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It started with the pothos.
The pothos had been on Avery's windowsill for eight months, which was longer than most of Avery's plants survived, and he was quietly proud of this. It was a reasonable size. It had vines. It had, on three separate occasions, produced new leaves, which Avery had photographed and shown to his mother as evidence of his competence as a caretaker of living things.
The pothos was, Avery would have said, fine.
"Your pothos is dying," Derek said.
It was a Tuesday morning. Derek was standing at the windowsill in Avery's kitchen with a mug of coffee, looking at the plants with the expression he used when he was processing information and finding it unsatisfactory. Avery was at the table eating cereal, the cartoon one, it was genuinely good, he stood by this, and looked up.
"What?"
"The pothos." Derek pointed at it without taking his eyes off it, like it might do something if he looked away. "The leaves are yellowing at the base. The soil is consistently too wet. There's early root rot."
Avery looked at the pothos. It looked fine. It looked, mostly green, a little yellow at the bottom maybe, but plants did that, that was just plants.
"It's fine," Avery said.
"It's not fine," Derek said, with the tone of someone who had briefly contained the sum total of all botanical knowledge and retained more of it than was probably expected. "It's been overwatered. Consistently. For probably two months."
"I water it every week-”
"That's too much," Derek said. "Pothos need to dry out between waterings. The roots are sitting in moisture. The yellowing is the plant telling you it's drowning."
Avery looked at the pothos. He looked at Derek. He looked at the pothos again.
"It looks mostly green," he said.
"It looks mostly green now," Derek said. "In three weeks it will not look mostly green."
There was a pause.
"Can it be saved," Avery said.
Derek set down his coffee mug. He picked up the pothos pot. He looked at the underside of it with the focused assessment of someone performing a medical evaluation, which, Avery thought, was exactly what this was. "Yes," Derek said. "Probably. It needs to be repotted. Better drainage. The soil needs replacing." He looked at Avery. "Do you have perlite?"
"Do I have what?"
"Perlite," Derek said, and something in his expression suggested he had expected this answer. "It's a soil additive. For drainage."
"I have potting mix," Avery offered.
"That's a start," Derek said, in the tone of a person managing their expectations. He looked back at the pothos. "I'll need to check the roots. If the rot hasn't spread too far it's salvageable."
"You sound like a plant doctor," Avery said.
"Someone has to," Derek said, looking at Avery's windowsill, which contained six plants in various states that Avery had previously considered fine and was now reconsidering.
"Are the others-”
"I'll get to them," Derek said.
Avery ate his cereal. He watched Derek standing at the windowsill with the pothos, examining it with the particular focus that Derek brought to problems he had decided were his to solve. He was still in his pyjamas, Derek's pyjamas were inexplicably nice, proper matching sets, which Avery had pointed out and Derek had said if you're going to sleep in something you might as well sleep in something good, and his hair was doing the morning thing and he was very seriously discussing root rot with a houseplant at eight in the morning.
Avery ate his cereal.
He was fine.
The pothos was repotted by eleven.
Derek had, at some point between the initial diagnosis and the repotting, produced from somewhere a list of what he needed, gone to the garden center two streets away, returned with perlite and fresh potting mix and a slightly larger pot and a thing for measuring soil moisture that Avery had not known existed and now apparently owned, and gotten to work on the kitchen table with the focused efficiency of someone who had done this before, or had, at least, a very clear understanding of the theory.
Avery sat across from him and watched.
"You're not helping," Derek said, without looking up.
"I'm supervising," Avery said.
"The supervision is unnecessary."
"I'm learning," Avery said. "Teach me."
Derek looked up. He looked at Avery's expression, which was genuinely curious, which apparently satisfied whatever check he was running, and explained, clearly, methodically, with the patience he brought to teaching things he cared about, about drainage and soil composition and the ratio of perlite to potting mix and why it mattered and how to check whether a plant needed water without using a schedule, just by feeling the soil, by looking at the leaves, by paying attention.
"You know a lot about this," Avery said.
"I know a lot about many things," Derek said. He paused. "Less than I did. It fades. But some of it-” he considered, "some of it stuck. Biology tends to stick. It's systematic."
