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And then Derek woke up.
He felt like he'd chugged a litre of 80 proof Vodka, sure, but he was awake, and his face had ended up smushed into his laptop's keyboard. The computer was off.
His computer was off, and while his head did feel like it was still half-open, Derek was alive and he could actually think. Before... no, nothing could ever be comparable to the agony that was looking away from the screen, not even this ear-splitting headache.
Derek was alive. He wasn't looking at the screen. He wasn't playing Minecraft. And he could think.
There was also the whole thing of his thoughts being a jumbled mess, but his brain wasn't struggling to process all the memories anymore. They weren't coming to mind, but Derek just... knew things. Knew things he knew he could not otherwise know.
Throwing up in the bathroom was almost nice for a change. There was a knock at his door.
Right, RA checks, shit.
"I'm dying, go away," he muttered. Ophelia wouldn't have heard him, though, his voice was more of a croak than anything. After an incident last year when a student in the single dorms had killed themself and only been found when their body started to decompose, everyone had to get checked up on at least once a week. If they weren't going to be in then they had to text the RA. It was simple.
"Derek? You in there man?" she called, and knocked again. "You didn't say you were going out and I know you're too cheap for the bars dude. Could you give me a sign of life?" His body responded by throwing up again. "I'm coming in man, you don't sound good."
And now she'd see the absolute mess that his room had become over the previous few weeks. Lovely. He heard the door open, but he couldn't move his head from the porcelain, it felt too heavy and the white porcelain was so cold against his sweaty skin. A soft hand rested on Derek's shoulder, and he didn't even have the energy to flinch away. "C'mon man. Let's get you into bed. Drink too hard eh?"
"Avery..." he just muttered, tears in his eyes.
"Don't tell me you got into a relationship, told nobody and are now sulking over your ex-girlfriend breaking up with you," Ophelia just let out a sigh, grabbing a bucket that Derek kept under his sink. "Right, bed, and don't you dare go drinking anymore. I'll grab you some Tylenol and water, and you need to rest."
Right. Ophelia didn't know. So Derek let himself float, being helped back into his bed, slowly drinking some water and struggled to swallow the Tylenol. He did it, though, and before she left, the woman spoke.
"I'll send someone by in a few hours, alright? Just text me if you need anything. Try to shower when you wake up?"
He didn't sleep well, but he did fall asleep for maybe an hour or so. The headache was still there, but ever so slightly less bad. Less bad enough for Derek to immediately grab his phone and start dialing a number. International call charges be damned, Derek would pay them, he couldn't quite care that his friend was in the States at the moment.
The number picked up on the final ring, just when he had begun to lose hope. "Avery. I need- Avery, I'm okay. I'm alive. I-"
"This is Avery's brother, he's still asleep. Do you want me to wake him up?"
"Please- I need to talk to Avery. He doesn't- he must think I'm dead-"
"Alright, alright, but he's a right ass when he gets woken up early."
And the phone got handed to an annoyed and exhausted sounding man. The same voice he knew, that he had heard from the voice chat mod. "Look Matt, if that's you-"
"Avery. I'm alive. I lived- I don't know how but I lived and-"
"Derek? Dude- what ha- how... how's your head doing?" It sounded like Avery was trying to not cry, his voice unsteady and shaky, and he was clearly trying to calm himself.
"I can think. It hurts- but I'm not- I'm in bed. I'm not looking at the screen. I can look away from it. I'm- I'm alive. I can- it's not all coming at me at once but I still know. I just- I just knew your number. I know where you're from. Who your brother is. Who your whole family is. Everything about your life. Before you were born. But- but everything after today is blank- I- I need to throw up again, hold on-"
He couldn't hear Avery as he dropped the phone on the bedside table, retching into the bucket. Thank fuck for Ophelia being competent and as nice as she was, really. "Okay- okay, I'm back now. I- Avery, you still there?"
"Yeah. Where are you? I'm looking at flights, you never told me what state you lived in," there was the sound of quick typing from the other end.
"I'm not in the USA, I'm in Canada, Montreal- do you even have the money to be flying?"
"I live at home and have spent the last 6 months working. I've got money, don't worry about that."
"Right. Right. I should know that. I- I do know that. Fuck- my head. I'm- I need to lie back down, I'll put you on speaker."
"Maybe you should get some sleep? I'll be listening. Where do you live?"
"I'm in dorms, Concordia University dorms, uh... dorm building B. It'll show up on Google Maps. Room 208."
