Chapter Text
<d3rlord3> Avery I need you to leave
<d3rlord3> Now
Avery stares at his screen. At d3rlord, at the platform, at the stupid eyes surrounding them. His fingers are typing before he even has time to think of what to say.
<TheMostMayo> I’m not leaving until you talk to me
<TheMostMayo> What is this?
<d3rlord3> I’m not talking.
<d3rlord3> You need to leave the game
<d3rlord3> Close Minecraft
<d3rlord3> Close your computer
<d3rlord3> I’ll tell you everything after.
<TheMostMayo> NO
<TheMostMayo> I wont go.
<TheMostMayo> Tell me what’s going on NOW
Avery knows he is being stubborn. He knows d3rlord - Derek - is ten times smarter than him. Out of the two of them, he's the one who'd be able to kill a god. He also knows, deep in his bones, that if he leaves now there probably won’t be an after. Not for Derek, at least; so he has no choice but to be stubborn. He won’t leave, not this time. He’s come this far, all to find Derek, to save him - he won’t fail now. Not now.
<d3rlord3> I will afterwards.
Avery almost growls at his screen. He is tired, he is angry, he is missing 12 hours to a foggy, dissociative episode and he is stubborn. He came to save Derek, and he won't leave until he succeeds.
Avery’s pinkie clicks the caps lock.
<TheMostMayo> I DON'T BELIEVE YOU
<TheMostMayo> I'M NOT GOING UNTIL YOU TELL ME WHAT'S GOING ON
<TheMostMayo> WHAT IS THIS PLACE
<TheMostMayo> WHAT ARE YOU DOING
Derek seems to hesitate. Good. Maybe he’s getting through-
<d3rlord3> Avery
<d3rlord3> I’m not asking.
<d3rlord3> If you don’t leave, I’ll kill you.
Avery almost laughs as Derek pulls out his wooden axe. Fucking ridiculous.
Avery scrolls to his sword.
<TheMostMayo> WILL YOU?
<TheMostMayo> WELL, I’LL KILL YOU FIRST
<TheMostMayo> TELL ME WHAT’S GOING ON!
<d3rlord3> Avery.
<d3rlord3> The only way to stop this thing is to have it merge with someone who’s mind is already gone.
<d3rlord3> If I force it to enter my mind
<d3rlord3> as it deteriorates
<d3rlord3> it’ll go down with me.
<d3rlord3> It’ll be trapped.
<d3rlord3> Okay?
<d3rlord3> We will win
<d3rlord3> But I need you to leave or it won’t work.
It’s finally an answer, but Avery doesn’t like it. It sounds self-sacrificing. It sounds too final - he refuses to accept it. No. Not okay. Not okay at all, actually!! This can’t be their only option, because this - this is -
<TheMostMayo> And what’ll happen to you?
The pause Derek takes to answer is too damn long.
<d3rlord3> I don’t know.
That makes Avery angry. Isn’t his whole thing knowing? He saw the whatever was behind the door- not the golden block Avery got, whatever he censored out because it dumped all the knowledge of the world into him like a horrible, golden USB. He can’t look away from his damn screen because of all of the knowing, so, no, Avery can't accept that answer - he won't.
<TheMostMayo> Don’t lie to me!
Derek pushes forward, hitting him with his axe. Avery barely takes a heart of damage. The axe breaks.
‘Leave or I’ll kill you.’ Sure.
<d3rlord3> I DON’T KNOW
<d3rlord3> My mind is GONE anyway
<d3rlord3> Soon I probably won’t be able to think at all!
<d3rlord3> If you stay, it’ll merge with you too
<d3rlord3> That’s EXACTLY what it wants
<d3rlord3> It’ll be free in the physical world DO YOU WANT THAT
Avery taps D, his mind buffering. Derek’s avatar is staring at him through the screen, the roman helmet and the void beneath it.
Saving Derek means dooming the world. Saving the world means dooming Derek.
The choice isn’t as hard as it probably should be. Still, he types slow.
<TheMostMayo> I don’t care
<TheMostMayo> I’m not letting you do this
<TheMostMayo> There has to be another way
<TheMostMayo> Not this one
They’ll find something else. He can still save Derek. He can still-
<d3rlord3> We don’t have time, Avery!
<TheMostMayo> YES WE DO
He remembers, somewhere in the back of his mind, that there are 5 stages of grief. That bargaining is the second - or maybe the third? It’s in there somewhere. So is anger.
<TheMostMayo> Please, there has to be another way!
<d3rlord3> Avery
It’s almost endearing, the way Derek says his name before saying anything else. Avery can almost convince himself that Derek just wants an excuse to say it. Or maybe he's trying to calm him like one would calm a wild animal - with a hand held out, palm up.
It allows Avery to cut him off mid-thought, which is convenient.
<TheMostMayo> I'M NOT LETTING YOU DIE FOR ME
<d3rlord3> AVERY IF YOU DON’T GO WE’LL BOTH DIE
Avery pauses. He backs away from Derek, where they had been virtually standing face-to-face. He looks at him, head to toe. He sees the eyes floating behind him, un-speaking, all-seeing. He opens the chatbox. His fingers don’t move.