"What else stuck?"
Derek placed the pothos carefully in its new pot. He pressed the soil gently around the base with the same deliberate attention he gave everything. "Physics," he said. "The fundamental principles. Enough chemistry to be inconvenient. Most of botany, apparently." He smoothed the soil surface. "The complete works of several authors I had never heard of. The entire oral history of a civilization that no longer exists." A pause. "The optimal ratio of perlite to potting mix for tropical houseplants."
Avery looked at him. "How is that last one in the same category as the others."
"It isn't," Derek said. "I don't know why I retained it. The brain keeps strange things."
"Maybe," Avery said, "your brain kept it because it knew you'd need it."
Derek looked at the pothos, settled in its new pot. "For a dying houseplant."
"For a dying houseplant belonging to someone specific," Avery said.
Derek's ears went slightly pink. He picked up the moisture meter and did not respond, which was a response.
Avery decided to let him have that one.
The windowsill audit took the rest of the morning.
Derek went through every plant with the moisture meter and what Avery could only describe as clinical attention. He diagnosed the spider plant as root-bound, "it needs a bigger pot, the roots have nowhere to go", and the small fern as too dry, "the opposite problem from the pothos, it needs more frequent misting", and the succulent that lived at the end of the row, which was a different succulent from Hastur, as getting insufficient light.
Hastur, for his part, received a separate evaluation.
"He's fine," Derek said, looking at Hastur.
"Yeah?" Avery said.
"Succulents are difficult to kill if you leave them alone," Derek said. He looked at Hastur for a moment. Then he said, conversationally, to the plant: "Which you would know, wouldn't you. Difficult to kill."
Avery looked at Derek.
Derek appeared to realize what he'd said. He picked up the moisture meter and moved on to the next plant.
Avery stored this information carefully.
The thing about the plant situation, Avery would say later, to no one, because he was having this conversation entirely internally, was that it was extremely easy to be normal about.
Derek was helping. Derek was useful and good at things and had decided the windowsill plants were a problem he could solve and was solving them, which was, straightforwardly, nice. It was a nice thing that a person who lived in your space would do. It was a practical, caring, uncomplicated thing.
Avery was completely normal about it.
He was watching Derek mist the fern from across the kitchen and feeling something in his chest that was not a complicated emotion at all, just a simple and appropriate appreciation for,
Derek spoke to the fern.
He said, very quietly, in the tone of a person who did not think he was being overheard: "There. That's better. You need to tell me when you're dry, I can't check every day."
Avery pressed his lips together.
He was completely normal about this.
It was three days later when Avery first caught Derek talking to Hastur at length.
He came out of the bedroom at half past nine on a Thursday morning, he'd been editing, lost track of time, emerged needing coffee and human contact, and found Derek at the windowsill. Not just looking at the plants. Talking.
Avery stopped in the doorway.
“-and I'm telling you," Derek was saying, to Hastur, in the mildly reproachful tone of someone continuing an ongoing disagreement, "the fact that you're thriving is not something you get to be smug about."
Avery leaned against the doorframe.
"Other plants," Derek continued, "require attention. Maintenance. They communicate when something is wrong. You just-” he made a gesture that communicated exist aggressively, "sit there."
Hastur sat there.
"I know you can't help it," Derek said. "You're a succulent. It's not a character flaw. It's just-” he considered, "I want you to know that low-maintenance is not the same as impressive."
Hastur continued to be a succulent.
"The pothos," Derek said, "nearly died because it was getting too much. The fern nearly died because it wasn't getting enough. You just-” he looked at Hastur with an expression that was, Avery would swear, genuinely conflicted, "persist. Regardless."
A pause.
"I suppose," Derek said, more quietly, "that's its own kind of impressive."
He was quiet for a moment. He reached out and adjusted Hastur's pot by approximately three millimeters, turning it slightly toward the light.
"Don't tell the others I said that," he said.
Avery made a sound.
Derek turned around.
They looked at each other.
"How long," Derek said.
"The pothos comment," Avery said.
Derek looked at the windowsill. He picked up his coffee mug from where it was sitting next to Hastur with the composure of someone who had decided not to be embarrassed about this and was implementing that decision in real time.
