steadily begin to wake, and he slowly opens his eyes. He blinks, trying his best to interpret what lies in front of him in the dimly lit cottage.
His face warms.
Right.
He realizes where he is, a bit too acutely, as he feels his body pressing against D3rlord’s. He feels the way the patches of poorly-kept feathers fray beneath his fingers, he feels the way D3rlord’s tension eases beneath his warmth, and most importantly, he feels D3rlord’s mutual stare. His uncovered, raw stare that lacks its usual golden helmet.
Avery says nothing as he awkwardly shuffles off of him.
“Whatever. I’m not that tired anymore, so…” he mumbles, “do your little thing,” he waves his hands with a defeated smile as he scoots to sit on the edge of the bed.
D3rlord looks over, face half-buried in his pillow. He stares at Avery for a moment, contemplating a defense.
“It’s not my… ‘little thing.’”
Avery chuckles, turning over his shoulder to look at D3rlord, who now rests on his elbows.
“I’m making sure you’re safe—“
D3rlord pauses.
“—We’re safe.”
Avery shakes his head.
“You’re always like that. You still wont tell me why, either,” he hums.
D3rlord says nothing, feeling guilty. He reminds himself he can’t keep lying to Avery about his issues. However, for now, he simply wants to enjoy the slow morning with his friend.
“Sorry. We can go back to bed,” he says, changing the topic.
Avery shifts to face D3rlord on the comically small bed, crossing his legs.
“Some more sleep doesn’t sound bad…” he rests his chin on his hands, “…but, still. I feel like I’ve been super patient with you. Can you not entertain me just a little bit?”
D3rlord swallows, the words catching in his throat.
“I don’t mean to be… uh, a downer, or anything, but I’ve basically gone on this whole journey with you on an untold promise. Not that it hasn’t been totally groovy!”
Groovy? Seriously? Avery blinks. Yeah. Great job trying to do damage control.
“…I don’t know, Avery,” D3rlord says, his usually neutral voice dipping eerily low. Almost shaky, even.
“Why? Please! I promise I won’t judge! I know it might be unusual, but, I can’t just say nothing anymore.”
Avery scoots closer to D3rlord.
“The mine, the book… it doesn’t just mean nothing.”
D3rlord’s eyes widen.
“Does it?”
D3rlord sits up in bed, running a hand through his deep black braids. Avery is taken aback by the sudden switch in character, but says nothing. It’s the type of thing D3rlord only does when he’s noticed Avery is in danger, or when the world seems… wrong. When a detail is out of place, or something feels it shouldn’t be there.
“I don’t even know where to begin,” he mutters, resting a finger on his lip.
“Something is wrong with this world,” he says simply, like stating a fact of life.
Avery blinks. There’s been a few times where a simple walk down a path seemed longer than usual, or when the stars seemed to stare at him, but Avery always shrugged it off. He’s grown used to weird things after spending so much time alone. He felt it just kept him on his toes, but maybe D3rlord was right.
It isn’t normal.
“Well, yeah. There’s… plenty of weird things,” Avery smiles sheepishly.
D3rlord glances to Avery for a moment before returning to stare at something that isn’t there, eyes focused on nothing.
“I thought that too. I was curious about it. Far too curious for my own good,” he leans forward a little, voice weakening from a sudden wave of unrelated knowledge hitting him, “…I thought of myself as intelligent.”
D3rlord shakes his head, which begins to throb. No use being sentimental over things passed. He should get to the point.
“It led me somewhere I never should have been,” he mumbles.
Avery tilts his head.
“Led you to…?”
“Something else’s domain. At the crossroads. I don’t know. I…” D3rlord’s gaze softens, “…It was silent, but spoke a million words. I felt everything and nothing. I lived. I died. I suddenly gained knowledge no being could ever handle.”
D3rlord pauses.
“…It felt that way, anyway. I’m more surprised I didn’t die. I thought my head was going to explode.”
An unsteady silence follows, as if neither of them know what to say next.
“Then, I felt it. Like a breeze, passing me by. I knew you’d come…” his voice weakens, “…and in a futile attempt to express any remaining humanity, I wanted to warn you.”
Another pause.
“Soon we met. Out of fear, I took things into my own hands… and, you listened.”
“Why?”
Avery shifts.
“I don’t know.”
Their shoulders nearly touch now. Avery looks at D3rlord, but their eyes don’t meet. He hesitates, unsure of how to comfort him.
“I guess I had nothing to lose.”
D3rlord glances over, but he can’t bring himself to hold eye contact for long. He squints, trying to ignore both the tenseness of the moment and his splitting headache.
“I don’t regret it, if you’re worried I think it’s… weird,” Avery mumbles.
“I’m not,” D3rlord says quietly, “and I know you have questions.”
Avery blinks. He can see the sheen from beads of sweat on D3rlord’s forehead.
“Well. We can—uh, we could talk about it later? Maybe sleep a little more first?” he puts a hand on D3rlord’s shoulder. “A good nap always helps my brain.”
“I’m not tired,” D3rlord replies shortly.
“Can we not lay down at least?” Avery frowns dramatically.
D3rlord sits in contemplation for a moment.
“Okay.”
He flops backwards onto the rickety mattress, curling up to make room for Avery. Avery haphazardly positions himself to lay next to D3rlord as casually as possible, but they still end up with their arms touching.
…
Avery looks over.
So does D3rlord.
“Sorry for wasting the wool on other stuff,” Avery mumbles, “when we could’ve… built another bed.”
“It’s alright.”
D3rlord looks up at the ceiling.
“It’s better than what it used to be.”
Avery nods, shuddering a little at far too recent memories of camping out in caves or building tiny huts to last one night because D3rlord was too scared to sleep in pre-existing, abandoned villages (for some reason. Avery needs to ask about that later too.). He smiles, subconsciously moving closer.
“Yeah,” he hums.
He finds himself drawn to D3rlord’s naturally cold body, a calming contrast to his own internal temperature. He absentmindedly reaches a hand up to get a better hold on D3rlord, eyes fluttering shut. D3rlord freezes up for a moment, but he doesn’t feel uncomfortable. Admittedly, the motion is somewhat jittery, but he slowly moves to hold Avery closer. Avery tiredly leans into the motion, humming something under his breath.
D3rlord puts his other hand over his face in shame, at a loss for words with himself.
He knows he’s craved some sort of comfort ever since he frantically stumbled out of that cave. Something to anchor himself to in the endless onslaught of his own mind. He just can’t believe this is how it’s reached him. A part of him tells him he doesn’t deserve it. That he should leave Avery be, to let him enjoy what’s left of his bliss in peace, but it’s an insecure lie. Just like him, Avery has gone through plenty, and he reaches for D3rlord regardless of how far he pushes himself away.
He finds himself running his hand over Avery’s head, fingers brushing his antennae. Avery shifts slightly, but is basically knocked out on top of him. D3rlord feels a weak smile barely tug at his lips.
Maybe he will get some sleep tonight.