<d3rlord3> Where did you get your laptop?
The question is so out of left field, Avery falters.
<TheMostMayo> What?
<d3rlord3> Where did you get your laptop, Avery?
<TheMostMayo> A storage locker?
<TheMostMayo> I don’t see how this is relevant.
<d3rlord3> What kind of laptop?
TheMostMayo> Derek, I don’t think this is important right now.
<d3rlord3> It’s an Asus, right?
<d3rlord3> And it has a spot on the screen with dead pixels?
<d3rlord3> And the tab button wiggles a little too much?
Avery blinks at the screen. His eyes find the dead pixels on the top right of his screen. His pinkie finds the tab button and wiggles it.
<TheMostMayo> How-?
<d3rlord3> That’s my laptop, Avery.
<d3rlord3>You have my world, on my laptop.
<d3rlord3>It’s my fault you’re wrapped up in all of this.
Avery shakes his head. No, that’s not possible, that’s not-
<TheMostMayo> How do I have your laptop?
<TheMostMayo> That doesn’t make any sense.
<d3rlord3>None of this has made any sense, Avery!
<d3rlord3> I know I’ve lost track of time, but I know it’s not new year yet
<d3rlord3> it was September
<d3rlord3>You’re in the future, Avery
<d3rlord3>I’m in your past.
Out of anything that has happened in the past day, that’s the craziest thing yet. Time travel? Laptop-connected time travel?? I mean, come on!
But… the more he thinks about it, it (reluctantly) makes sense. The laptop came to him with Minecraft already installed and this world already existing. This cursed world must have traveled with it, and it was just bad luck that he got it and not some other schmuck. But if Derek is in the past, if what happened to him already happened - how will Avery save him? It can't all have been for nothing, there has to still be a way-
<d3rlord3> You can’t save me, Avery.
<d3rlord3> At least let me save you.
<d3rlord3> Please
Avery feels like he was stabbed in the heart. How could he agree to this? How could he just - give up on Derek? After all this time??
<TheMostMayo> How long have you known?
<d3rlord3> From the beginning
<d3rlord3> Not that we would end up here
<d3rlord3> but… Well
<d3rlord3> I knew you had my laptop.
<d3rlord3> Knowledge of everything that was, is, and will be, remember?
Avery shakes his head, blinking back tears. No, that’s not- It can’t be.
Is it hopeless?
<d3rlord3> You may not even remember me when you’re out of here
<d3rlord3> Who knows how this place works.
It’s not the comfort he knows Derek wants it to be. Not remembering Derek at all, not having this time with him to look back on, is far worse than knowing he failed.
<TheMostMayo> Even if I don’t, my recording will.
<d3rlord3> That’ll do
<d3rlord3> Now go, Avery.
Avery runs a had through his hair. He knows he has to leave - has to disconnect, leave Derek to his fate, because there's nothing he can do to change it and there never was. But he can’t just… go. Not after all this time.
<TheMostMayo> No.
<TheMostMayo> I’m staying by your side, Derek
<TheMostMayo> no matter what you say
<TheMostMayo> If we’re doing this, we’re doing it together
<TheMostMayo> I don’t care.
It’s not the truth, in a cosmic sense. Avery doesn’t need to have the Knowledge of Everything seared into his head to know that. But it is the truth in the way that Avery means it. He won’t abandon Derek, he refuses to. Even when he knows it’s hopeless, even when it will doom the entire world, he will choose to stand by Derek’s side.
<d3rlord3> You’re staying
<TheMostMayo> Yes.
He hopes Derek understands. He probably does. He knows Avery, by way of knowing everything, so he’ll know what he means.
Avery is just sad he never got to know Derek back.
Avery lets himself be walked backwards, towards the edge of the platform.
<d3rlord3> You won’t leave?
Even for someone who knows everything, who knows how this will end, because they both do now - Avery has to imagine it would be comforting to know he wouldn’t be alone, in these last moments. At least, not if he didn’t have to be.
<TheMostMayo> No.
<d3rlord3> Avery, what’s in your inventory?
He has to laugh. A wet, choked, half-sob - because of course. Derek doesn’t want to let Avery see this, a betrayal, defying what Avery wants - he feels a bit like Old Yeller, or maybe the big guy at the end of 'Of Mice And Men' - and quickly puts that thought away. He’s crying enough.
He opens the chatbox to tell Derek that he’s stupid, they should say goodbye like normal people, that he will miss him - but he’s punched off the side of the platform before he can say anything. His fingers scramble to try and keep him on solid ground, to get just one more moment - but the inputs just appear in the chatbox.
<TheMostMayo> ?>wdaswadd
<TheMostMayo> WAIT
<d3rlord3> Until next time friend
And then it's over. He is falling, and falling, and falling, and eventually he manages to make himself exit the world and close the game. He sits, staring at his screen, his heart settled low in his stomach. He glances to his other monitor - a shitty old thing he found at a thrift store - to stop his recording, and with a broken sob realizes he never re-started it after the library.
His last hour - hour and a half? - with Derek.
Gone.