"Plants respond to sound," he said. "It's documented."
"You were telling Hastur he's not as impressive as the other plants."
"I was providing context."
"For the succulent."
"For-” Derek stopped. He looked at his coffee. "The brain retains strange things," he said. "There is a study, from 1848, involving pea plants and sound vibrations. The methodology was flawed but the instinct was correct." He looked at Avery. "Talking to plants is not irrational."
"I didn't say it was irrational," Avery said.
"You have an expression."
"I have a fond expression," Avery said. "Those are different."
Derek looked at him with the assessing look. "You're going to put this in a video," he said.
"Absolutely not," Avery said, immediately, because he was a liar.
He was definitely going to put this in a video.
The thing was, once Avery started noticing, he couldn't stop.
Derek talked to all of them. Not always out loud, not always in sentences, but there was always something, a small adjustment, a quiet observation, occasionally a full monologue that Avery caught pieces of from other rooms.
The pothos got encouragement. You're doing better. The new soil is working. He said it with the same matter-of-fact confidence he said most things, like the pothos had simply needed to be informed of its improvement and would act accordingly.
The spider plant, newly repotted, got something that sounded like a pep talk. More room now. Use it.
The fern got misted every morning and occasionally told you're being dramatic when its leaves drooped, which they did somewhat often, and which Derek seemed to take as a personal affront.
Hastur got the most.
This was, Avery thought, because of what Hastur was. Who Hastur had been. There was something about the dynamic between Derek and the small succulent that was, it wasn't quite antagonistic. It was more like the careful circling of two things that had history, who had come to a new arrangement and were still working out the terms.
Avery caught pieces of it over the days that followed.
You know I won. I want you to sit with that.
I'm not moving you further from the window. You get enough light. Stop leaning.
I'm not particularly interested in what you think about that. (This one, apparently, in response to nothing, or nothing Avery could hear. Which was either Derek doing a bit or Derek genuinely responding to some quality of Hastur's silence that Avery lacked the context to interpret, and he had decided not to examine which option was more likely.)
And once, very quietly, which Avery only heard because he was in the kitchen getting water and Derek hadn't heard him come in:
You're small now. That's fine. Small is fine. Small is, a pause, manageable. You're not what you were and that's,
He stopped.
A long moment.
That makes two of us, Derek said, to the succulent.
Avery very quietly got his water and went back to the other room.
He sat on the couch and he looked at the ceiling and he felt the warm thing in his chest doing something very large and very full, and he breathed through it, and he thought: he's okay. he's actually okay. he's standing in my kitchen at nine in the morning telling a succulent named after an eldritch god that being small is fine, and he means it, and he's okay.
He put his face in his hands.
He was experiencing feelings about this.
The sunflowers were Avery's idea.
He'd walked past them at the garden center, he was starting to go with Derek on the plant supply runs, which happened with an increasing regularity that suggested Derek had a plan for the windowsill that was larger than its current dimensions, and stopped.
"Those," he said.
Derek looked. "Sunflowers?"
"Yeah."
"They're not ideal for windowsill conditions," Derek said. "They need full sun, outdoor ideally, they grow quite large-”
"I know," Avery said. "Can we grow them anyway."
Derek looked at the sunflowers. He looked at Avery, at the sunflower on his hoodie, at the sunflower mug that had migrated from Avery's preferred mug to the mug Derek always reached for without seeming to notice.
"We'd need a bigger pot," Derek said. "And they'd eventually need to move outside, or to a balcony if-”
"You don't have a balcony," Avery said.
"If we had a balcony," Derek said.
Avery looked at him. Derek was looking at the sunflowers. His expression was very neutral in the specific way that meant he had said something he was now aware he'd said.
If we had a balcony.
Avery thought about the library with his name on the sign. About for Avery, so we have somewhere to put things we want to keep. About a couch that Derek slept on that was technically Derek's sleeping arrangement except it wasn't really, not anymore, not for a while now. About seventeen things that weren't on the list and the blue oat milk and the inventory of a life that had been, slowly and without announcement, becoming shared.
"We could find somewhere with a balcony," Avery said.
