Archive of Our Own

The pounding of his head was the first thing Derek noticed when he waded back into consciousness. It was terrible, like the worst migraine you could imagine, like a hand had reached into his skull and was squeezing his brain for all it was worth. He’d had worse though, much worse, so he could hardly find it in himself to complain. The second thing he noticed was that he was, in fact, awake. It took him about a minute to realize that wasn’t something that was meant to happen.

Blearily, he opened his eyes, rasing his head from his keyboard and back into the world. His screen had shut off, a couple minutes after he’d blacked out on it he figured. The basement room was as dark as ever, though he knew it was 8:47 in the morning, and when he pressed a hand to his face he could feel angry lines and ridges from where the keyboard had intended into his skin overnight.

Derek wondered how any of this was possible. He felt strange, like his mind was a suitcase, and everything inside had been taken out and rearranged. It took him longer than it should to find the things he recognized, and there were certainly souvenirs there that didn’t belong. The time, for example. If he thought about it, he could say what the weather was like, what it’d be like for the next few days, for this city, for Dublin, for Singapore. He knew the name of every tenant in the apartment complex, none of whom he’d ever met. He was aware that, unlike him, Avery hadn’t caught a wink of sleep.

Let’s not think of him for now, he decided.

There were more problems to uncover. The screen was off. The pain he was in should have been immeasurable. Given the already considered problems of him being alive, and seeming to possess the knowledge that he did before, he should be in a comparable state to before as well, and nigh unable to think. The knowledge did seem to be holding itself differently then it had, so that could have something to do with it.

In any case, the first two facts were points of concern, which the third only exacerbated. He was alive— blinking like a drunkard at a black screen, he was in possession of the King’s knowledge, and he had somehow found a way to fathom it. That could only mean something had to have gone terribly wrong. Derek puzzled for answers. His death would have killed the King, and the fact that he had retained its blessing implied that the power behind it still existed. The knowledge being more organized implied that there was something there within his mind to organize it. Those were the answers then. He was alive, the King had survived, and it was living inside his head.

Obviously, he knew the solution to this problem. It was the same solution he had decided on when he pasted in the ritual words at the eyed cathedral. He’d already made the decision really, this was only a minor delay.

He stood from his chair, legs shaking from disuse like a newborn fawn, and he trudged to the door. He hadn’t truly realized how awful his room had begun to smell until he was out of it. Stepping into the main room was like breathing clean air for the first time. Derek stumbled to the kitchen, tears forming in his eyes from the pure exhilaration of freedom, and he reached for a knife. It had to be a sharp one; the cut had to be clean, or else it would take longer than it should and he might lose his nerve. It would have to be through the temple, through the thinnest part of the skull. Bone was hard to penetrate, and he wasn’t the strongest man in the world. He could go for his heart, or something else vital, but there was no reason not to do this painlessly if he could. He’d earned that much.

As he readied the knife, he thought about whether this really was the only solution. He wasn’t suicidal, he only sought to protect the world from an existential threat. If there was another way to do so, he would take it. As it stood, he couldn’t think of one. But, something was stopping him from driving the knife into his head. Maybe it was some primal instinct he had to suppress. Maybe he was just selfish. Maybe from behind his eyelids he could see Avery’s face at the moment he’d realized Derek was beyond saving, tears streaming down his cheeks from exhaustion-reddened, heartbroken eyes.

We’re not thinking of him, Derek reminded himself.

Still, he put down the knife. A part of him lashed out against it. For all he knew, it was the King’s influence which wanted him to live, which pushed that image above all others into his thoughts. The second point made him snicker aloud. He knew that was his own doing.

In actuality, he hadn’t quite thought this through. He wasn’t in the same circumstances as before, and now that he let himself consider it, he wasn’t quite sure the King was still a threat. It had clearly survived, but it had not overwritten Derek’s own identity, or really made a fuss of any kind. Its presence wasn’t felt so much as it was understood. Perhaps it hadn’t been stopped by entering Derek’s mind, but perhaps it had been weakened. If so, he may not need to die. He felt guilt weighing him down on either end of the scale. It would be a foolish choice to live, to allow the King a chance to regain its strength. Whatever. At least this way, he’d have a chance to change his mind.

He walked over to his coffee maker and started up a pot. It’d been months since he had a cup of coffee and he wanted to feel… to feel anything, really. It was good, regaining the freedom to feel things again besides fear and pain.

