Chapter Text
His hands shook as his eyes read each and every line with brutal focus, his eyes straining for really no reason. His entire body violently responded to the words on his screen, the extremely bitter sweet words of a man who knew him, who knew Avery better than he would ever know himself. To the man who had saved him
“Goodbye my friend”
Avery panicked as his eyes took in the last line in the paragraph, the words laying themselves like a boulder in his stomach, a meteoric crater of nothingness forming in his stomach. He hated reading the words of someone who had sacrificed so much for him, a sacrifice he never asked for
“Whatever you do at the crossroads. Keep going forward”
Avery's hands slowed and a horrible grin formed on his mouth, a grin that persisted even as his tears ran
“Or something like that
(I was never really good with endings)”
Avery's hands meet the wood of his desk in a harsh slam before promptly going up to his hair, the digits of his fingers holding the roots harshly. Tears poured from his eyes as he stood from his desk, his legs shaking as if he had run a marathon. Hell it sure felt as if he had, his breathing coming to match that which Avery saw as total exhaustion, his entire body being swarmed with panic
His mind swarmed with the memories of his friend, of the man who had saved him. Not only from the horrid creature now stuck in Derek's mind but also from the church he had encountered in that world. So much the stranger had done for Avery, and what had he to show for it?
Avery had barely been able to understand any of the puzzles, only being able to get through by sheer force or dumb luck, not with any actual smarts like Derek. He hadn't been able to save Derek, never even being able to bring any comfort to the other boy. And now it was over
Or was it?
Avery quickly sat down, wiping the tears away as he focused. Derek had shared a google doc, a google doc where he could find the original account which created the document, and after a few clicks he found it, Derek's full name, Derek Hutchins. Avery honestly loved the name, but that thought was quickly pushed aside. The next part was something Avery was actually good at, which was sleuthing through the internet
First he began by searching D3rLord3, of course this brought him nothing, only returning him a link to Derek's minecraft skin. His next search was Derek Hutchins, this again didn't really return much, nothing at least of importance, except a link to one Jennifer Hutchins. Avery quickly clicked on the link, scrolling through her list of contacts and looking for photos of kids, if she had any. There Avery found him, he didn't know how but he instantly recognized the man he had come to know. In the picture Derek looked relatively tall and thin, at least taller than Avery's mighty 5’7 stature. Derek stood with a smile as he held his mothers shoulder, his chin length curly hair framing his face in the most beautiful way. The post itself was a birthday post, his mother writing a sweet, bordering on overly sweet, passage about her boy, him growing up and becoming the man he was always meant to be. Avery would honestly have smiled if he wasn't in the situation he was in, he wished his parents had made those posts for him
He quickly shook his head as he looked at the tagged accounts on the post, quickly finding Derek’s in the absurdly long list of other accounts his mother had tagged. However his hope seemed to be squashed as Derek's account was barren, he should not be surprised but the only posts were old and clearly from when Derek was a child, no information on his whereabouts. Nothing
Nothing except his username
Avery quickly copied the username and searched, quickly his google brought up the aforementioned Facebook account but also an Instagram page. Thankfully the page wasn't private, instead Avery was not shown Derek's filtered pictures of his private life. It wasn't much to work with, but it would have to do. Derek seemed to be a fairly private person, his page only showing small hints of wherever he could be located, it wasn't much to work with but luck struck exactly when he needed it too. In one of the photos Avery saw an apartment building, the same apartment where one of his old friends had moved too, then in another photo, where Derek was moving in, Avery recognized the layout of the apartment, the very same as that douche Avery used to know
Avery quickly picked up his phone, however what stopped him is the fact that he had no idea of which apartment number Derek lived. However he would have to work with what he had
The phone ringed, once then twice
“Hello 911, what is your emergency?”
Avery quickly centered himself as he looked at his screen
“Yes hello ahm… I have a friend, Derek Hutchins. He…”
Avery stopped as he realized he needed to actually explain the nature of the emergency, quickly he improvised, surprising even himself
“... he has been having massive headaches and isolating himself. Im really worried about him and i think something really bad has happened”
“Alright, what's the address?”
Avery quickly looked at the screen of the apartment buildings, quickly rattling off an apology as he gave the lady the address
“Alright thank you, now an ambulance is on its way”
Avery sighed as he thanked the operator, the call coming to an end. Now he was, once again, alone with his thoughts.