Derek looked at him. "That would require-”
"Yeah," Avery said. "It would."
A pause. The garden center was warm and smelled like soil and growing things, and Derek was standing in it in his regular jacket looking at sunflowers, and Avery's heart was doing its inadvisable thing.
"We'd need enough sun exposure," Derek said. "South or west facing."
"Okay," Avery said.
"And sufficient square footage for two people who between them own an increasing number of houseplants."
"That's fair," Avery said.
"And a good bus route," Derek said. "For the grocery run."
"Obviously," Avery said.
Derek looked at the sunflowers for another moment. Then he picked up a packet of seeds, not the full grown plants but the seeds, because of course Derek would want to grow them from the beginning, of course he would, that was entirely Derek, and put them in the basket.
"We should research neighborhoods," he said.
"Yeah," Avery said. "We should."
He was smiling so hard his face hurt. Derek wasn't looking at him, was already moving further into the garden center with the basket, but there was something in the set of his shoulders that was different from usual, lighter, and Avery knew that posture by now, knew all Derek's postures, and what that one meant was: happy. trying to be normal about it. failing slightly.
Avery followed him.
The seeds went on the windowsill in a small pot next to Hastur.
Derek labelled the pot in his precise handwriting: helianthus annuus. planted [date]. south-facing preferred.
Avery looked at the label. "You wrote the Latin name."
"For accuracy," Derek said.
"It's a sunflower, Derek."
"It's helianthus annuus," Derek said, "which is a sunflower."
"You are," Avery said, "genuinely one of a kind."
Derek looked at him in the way that meant a compliment had landed somewhere and he wasn't sure what to do with it. Avery waited. He'd gotten good at waiting.
"Thank you," Derek said. It came out right.
Avery looked at the windowsill. The pothos, green and recovering. The spider plant with room to grow. The fern, dramatic and well-misted. The small succulent at the end that had once been the King in Yellow and was now a minor plant that got argued with on weekday mornings. And now, at the center of it, a small pot of soil with seeds in it and a label that had the Latin name on it because Derek didn't do things halfway.
"Talk to them," Avery said.
Derek looked at him.
"The seeds," Avery said. "I've seen what you do with the others. Talk to them."
Derek's expression moved through several things. "You've seen-”
"The pothos gets encouragement. The fern gets told it's being dramatic. Hastur gets-” Avery paused, "whatever that is."
"That's different," Derek said.
"Talk to the seeds," Avery said.
"Plants at the germination stage don't-”
"Derek."
A pause.
Derek looked at the small pot. He looked at Avery. He looked back at the pot. He said, with immense dignity: "You have adequate soil and correct moisture and sufficient light. The conditions are right. The rest is up to you."
Avery felt the warm thing.
"See," he said softly. "Perfect."
Derek picked up his coffee. He looked out the window. The late afternoon was doing something golden with the light, coming in at an angle that caught the windowsill plants and made them look like something in a painting, all green and growing, the small pot of seeds in the center of it waiting.
"They won't sprout for ten days," Derek said.
"I know," Avery said. "We'll wait."
On the eighth day, Avery came into the kitchen and found Derek at the windowsill at seven in the morning, still in pyjamas, looking at the seed pot with his coffee cradled in both hands.
"Anything?" Avery said.
"Not yet," Derek said.
"Two more days," Avery said.
"Approximately," Derek said. "Germination timelines vary."
Avery came and stood beside him at the windowsill. They stood together looking at the small pot of soil, which looked exactly as it had for the past eight days, dark and damp and full of potential that wasn't visible yet.
"Hastur didn't take this long," Avery said.
"Hastur was already a plant," Derek said.
"True."
From his end of the windowsill, Hastur sat in his pot at an angle that was, if you were inclined to anthropomorphize, vaguely smug.
"Don't," Derek said, to Hastur.
Avery looked at him. "Did he say something?"
"He's being smug about the germination timeline," Derek said. "It's unwarranted."
"You can tell?"
"He's leaning," Derek said.
Avery looked at Hastur. Hastur was, marginally, leaning. This was because of light distribution and nothing else, and Avery was fully aware of this, and he still said: "He does look a little smug."