How might this have happened? The question kept circling back to the forefront of his mind. If he could only determine how either of them had lived, he might know if he could choose to keep living. The King was supposed to kill him because his mind had been tarnished, all that information and the mind of the entity who fathered it being too much to bear at once. Then, he was supposed to kill the King by dying as its host. (The coffee was boiling in what seemed like no time at all.)

But, if there was a way for the King to clean his mind, it had a chance at survival. Its host would survive and it could exist— in a weakened state, likely damaged by exposure— inside that mind. That would explain why the knowledge he’d been pulling from was more organized— it wasn’t coming from himself. He wasn’t processing an entire universe’s worth of information all at once, he was checking it out like a library book, given an avenue to hold it the only way he could within his human hands.

If his mind really were erased, his sense of self shouldn’t have survived. However, that didn’t quite seem untouched. His memories felt disjointed. Out of place. Maybe… maybe the King had erased those too. And, he could recall things about himself and his own life more easily because he had before, though it was noticeably different than it had been. The thought that his entire self might only be existing on cloud storage made him feel a little seasick.

He poured himself a cup of coffee. It felt lukewarm on his lips. He swallowed the dark, bitter drink until it was done, and he poured himself another cup. Then again, then again, until the pitcher was empty, the coffee was like ice, and it was 12:24 in the afternoon.

Derek decided he should take a shower. He felt unclean in every sense. Stumbling into the bathroom, he got the barest glimpse of himself in the mirror, and quite frankly that was more than enough. His hair looked like a biohazard. His clothes, once shed, went straight into the garbage can. His eyes had turned an unsettling, warning-sign yellow. He supposed that was an effect of being host to the King. Lucky him.

He turned the water on and stepped in. It was practically ice as it raced down his shoulders. The feeling was something else to focus on. His headache seemed to have been calming over time, if only slightly. The water helped. He closed the curtain, and for the first time in a while he felt some illusion of safety. As he reached for the shampoo, his mind began to wander.

He didn’t want to think about Avery, but it couldn’t be avoided forever. Like a distant comet orbiting the sun, Derek’s thoughts always arced back his way. Avery was, after all, a lot to think about. He was talented, he was funny, he was good. Avery was very good. And, right now, he was miserable. He had every right to be.

Derek wanted to see him. That much was as sure as the tides, which was to say, for now a constant. He wanted to see him, to thank him, to apologize. He wanted to spend time with him and grow closer, as friends, as… something else. To make any of his idle imaginings about the two of them into something more real. Whether or not seeing Avery was a good idea, that was another matter.

If Avery were to believe he was the same man, which was likely but not certain, then Avery would have to truly meet him, instead of existing in perfect world of fantasy. Derek knew all of Avery, but to Avery he was a near stranger. Who’s to say he would like what he learned? That wasn’t to mention the potential imbalance of any relationship between two people where one can know literally everything— especially with one so endlessly wanting as him. That wasn’t to mention the tumultuousness of his situation with the god living in his head, how wanting it could be. If he honestly considered it, Derek had brought little else but turbulence to Avery’s life. What right does he have to take away any chance he’d have at peace?

Derek made the choice then: he will not find Avery. He could, but he will not. Their experience and whatever positive feelings, platonic or otherwise, that they may have towards each other were not enough to justify enforcing some relationship between them, nor any of what that could bring.

The water somehow felt colder. The shampoo had travelled to his eyes, and it stung. Derek washed his hair, then he stepped out of the shower. He dried himself off, then sat on the toilet seat for awhile before he eventually managed a trip back to his room to fetch some new clothes. On his way out, he dragged his pillow and blankets to the leather couch in the main room. He made himself some pizza pockets, which were cold once he’d finished them. His body felt heavy. The fact that it was 1:01 in the morning couldn’t have helped. He grabbed melatonin from the bathroom before lying down to sleep. He was so tired, but Lord knows he wouldn’t have been able to put himself down without it.

It was weeks before Derek left his apartment. There was a lot to process, he told himself, so it made sense. Time felt weird. Having knowledge of nearly the whole of time made it pass strangely in his head. He’d lost most sense of time when he was trapped, his only means of telling it became Knowing it, and doing so would hurt for a couple of reasons. So, it took him some time (ha.) to feel it more like a normal person again. After a while, his headache had mostly died down, with only the occasional spike of pain, usually when he tried to know too much at once. Living in the depths of an ocean’s worth of knowledge, his body had become accustomed to the pressure.

