Chapter Text
The cursor blinked at the end of the letter.
On. Off. On. Off. On. Off.
Derek stared at it like it might blink back. It didn’t feel real. None of it did. The words on the screen looked like someone else had written them; like they had just found them there, already typed, already finished, already sealing something he wasn’t ready to close.
Whatever you do at the crossroads. Keep going forward.
He had other things to focus on though. His head - god, his head - it hurt. ‘Hurt’ was an understatement. It was everything at once, like his thoughts were splintaring, like his body was shutting down piece by piece and he could feel all of it. He knew what was happening, every thought he was going to think, then what would happen after. Wow. Having infinite knowleadge wasn’t the best thing in the world, apparently. Even if he got answers to all the questions he had every had, it hurt. He knew everyone, and everything that would happen to them.
One person in Spain had been hit by a car 8 minutes ago, another person in Australia was buying a dog, a group of people in Germany were going to book an escape room, another one in Ireland had just gone through a breakup- no.
They had to stop focusing on his thoughts.
They had to stop thinking.
Thinking hurt too much.
So he drew his attention elsewhere.
He needed air.
Needed space.
Needed something that wasn’t this.
The window.
The fireworks.
He pushed himself up from the chair, and stumbled toward the window. The cold glass pressed against his palm as he leaned on it, grounding himself. It didn’t help. Nothing ever did.
This was a better way to go out then what he had planned anyway. Quicker. More peaceful. A lot more painful, yes, but still better hen being hooked up to wires with doctors soorunding instead of family while a stupid lung disease slowly murders you. What family anyway? They had no family. If there were dead to them, they were dead to them. Simple trrade.
Outside, the sky lit up.
New Year’s.
A bright burst of gold scattered across the dark, followed by another—blue this time, then red. They bloomed and disappeared just as quickly, like they were never there at all.
“…Huh.”
He watched them, eyes unfocused but trying. His soft Canadian voice was loud in the dead silent room, the only voice he had heard in a few days besides Averys chat messages-
No.
DON’T think about Avery.
It will make things more painful.
Focus in the fireworks,
They used to love fireworks. When there were a kid, they’d drag their parents outside, pointing up at the sky like it was the most magical thing in the world. Back then, everything felt bigger. Brighter. Like there was always more time.
Another explosion echoed, softer this time.
Their head hurt.
Way worse then normal.
They sucked in a sharp breath, gripping the windowsill.
“Okay… okay…” they said it through gritted teeth.
The fireworks blurred. The colors smeared together, streaking across his vision.
They turned, trying to take a step back toward his desk—toward something—but their legs gave out before they got far.
The floor hit him harder than he expected. Well, maybe because he hit his head on his gaming chair on the way down, or because of the amount of excruicieting pain he was in.
He lay there, unable to think of anything but the pain in his head. It was the most pain he’d ever been in, but he also felt calm in a sense. Peace. He knew he was gonna die from 3 years ago when he got his diagnosis, so he was happy about the life he lived. But the pain overpowered that soon enough.
His gaze drifted upward.
The ceiling.
And there it was.
The Minecraft poster.
A crooked little thing, slightly peeling at one corner, something he’d had for years. Blocky landscapes, pixelated sky, something so simple and so familiar.
He laughed. Then his vision went blurry as tears started to form. He just let them fall.
The last thing he heard was the bang of a firework, the stream of light that carried him away from the world. And his vision went black.
———————————————
Avery couldn’t stop reading it.
The letter sat open on his screen, the words burned into his mind at this point, but he kept going back anyway. Line after line, over and over, like if he read it enough times it would change.
It didn’t.
‘We stumbled into a world we have no business in. This is just the cost.’
He was in scilence. Avery was still here, staring at a message that felt too final for someone he had only just met.
He needed something to do. He needed something to destract himslef from the sick feeling he had of reading a man’s final words.
Avery turned toward the window, watching as another firework lit up the sky. Bright. Loud. Temporary.
He swallowed hard.
“Happy New Year…”
He climbed into bed, pulling the blanket over himself like it might hold him together. The fireworks kept going, popping and echoing in the distance, but they sounded muffled now, like they were happening in another world entirely.
He focused on them anyway.
Something real. Something outside his head.
But it didn’t last.
The tears came fast, even though he tried holding it together. He just cried and cried.
It didn’t make sense, crying like this over someone he had just met, someone he’d only known through a screen, but that didn’t stop it.
Because it wasn’t about time.
It was about connection.
Because, as he realised, Derlord - Derek was. A person. He had dreams, feelings, goals, just like Avery had. And to think of the amont of pain he must have been in, god, it just made him cry harder. He didn’t know where Derek was, but wherever he might’ve been, he knew he was dead. All that Avery could hope for now was that Derek’s family would find him and give him a proper burial.
Avery curled in on himself, gripping the edge of the blanket as the fireworks continued without him, bright and careless and loud.
They faded into background noise.
”Happy New Year, Derek…” he said it into the darkness, which only made him sob harder.
——————————
And somewhere, off in the distant past, Derlord would have said it back to Avery