"He always looks a little smug," Derek said. "He was defeated and miniaturized and renamed and he still manages to look smug. I don't know how he does it."
"Maybe that's what surviving looks like," Avery said. "From the outside."
Derek was quiet for a moment.
He looked at Hastur. He looked at the seed pot. He looked out the window at the morning.
"Maybe," he said.
Avery leaned slightly against him, shoulder to shoulder, and Derek leaned back in the easy way they'd settled into, the small mutual adjustments of two people who had learned each other's weight.
"Ten days," Avery said.
"Approximately," Derek said.
"And then sunflowers."
"And then the beginning of sunflowers," Derek said. "They'll be small for a while."
"That's fine," Avery said. "Small is fine. Small is manageable."
Derek looked at him. His expression did the undone thing, recognizing his own words back.
Avery smiled at him, unrepentant.
"You heard that," Derek said.
"I heard that," Avery confirmed.
"That was a private conversation."
"With a succulent."
"With-” Derek stopped. He looked at the ceiling briefly. He looked back at Avery. "Yes," he said. "With a succulent."
"Who you talk to every day," Avery said.
"The research supports-”
"Derek."
"The 1848 study-”
"Derek."
"The methodology was flawed but-”
"Derek," Avery said, softly, "I love that you talk to the plants."
Derek stopped.
It was the first time either of them had used that word, love, in any configuration, pointed in any direction, and Avery felt the weight of it settle into the kitchen, not heavy, just present, the way true things were present.
Derek looked at him. His expression was very still in the way it got when he was processing something he hadn't anticipated.
"About the plants specifically," Avery said, because he was kind and also a coward.
"Right," Derek said. "Yes."
"Specifically the talking-to-plants thing," Avery said. "Which is what I said."
"That's what you said," Derek agreed.
"Great," Avery said. "Good. We've clarified that."
"We have," Derek said.
They stood at the windowsill in the morning light, shoulder to shoulder, not quite looking at each other and not quite not looking at each other, and the plants grew at their own rates, and Hastur leaned slightly toward the light, and the seed pot waited with its patient underground potential, and neither of them said anything else for a while.
They didn't need to.
On day eleven, a hair-thin thread of green pushed through the surface of the soil.
Derek noticed it first. He came and got Avery from the other room with the energy of someone trying to be calm about something they were not calm about, which on Derek manifested as a very slightly accelerated walk and a sentence that came out flatter than usual. "The seeds," he said. "Come look."
Avery came and looked.
It was very small. It was the smallest green thing Avery had ever seen, a tiny pale thread barely distinguishable from the soil it came from, with the very earliest suggestion of two leaves beginning at the tip. It looked, objectively, like almost nothing.
It was the most Derek had looked like he was trying not to smile since Avery had known him.
"One day late," Derek said, neutrally.
"Germination timelines vary," Avery said.
Derek looked at him.
"You said that," Avery said. "Eight days ago."
"I know," Derek said. He looked back at the seedling. He crouched slightly to be level with it and looked at it with the focused attention he gave all things he had decided mattered, and Avery leaned in the doorway and watched him and felt the warm thing at full volume, and did not try to be normal about it at all.
"Hi," Derek said, to the seedling, quietly. "You're late. But you're here."
He reached out and very gently, with one finger, adjusted the angle of the pot.
"That's enough," he said. "For now."
Avery pressed the back of his hand against his mouth.
He was experiencing so many feelings about this.
He had never been less fine in his life.
He was the most fine he had ever been.
Later that day Avery would film, quietly and without announcing it, seventeen seconds of Derek standing at the windowsill misting the fern and simultaneously telling Hastur that he was being smug again and it wasn't a good look. He would post it with no caption. It would get four million views. The top comment would be "this man talked to an eldritch god in minecraft for fifteen hours straight and now he argues with a succulent" with 200,000 likes. The second top comment would be from AveryTheMayo's account: "the succulent started it." The third top comment would be from D3rLord3Returns: "I would like the record to reflect that Hastur is being smug and someone needs to say it." Avery would screenshot this and set it as his phone wallpaper and not tell Derek for three weeks.