He was trying not to think of Avery. At first, he couldn’t help but check up every so often. Avery was easy to slip into worrying for. But, he was breaking the habit. Some soft and fragile piece of his heart hadn’t yet accepted that avoiding him was for the best. Not avoiding, that word made it sound malicious. He was giving him space, leaving him be. He did not need infinite knowledge to know that Avery would grieve him, and then he move forward into the world, not unchanged by his experience but living on in spite of it. He hoped his own supposedly-dying words would be a comfort. He might grow to accept Derek’s actions, to relieve himself of the guilt he’d unjustly assigned to his own part. In all cases, his life would be his own and Derek need not demand space in it.

Instead, he spent time to think on himself. He hadn’t left his apartment in weeks, but there was really no need to. There were few people to worry after him (with a notable exception), he had no school and hadn’t worked since what happened. He supposed he wouldn’t ever need either of those again. He could win a lottery or two and coast on that money for the rest of his life. Buy a house maybe, if only to save on the hassle of paying rent.

He thought a lot about purpose. Before, he’d enjoyed puzzles, code-breaking and logic games especially. They were something stimulating to pass the time when he had no active projects going. When he’d gained complete knowledge of everything, he’d lost that. He couldn’t solve a puzzle without thinking of the right answer immediately, and there was no point in completing it if he had all the cheat codes. It was fortunate that he still had coding and mechatronics. Even if he understood the exact way something should be created, that tended not to take away from the experience of actually bringing an idea into the world.

Still though, he felt aimless. When he thought he was going to die, he had been content, because he knew he would be dying with a purpose. Now he was alive, and his purpose for dying had failed. He wondered if it may be worth dying just to fulfill what he’d set out to do, even if it weren’t so crucial anymore. However, there may still have been purpose he could find. With his understanding of the world, he could do some real good. He wasn’t quite sure what he wanted to do yet, or if he cared more for staying off the radar versus making worldwide change. With his state of being, he would have the basis to found a whole ass religion. He laughed to himself considering it. Either way, humanitarian efforts might be a means to shape his existence into something more fulfilling.

Eventually, what finally drove him to leave the apartment was food. While it was often hard to eat, in time he’d managed to get in a meal or so a day, until he ran out of them entirely. It was a week after that when he gave in to the pains of hunger, and decided to go outside and fetch some groceries from the nearest store.

On his way out, he donned a pair of sunglasses to hide his eyes. It was unlikely that anyone else would notice or care, but he didn’t want to chance any sort of attention his colourful “contacts” could bring. The walk to the store was more pleasant than he expected, though he shouldn’t have been surprised. He could picture the outside world perfectly in his head, the brush of sunlight, the bite of winter, the crunch of snow against his shoe and the wisps of wind twisted through his hair, as if he were standing at the centre of it, but there was still a fundamental difference between that and being there, of touching it with your own skin.

The nearest store happened to be a Shoppers, which wasn’t ideal for groceries, but it would suffice. He bought a few cans of soup, some ramen, some frozen things he could heat up, nothing that constituted a great meal but it would sustain him. Maybe one day he’d feel the need to make something proper for himself. Nowadays he certainly knew how.

He passed by the wall of drinks and paused for a moment before grabbing a bottled coffee from the shelf. For a moment he stared at it in his hand. It was a caramel Frappuccino. The side of the bottle would say it had a high sugar content, very sweet. Derek didn’t care for coffee. He drank it for utilitarian purpose alone. Trying coffee that was meant to be liked would be something new. Of course, he knew exactly what it would taste like, but a part of him wanted to try it anyway. To feel the bitterness of the coffee with the sweetness of the additives and the saltiness of the caramel, to sit with it on his own tongue— to dislike it, but for its shape rather than its colour. If knowing anything as thoroughly as he did wasn’t always the same as experiencing it firsthand, what was the harm in an another experience, just for the sake of it?

Besides, he knew Avery liked this brand of coffee. He had a fondness for sweet things. He wasn’t overly distracted by them, he liked healthy food more than he had as a child, and he was fairly athletic so he liked what it could do for him, but the guy had a real sweet tooth. Sugary drinks were a favourite, so were pastries, and at that moment he was getting ice cream, about three metres to the right.

Wait.

Derek’s head whipped around. There, over his shoulder, standing in front of the freezers. It was him. He was there.