It was all spinning so fast that he hadn't yet had the time to truly focus on everything that had happened, he hadn't yet even thought everything through. It all crashed onto him at the same time, his heart soaring to new speed, his skin crawling in shivers, his entire body growing colder and colder as his breathing grew more and more erratic. At the center of this was one thing, one thought that now drove Avery out of his apartment and into his car
He needed to help Derek
He was sure he drove at dangerous speeds although at this hour that most likely did not matter, every single soul that would be out most likely already being knocked out thanks to the new years celebrations that had been going through the night
Usually the drive from his apartment building to Derek's would take 30 minutes, at least that's the middle ground he got from guessing based on the distance and the number google maps gave him. Instead he made it there in 20 minutes, his car being quickly thrown into park as he practically ran out to find Derek
The parking area he stood at faced the apartment building, a cold unfeeling slab on concrete staring him in the face, light pouring out of old windows. Between them lay a small amount of greenery, a small grass path decorated with gravel and stone to signify a path, however there were clear marks where people walked anyway, grass disappearing under years of footsteps and hurried college students. All of this barely registered with Avery, it all fading into a blur of nothingness as he saw the scene in front of him. There were two paramedics one taller and more gruff heading the charge with a younger colleague. They seemed to just have left the building judging from the the door slowly closing behind them, and what they brought out was Derek, on a stretcher
Avery rapidly ran towards them, sound being unable to be produced as he bolted towards the still boy in front of him. However he was blocked as the younger of the two paramedics got in front of him. The logical side of Avery knew that he was just doing his job, protecting a hurt man from what he perceived as a stranger. However it made Avery mad
“No please please i need to see him” Avery pleaded “Please im the one who called 911!”
“Even so we don't know if…” The younger paramedic said, however he was cut off the by the older one
“Please Jake. It's the first day of the new year” He said, his tired eyes going from the younger paramedic towards Avery “You can ride in the ambulance to the hospital. However he is going into surgery so you are gone have to find somewhere to sleep
“T-thank you” Avery said as he went up next to Derek, his body holding the side of the stretcher as he began walking in pace with the paramedics
Derek, much to Avery's dismay, looked terrible. His skin looked pale and almost leathery, it was as if the boy he had seen in those pictures had been whittled down and reduced into a shell. Avery didn't know what type of affect the king was having inside the boy's mind, or even how it would show in him, but thankfully he seemed to still be breathing. Quickly they made it into the ambulance, Avery finding a seat near Derek.
The younger of the paramedics, Jake, quickly moved towards the front of the ambulance, jumping in to drive, meanwhile the older paramedic and Avery found themselves with Derek, the paramedic smoothly moving around the ambulance as Avery sat and fidgeted, one of his hands holding Derek's as the other nervously shook
“Is he going to be fine” Avery asked
The question obviously caught the older man off guard, his form straightening itself as he turned around and faced Avery
“Yea. He is gone be fine son” He said, his low, authoritative voice smoothing out any worries one might have
Avery looked at him for a second before he looked back at Derek, his hand holding Derek's cold hand even harder, as if the man would evaporate any second. It was a weird feeling, one of both loss, recapture and loss again. It hurt him so deeply, cutting through the strings of his heart and soul like a redhot knife through the flesh of red curtains that is the flesh. He held on harder on harder too Derek's hand, not wanting to let go even as the ambulance rocked back and forth as it sped down several streets
He wanted to bottle up Derek into a small flask, one he could shield from the world, one he could hold to his heart in his weakest moments. He wanted to be selfish, he wanted to patch himself with the pieces of this man who he barely knew. He wanted to crack Derek's skull open, to let all that which the king had forced onto him flow out, maybe to take part of the infinite burden. He wanted to hold Derek, feel the man's heart beat as they both lay together in a tangled mess of feelings and limbs
He wanted so much it hurt, it hurt in a way he couldn't put into words. However there was something that hurt more
Avery had always been very good at telling when people were lying, when he was a child he easily see through the lies his parents told him to shield him from whatever it was they believed to be bad for him. He saw through the lies of Derek when he tried, and ultimately successfully, pushed him away from the king. He even saw through the lies he told himself when he was younger, his upbringing putting up walls he eventually managed to tear down
So what hurt him the most, was the lie the paramedic feed him, the lie the Derek was going to be okay
The paramedic knew, and now Avery knew too. Derek was not gone be okay