He stares at the last frame of his recording, his hand finding his forehead - he had passed out, hitting his head on the wood of the desk, and it still stung a bit.
Avery’s brows furrow. The library… Derek had sent that weird message. He thumbs through the timeline until he finds it, his eyes skimming over the discordant numbers and letters.
Maybe a code? A cipher? Derek was good at those, did he want Avery to solve it? But it's far too random for that.. Maybe a link? It’s too long for YouTube or Imgur, and before… Well, Derek had done this before, hadn't he?
Avery opens Firefox, navigating to his Google Drive quickly. He types in the string of characters into the URL bar, double and triple checking to make sure he gets it right.
Miraculously, it works. There’s a video and a document, obviously from Derek. He clicks into the video first, skipping through Derek’s version of events. If he didn’t already believe there were some time shenanigans going on, he would now - the recording seems to pick up not long after Derek’s previous account, and yet Avery shows up in the library. Months later for him, a matter of hours for Derek. Even the 12 hours Avery spent in that creepy church (which Derek is, frustratingly, wholly unaffected by. Because of course) seem to be skipped over for Derek. Unfair.
God, he’s had this computer since Halloween. The realization hits him like a truck. Derek had said it was September when he first saw the King, so he has likely been dead-
Avery has to take a breath to clear his mind of the thought, clicking through to the end of the recording and watching the conversation unfold - the same conversation he just had, not 10 minutes ago.
Not nearly enough time to upload this, his mind whispers. One more piece of evidence for the 'freaky time shenanigans' bucket.
He watches what happens after he falls off the edge. He watches the eye disintegrate as Derek berates it for its idiocy, and Avery has to laugh. He watches as Derek looks at himself in third person, opens the chatbox, and closes it, and tamps down the disappointment. A part of him was hoping for some final words, just for him. Something more than an until next time. The recording stops, and Avery is left staring at a blank screen.
Selfishly, he’s happy he has the recording. There’s no chance he could ever forget Derek; not with the evidence living on his hard drive.
The second file is a document, with a YouTube link to a recording of Derek typing in a document.
Avery, once again, has to laugh.
He’s starting to wonder if Derek is trying to making him laugh on purpose.
He barely makes it through the end of the note and has to pause multiple times to quiet his sobs. Knowing the fate Derek, his friend, faced while he gets to simply walk away from the whole thing unscathed - it’s unfair. Avery did fail - he wanted to believe he had failed, because then he would hold some blame and it wasn't just bad luck. It was worse if there was nothing he could have done, if this was how it was always going to end. There had to have been some point to it all!!
But of course there was a point. Of course it meant something, how could it not? He met Derek. For one brief, beautiful day, he met d3rlord and they fought against this stupid king and they won. they saved the world together, and that had to count for something.
Whatever you do at the crossroads. Keep moving forward.
Derek's last words, spoken directly to him. Keep moving forward. He could do that.
Keep moving forward. Avery closes the lid of his computer. His monitor goes dark. The sun is just rising, the gray light seeping in through the windows, and he can hear birds waking up outside. His eyes are dry and itchy from playing Minecraft for nearly 20 hours, and the crying isn’t helping.
Keep moving forward. He stands from his desk and hobbles to the kitchen, shoving two peanut butter sandwiches into his mouth as quick as humanly possible.
Keep moving forward. He grabs a change of clothes and rinses off the grime of the last day, pulling on sweatpants and the softest hoodie he owns.
Avery collapses into bed. Happy fuckin’ new year, he thinks.
In the moments before he passes out, he promises to make his life worth saving. Derek died to make sure he, and the entire world, lived, so the least he can do is appreciate it.
He did have one regret, he realizes, as he tucks his blanket under his chin.
He never knew what Derek looked like. Or what he sounded like. Or what his favorite color was, or his favorite food. Derek probably knew those things about Avery, if he bothered to think about him when he had the beginning and ending of everything in his head.
But Avery never got to know him.
Willing himself to stay awake, he grabs his phone. Ignores the Snapchat notifications from his friends at parties and bars. He opens google; types “Derek,” then realizes how silly that his. He tries “d3rlord3,” but all that brings up is his own video from 2 months ago and the meager Reddit threads it spawned.
He realized, not for the first time, he knew… nothing. He had never even heard Derek’s voice, and now he never would. If he wanted to find anything about him, he would have no idea where to even start.
Fresh tears pooled in Avery’s eyes as he shuts his phone off, dropping it onto the bed. He takes a shaky breath, burying his face in his pillow.
He drifts off, with a half-baked plan forming in his mind. He'll hire a private investigator, he thinks. Derek has to be local, seeing as his laptop was in a local storage locker - he'll look through news articles and school yearbooks while the PI finds the information connected to his Minecraft account.
Even if he'll never meet d3rlord3, he can learn about him in whatever way he can. He needs to, for his sake.
He dreams of a Roman soldier, with a helmet shading his face. Every time he tries to take the helmet off, he's met with a floating, yellow eye, and a push backwards off a floating platform. He lands at a crossroads of deepslate. He goes left every time, through the tall yellow doors, back to the platform.
Keep moving forward, he whispers.