Seeing Avery in real life was like looking upon the face of the sun. Not through the many dampening layers of atmosphere and across the depths of space, but up close. Bright and beautiful and alive. The beating heart of his little universe to which all else revolves. He was wholly breathtaking in every regard.

And he looked awful. Derek knew— he’d tried not to, but he knew— the details of Avery’s ordeal. His hair was unkempt and dark circles ringed his eyes. He hadn’t been sleeping well. He had been lying awake at night, wondering for what had happened to Derek. If anything could have been done differently, what their lives might have been like in a better world. He’d been slipping in his classes and struggling to reach out. His friends and family worried for him. He was hardly worried for himself.

Derek was frozen to the floor. Every bone in his body screamed at him to do something. To reach out, to reassure, to protect, or anything at all that might let him share in Avery’s space. It took every ounce of his willpower to stay standing there. To be merely a stranger, staring wide-eyed at another. Avery eventually noticed the staring, and glanced over at Derek, who ogling like a moron in front of the drinks shelf. His brows pinched together in confusion, and his eyes were gorgeous.

Before either had the chance to do anything else, Derek’s slackened grip on the coffee bottle decided to fail. In his head, he saw the next series of events play out just before they happened, but he had no wherewithal to react as the bottle tumbled to the floor. This exact bottle was liable to a minor manufacturing error, which made its plastic shell more brittle than it should be. The moment it hit the ground, the bottle cracked, and cold coffee splattered across the floor at Derek’s feet.

Avery’s eyes widened, and Derek took a sharp breath to steady himself before the other man quickly walked over.

“Whoa, dude, are you alright?”

“Uh,” Derek said, standing in a puddle of coffee. He stepped back from it, glancing at his feet. He already knew his shoes had been splattered, though it wasn’t as if they were in great condition before.

“I’ll go get someone, don’t worry.” Suddenly, Avery was walking away.

“Wait,” Derek responded, for no sane or justifiable reason. They stood there for a whole two seconds before Derek could think of a response. “I- I broke it, I can handle it. And I’ll need to pay.”

“Hey, it’s no big deal my guy. I’ll go get something for your shoes.” Then he jogged off somewhere— the bathroom, Derek soon knew— and pointed a store clerk in his direction.

Derek stumbled through an interaction with the clerk. They shrugged their shoulders at his apologies, grabbed a wet floor sign and helped him find the shard of bottle with the bar code on it so he could pay for it with the rest of his things. Derek was outside, tossing the chunks of jagged plastic in the trash, when Avery found him with seven paper towels in his fist. Even at his lowest, he was quick to perk right back up when someone needed help. It was admirable.

“Here you go.” He held out the wad of paper to Derek, who took it and stooped to wipe fruitlessly at his soiled runners, out of courtesy more than anything.

“Sorry for all the trouble.” He couldn’t look Avery in the eye.

“It’s all good,” Avery punctuated with a flick of his wrist. “Seriously, a little help is no problem at all.“

“I suppose not.” Derek smiled knowingly at his shoe. “Thanks, Avery.” … Uh oh.

“Yeah, anytime,” he shot an easy grin. Derek knew though, he noticed the slip up. He wasn’t questioning it too much. After all, there’s any chance this stranger knew him from somewhere that he simply didn’t remember. The only issue with Derek’s mistake was: Avery was bound to be curious.

“By the way, have we met? I feel like you know me, but I don’t recognize you at all.” There it is.

“We have.” A safe answer, if deflective.

“Cool. What’s your name again?”

There wasn’t any getting out of that one. He didn’t want to trouble Avery, but he wasn’t going to lie to his face.

“Derek.”

Avery flinched just a little once it was spoken. Derek couldn’t see his expression, but he knew. He decided to stand. To face the music, if his cue was called. It was still hard to look at Avery any further up than his chin, but he had very quickly stopped smiling.

“That’s a nice name.” The words would have screamed heartache to anyone, especially given that the name Derek was hardly unique enough to remark.

“I don’t know about that,” he replied.

“No, really, I had a… a friend with that name.” Another smile, this one a wilted and mournful thing, bloomed across his face as he unknowingly marked into the dirt where Derek would dig his own grave. “He was really cool.”

“Avery…”

He never should have come here. Hunger be damned, he should have stayed in his apartment until he rotted. With resignation on his face, he took off his sunglasses and brought his yellowed eyes to Avery’s.

“Where do you think I know you from?”