"I may have to run to the airport actually, but I'll keep you on the phone for as long as possible. But- but how are you alive? I don't- it doesn't make sense Der- Derek."
"I don't know. Maybe my brain killed the stupid king before it could kill me. I don't know- what I do know is that I feel like complete death and want to just sleep forever though. Maybe the overload of information was somehow too much for it? Or my head too fucked up?"
"Eh, less fucked up than the king's. Maybe it compounded on it's fucked mind."
He laughed quietly, making his head pound further. "Maybe."
There was a knock on his door. It was Peter's voice that he heard. "Derek, you alive in there? Ophelia told me you were lookin' half dead."
"I'm okay, tryin' to sleep," he slurred slightly. "Got a friend on call with me."
"If you ever need to be taken to the hospital let us know man."
"I will."
He wouldn't. Anyone who had known Derek for more than a few minutes knew that.
It was nearing the evening when there was another knock on his door. Avery had to end his call a few hours before, and Derek had been drifting in and out of sleep ever since. He knew he should get up and have some food, but his limbs felt so heavy and he had no energy to do so. At worst Ophelia or Peter would grab one of his frozen meals and force feed it to him later.
"Oi, dumbass, I think your ex is here or something. At least, there's an Avery looking for a Derek Hutchins' and we've only got one of 'em here. The front desk is annoyed, alright? And she's supposed to be ending her shift in a half an hour."
"I-" Derek pushed himself up, ignoring the renewed pain in his head, and frantically grabbed his phone. Ignoring how he looked, how awful and sick he felt, he left the room, almost running past Peter and over to the stairs. It was just one flight, but running down them took more out of him than he had expected. Derek did not stop though. He kept going. Kept walking to the reception area.
"Look, sir, I understand that you are looking for your friend but I cannot disclose-"
"Avery, oh my God I didn't think you'd get in until tomorrow," he spoke, voice hoarse and throat dry, coughing as he opened the locked front door for the man.
"What are you doing up- Derek you're going to fall-" and as he stumbled, just as Avery said he would, the man grabbed him by the arms.
Perhaps Derek hadn't quite expected a Minecraft player to be so strong, but well, it was a surprise when he was almost fully supported upright by the man. Some brown hair fell in front of Avery's face, covering some of his features, his eyes not quite so easy to see now. But it was long, mostly tied back, either badly tied so or time had simply not been kind to the ponytail that was trying to keep it at bay.
And while Derek was absolutely delirious, felt like he was dying and his body was trying to give up on itself, he grabbed Avery by the shoulder, grip as strong as he could muster and did something that perhaps he really, really shouldn't have done.
Like. Really shouldn't have done.
The kiss was not a good one. It was bad. Really bad, actually, but when you only have the strength of a dying man, it isn't the easiest thing to do without being completely dropped. "I'm sorry- I'm so sorry-"
"Okay, right- you need to sleep. You're delirious-"
"I'm not- I love you Avery- I'm sorry-"
"Oh he's delirious alright," Ophelia muttered, holding what looked to be a cup of tea, having just come from the kitchens. "I thought you were his ex or something that he was sulking over."
"We're friends- were? I- future problem, right now I need to be pointed in the direction of this idiot's room so he doesn't end up passing out on the floor."
And maybe it was the way that his head ached, but Derek giggled, an unfamiliar thing for him. "You called me smart. A genius, not an idiot."
Peter had just come down the stairs, having walked at a leisurely pace. "Wow he's out of it. We really should call an ambulance shouldn't we? I mean, he's been like this all day. Might be having a stroke. Or brain bleed. An infection could cause the delirium."
"No he's not," and Avery was having to lie through his teeth, Derek could tell as he continued. "The idiot got sick and then didn't tell anyone, proceeded to not take care of himself and then stared at a screen for like 3 days straight without sleeping and then drank a bunch on top of it. He is sick. He needs rest. But he'll be fine."
"And you know this," Peter paused, trying to comprehend it, "how exactly?"
"Because he was playing Minecraft for almost the entirety of the 3 days on a server and I checked the logs. He never stopped doing something for more than an hour." It was a stretch to the truth, but it was plausible. "I think the alcohol finally knocked him out."
"'m never playing Minecraft again..." Derek murmured. That was a lie. He was going to get back on after his finals had ended and then play for two weeks straight and he knew it. Maybe this time Avery would be playing with him properly, though.
"You said that 6 months ago after the last finals we had, Derek," Ophelia pointed out, just shaking her head and sighed again. She had been doing that a lot these days. "Right, let's get him to the elevator."