Chapter Text
⫘⫘⚔⫘⫘
Derek wasn’t looking forward to applying for a job. It was something he had to do, but that didn’t mean his heart didn’t stutter as his finger hovered over the “submit application” button. He’d debated going back to college, but with infinite knowledge in his head, it felt pointless.
The next day, he received the letter back. He didn’t have to open the email to know they’d accepted him; the person going over applications, some poor woman named Sophie, had taken one look at his, sighed, and decided to hire him. She was having a difficult day; her wife had begun filing the divorce papers, and she was worried about the custody of their adopted son- Derek stopped himself from prying further.
He also knew, like he knew everything, that his first shift was that day at 5 pm sharp. His soon-to-be boss had little tolerance for the tardy; even on his first day, he wouldn’t be given slack if he was even five minutes late.
Five o’clock also happened to be thirty minutes from now. He sent a quick text to Avery saying he wouldn’t be there when he got home, and got into the car to head to the first day of eternity.
One benefit of infinite knowledge is infinite driving skill. Unsurprisingly, knowing exactly what he’s doing and what the laws are at any given moment is really quite helpful. He makes it there five minutes faster than the average person would.
He knows exactly where his boss is before even stepping a foot into the door.
“Hello, Mr. Rivera.” He greets. The past few weeks, he’d been working on training his body back to normal levels. He could now hold an actual conversation without needing a drink of water every five seconds, which was nice.
Rivera turned, his stern face relaxing slightly. He had a soft spot for young men; his two sons, Jesus and David, were both around Derek’s human age.
“I’m Derek.” He introduced himself. “The new clerk.” He clarified, knowing Mr. Rivera’s immediate confusion. He pushed tinted glasses up his nose, being careful to never make eye contact.
“Derek.” Rivera (his first name is Marcos) said. “Follow me. I’ve got your uniform right this way.”
Derek already knew the uniform wouldn’t fit perfectly. He already knew the collar would expose a sign he’d rather not be permanently carved into his body. Though that was a stupid think to dislike; wasn’t it ironic that a “messiah” rejected their own holy symbol?
He changed into the uniform. Only the top of the sign showed; it looked like he’d gotten a question mark branded onto the space between his collarbones.
“...” Rivera didn’t approve of it. He was the sort of person who would only mark himself with what he believed to be the word of God. “Interesting tattoo.”
Out of cosmic spite, Derek replied, “Thanks. I got it after becoming an atheist.”
Was Derek really an atheist? Not in the typical sense of the word. But it’s hard to worship anything when you’re sort of a god yourself. By definition he was, because he didn’t believe in a higher power. There wasn’t one.
Mr. Rivera showed him how to operate the equipment.
“If you have technical difficulties, call me over.” Rivera tells him, and then leaves him alone with the customers.
The first woman in the line, Denise, forty-two mother of three with all three in the line with her, has exactly twenty six items and all of them are for a bake sale she is hosting. She’s sensitive to metaphysical energy, enough to be uncomfortable when she so much as sees him. She’s written short horror fiction before, because she’s also one of Yog-Sothoth’s prophets, although she doesn’t know that.
If Derek wanted, he could make Avery one of his prophets.
“Hello!” He greets, keeping his voice pleasantly chipper, which reflects nothing of who he is. He scans her items. “You making cookies?” He knows, of course, that she is making cookies, although details of her life are blocked out due to Outer influences.
One of her little ones jumps enthusiastically into the conversation. “Mommy’s hosting a bake sale!” This was her youngest child, age eight. “She’s gonna make cake, and muffins, an’ cookies…”
Derek’s humanity feels, for some odd reason, dread. It doesn’t take much to figure out why. This child, Amy, had dreams of his expeditions in Minecraft. Her destiny, like that of most prophets, was decided long before Derek had a say in it. She was going to become a politician, a writer, and somebody who knew things she shouldn’t.
Growing up, she’d get called crazy, insane, mad; she would be none of those things. She’d become rich, powerful, anything a mother could want except for the fact that she would be corrupted by that greed;. Her name would have a place in the graveyard of Carcosa.
He finished mechanically scanning the items.
“I love her cookies so much! My mommy is the best!” Am finished, much to her mother’s proud embarrassment.
He heard her as they exited.
“Mommy, that guy is so cool!”
“Mhm.” Denise replied anxiously.
“He wore so much yellow!”
That scared Denise for one simple reason; Derek wasn’t wearing a sliver of yellow.
The rest of the shift was a waltz of mundanity; a dance of mental decay. He stopped trying to strike up conversation with customers halfway through.
By the time he made it back to his apartment, he was exhausted.
“Hey!” Avery greeted; he was on the couch, playing Mariokart while boxes lay scattered around him. “How was work?”
Derek took off his glasses and collapsed next to Avery on the couch.
“Terrible,” he replied. “I met two prophets.”
“Prophets as in evangelicals or prophets as in H.P Lovecraft?”
“Lovecraft.”
Avery groaned in sympathy. “How were they?”