For a moment, there was only silence between them as the realization dawned. Avery’s brows knit together, and his eyes began to glisten. “It’s… it’s you?”

“It’s me,” Derek conceded.

His tearful expression suddenly became very tense. “Prove it. Tell me something— something only he’d know.”

“Which thing? There’s a lot of things,” he jested, a wide grin crossing on his face, heart glowing with pride.

“Shut up, I’m being serious! You have to prove you’re my Derek.” His Derek. God. “Which— which car in the parking lot is mine?”

“Trick question, you don’t have a car,” he answered. “You’re fully licensed, but you don’t love driving, not to mention you can’t afford a car and don’t desperately need one. You prefer to longboard when you want to get around, or bike, but today you walked here.”

“That’s…” Avery croaked. “That’s all right. Oh gosh…”

He began to tremble. All the emotions he’d been storing in his poor, loving heart rattled his body like a tree in a storm, welling up like rainwater from his eyes. Derek stepped closer, worried that he might collapse. He held his hands out, as if to hold him, but wondering if he had any right to touch.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry for… for a lot of things.”

“Shut the hell up!” Avery snapped wetly. “I thought you were dead! Why didn’t you find me?”

Derek murmured, “I thought it best not to interfere with your life any more than I already had. You deserved peace, not me forcing myself into your space.”

“But you know everything, or knew everything, or something. You should know I wanted to see you. So bad…”

His barks whittled themselves down into whimpers as his nerve died. He raked his hands down is face, growling a frustrated sob. He kept two fingers parted so he could see between them. To make sure Derek wouldn’t disappear again, he realized. He felt a pain in his chest, like another hairline fracture was weaving itself into his crumpling heart.

Hesitantly, he stepped over to Avery and put a gentle hand on his shoulder. It was the most contact Derek had felt in months, Avery was warm through his sweater, and he made a sound like a wounded animal before wrapping Derek into his arms. His embrace was hot, strong, tight enough he struggled to breathe. He knew some of the heat was coming from himself and his overclocked brain.

“You’re supposed to be smart! Can you stop being such an idiot?” Avery yelled into his chest. Derek had no response, but when he pulled his arms around the other man and felt him burrow deeper into his collar, he decided that was enough.

They stayed there for longer than Derek would like to admit. Holding each other close, swaying occasionally. It felt safe like nothing ever had before. Like the King in Yellow, and all the knowledge of every terrible atrocity committed in the world for all time couldn’t possibly reach him there in the arms of his companion. At some point they had to let go. Avery’s face was puffy and damp with tears, but he was much more relaxed than before.

“I just- how are you alive?” He asked breathlessly. “And- and the King. Is he alive too?”

“It sort of… ate all of my knowledge and memory to save itself, and incidentally saved me in the process.”

“He destroyed your memory? Then how can…?”

“It’s still all-knowing, and its mind is a part of mine now. My memories exist with the sum of all knowledge,” Derek explained. “I think it’ll be awhile before the King causes any trouble.”

“That’s good news I guess.” Avery glanced to the floor, putting his hands in his hoodie pockets. They stood there in silence for a minute or so, both individually considering what they were meant to do next.

“Do you think we could, maybe, hang out sometime?” Avery ventured. Derek couldn’t say a word. His plan to keep Avery free of him was dead in the water, and brushing him off at this point would be cruel. And, he really wanted to be close to him. He wanted so much with Avery. That was always the issue.

Derek hadn’t responded yet, so Avery continued, “I dunno man, I want to be your friend! I want to… I mean, you have to know, right? About how I feel about you?”

Oh. He wore a pinched expression with the words, yet still expressed the utmost vulnerability with the resolve of taking a breath. So they’d be going there after all.

Of course he knew. Derek had known from the moment they met that Avery had started to develop feelings for him. Really it was endearing. Precious, that he fell so quickly for someone he barely knew. Derek had a hard time keeping the amusement from his voice when they’d first spoken— Avery was just so elated. It was gut-wrenching also, but he’d figured that came with the territory. Once Derek was out of his life for good, those feelings would pass. Derek hadn’t expected that he’d be there for it, but that didn’t have to matter.

“Yeah, I know,” he softly replied. “I’m sorry for hurting you the way I have. I didn’t want any excuse to impose my own feelings onto you.”

“Your own— hang on. What are you saying Derek?”

“I- I don’t think we need to get into it—”

“No! No, tell me! Are you trying to say that you have feelings for me?” Avery pressed.

Derek sighed. “Yes, I am saying that.”

Avery’s jaw dropped, his face flushed a lovely scarlet shade. This was exactly what Derek was afraid of. “Seriously?” He quirked his mouth oddly, like he was trying to both grin and frown. “Wh- what are we doing standing here! We could be at a cafe somewhere right now!”

Derek winced. “I’m not sure…”

“How can you not be sure!?“ Avery flung his hands out incredulously.

Derek somehow had to reason with him. “I mean, I know everything about everything. Everything about you. But, you don’t know the first thing about me. I might as well be a stranger.”

“Then let me learn, Derek.“

Damn him. Damn his sweet, ignorant words that made Derek stutter. “I’m just not sure it’s fair. The- the power imbalance—“

“What’s not fair is you just- just marching off to die,” Avery spat. “And then, and then, when you were secretly alive you wouldn’t even tell me! Do you even know how miserable I’ve been over you?”

“… I do,” he answered.

Avery paused. He took a breath, and restarted, “I’m sorry. You’ve… probably been going through some stuff too. Worse than I have, I’ll bet.” He gave a self-deprecating smile. Derek said nothing. He wanted to rescind Avery’s apology, but he wasn’t done. “The thing is, look, whether you like it or not, I- I fucking care about you, man. I care a stupid-lot.”

“I know,” he muttered dumbly.

“And if you don’t wanna see me ever again I can’t make you,” he went on. “But if you do, and you want to- to go out with me, or something like that, but you’re telling yourself not to because you feel bad about yourself, that’s what isn’t fair. To either of us. Yeah you hurt me, and I’m angry at you, but you helped me a lot more, and you were willing to die to save the world. If you think that isn’t relationship material I don’t know what is. You’re amazing. You’re not perfect, but, hah, neither am I. You’re- you’re special. I wanna go get ice cream and be stupid with you, man. If that’s something you can even do. Can we please get ice cream?”

Derek was speechless. Avery spoke so earnestly from the heart. He had such a small fraction of all the knowledge in the universe, yet still he sounded entirely sure of where he ought to belong in it. Derek might’ve admired that part of him most of all. His heart was so full of love for the world and all its parts. Even when things weren’t right, he imagined them as they should be. Through his eyes, the stark, objective monochrome of reality was suddenly painted in colour. He didn’t know if this counted as Avery asking him out, he did know Avery was unsure of that himself, but by god did he make a great offer.

Derek smiled softly and relented, “You know what? Sure. We can get ice cream together.”

“Wait, like, actually?” Avery’s face lit up, and Derek was grateful, not for the first time, that his knowing would let him see that look again as many times as he liked.

“Yeah. I know your number, but you prefer Discord.” He pulled out his phone. “I’ll reach out on both.” A couple seconds later, Avery got two notifications: a text and a friend request. He was grinning ear to ear as he accepted them, his eyes still damp with tears.

“I’ve got to get my things back home.” Derek lifted his shopping bag. “And you were getting ice cream for yourself.”

“Nah, I don’t need any. I’ll be getting some with you pretty soon,” he beamed.

“I suppose you will. It’s a date, then?”

“Yeah. Yeah, it’s a date.” Avery bit his lip.

They remained like that a moment, neither of them quite ready to end the reunion, to forever shatter this fragile point in time. Derek managed out, “Well, uh, I was wondering.”

“Yeah?”

Before the guilt could take a firmer hold, “Would it be alright if I hugged you again… ?”

His voice seemed to die as he spoke, it was hard to make words around the lump of his conscience in his throat, but Avery merely nodded, and gently took him into his arms. Derek didn’t hesitate to hug him back. Avery gave a single tight squeeze before he let him go. Then, while they were close, he leaned out and planted a soft kiss on Derek’s cheek before stepping away.

Having all the knowledge in the world could never have prepared him for how thoroughly this man made him sputter. He cupped his own face, traced the spot on his cheek where Avery’s lips had brushed as if he could feel the sparks there that danced beneath his skin. It was hot to the touch. Avery stood there, flushed too in embarrassment.

“Haha, too much?” He chuckled awkwardly.

“No, you’re never too much,” Derek said far too honestly, with the face of a deer in headlights.

“Oh, wow, uh,” Avery stumbled. He wiped his eyes. “I’ll see you soon then? We- we’ll pick a place and time?”

“You’ll see me soon, Avery.” The words were a confirmation, but they shared the shape of a promise.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’d better!”