“Denise was scared of me, as she should be,” Avery laughed, “And Amy, her six year old, was…” Derek hesitated. “One of mine.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
“That must suck ass.” Avery concluded; Derek knew he was giving him the space to continue talking.
“I just feel guilty, you know? It’s my fault she’s going to be called insane and referred to a mental asylum.”
“You couldn’t have done anything about it.”
“That doesn’t change anything. She;s still never going to have a normal life, she’s still going to dream of places nobody should dream of-”
“Not even you?” Avery joked, harmlessly elbowing him in the ribs.
“Shh. She’s still going to suffer because I exist.” It would be so much easier, he considers, if he’d never been human at all. If he didn’t have to deal with guilt, and having a body; and worst of all: rent.
Avery’s arm wrapped around him, he leaned into the embrace.
“Just so we’re clear,” Avery said, “you’re the nicest, smartest person I know.”
Derek didn’t shake his head, though he wanted to. The nicest thing he’d ever done had only been out of necessity. Because he had to. Avery was so much better than he was; he was determined, albeit shakily, to find him, somebody he didn’t even know, and wanted to save him when he found out he was sacrificing his life.
And Derek wasn’t even really a person anymore. He was a concept so convinced it had personality that it managed to pilot around a body. He was greed and rot and knowledge that was delusional enough to believe it had redeeming qualities. He was nobody at all, and Avery was a fool.
“d3rlord3?” Avery questioned. “Hey, Derek, you’re crying. Work really was a beat-up, huh?”
Derek touched a hand to his damp cheeks.
(Crying can be caused by emotions or irritation to the eyes. There are tear glands, called lacrimal glands, that make tear fluid. When crying, extra fluid builds up and flows over the rims of eyelids and down onto the face, though this is only one part of crying; it is not, in fact, required for something to be defined as crying. Most of the time, Derek’s crying comes as more of a choked sob- he doesn’t often tear.)
“Mmm.” He buried his face into Avery’s shoulder.
Avery’s arms were so warm around him; twin stars couldn’t hold a candle to it. Derek stopped crying; he relaxed. At some point during the hug, sleep claimed him.
-ˋˏ ༻⚜️༺ ˎˊ-
Yellow.
Yellow was the color a little girl would see if she looked at a vessel of his. Yellow was her favorite color; she dreamt of yellow and grey.
She was currently dreaming, rather unluckily; she dreamt of his realm. He knew that her dreams were realistic in comparison to her peers, though she had only the littlest glimpse of Carcosa that would fade with puberty. He had noticed her when she first appeared; she gazed from the edge of his consciousness.
Her voice was, for now, an irritating giggle in the back of his vision. He reached out, as one does for the light in their final sleep, and plucked her from there.
At the shore of Hali, she splashed spectral feet into dull water. She ran around the edges, turned, and saw him.
“Grocery store guy!” Her voice was faint.
Grocery store?
He picked through the world’s memories of every grocery store in existence and found one single human that caught his “eyes”.
Derek Hutchins.
He dismissed her back to her bed to investigate the human further.
Or, rather, the very human-shaped gate. Derek had been a smart man; he’d nearly gotten into Harvard, which was apparently something impressive to a human. His body was currently curled up next to a human known as Avery, who was ordering pizza instead of cooking.
Avery was not nearly as intelligent as the other, but he would make a perfect vessel if not for Derek…
Derek Hutchins.
Derek Hutchins, the King in Yellow.
He swore quietly. He really needed to find a way to just remember, without having to go through the process of knowing.
He watched Avery, who could play Mariokart as loudly and rambunctiously as he wanted without waking up Derek, because Derek was currently googols of light years away.
Avery was very good at the game. Currently, he was in the first palace, and stayed there despite enabling only blue shells. As a matter of fact, he was very triumphantly outrunning thirty blue shells, and finished the race without losing his position. His cart then got hit with the most impressive consecutive train of blue shells the universe had ever witnessed.
Cthulhu was laughing at him for watching Avery with such interest, but Derek paid that no mind. He’d rather spy on somebody who’d directly agreed to it rather than watch a little girl dream of hell.
When the pizza arrived, he smoothly re-entered his body.
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Avery handed him a plate without even knowing for certain that he was awake. It wasn’t Derek’s favorite pizza place in the world, but it was definitively his thirty-second favorite. (He knew what all pizza tasted like, and didn’t have to physically attend a gourmet restaurant to know which one was the best.)
“How was your nap?” Avery asked casually.
“Threw Amy out of Carcosa, watched you play Mariokart.” Derek had to admit that a nap had helped.
“What did you think?”
“The universe,” Derek looked Avery in the eyes, “Has never seen more impressive karting.”
“Aww. You don’t have to say that!” Avery took a huge bite of his pizza. Grease dribbled down his chin. “It wasn’t as good as my Skywars games.”
“Sure, but I’m not kidding. That was 5% better than the only other guy to try that.”
“Wait, it was?” Avery grinned. Somehow, he had pizza sauce on his forehead. No amount of cosmic knowledge could explain it.
“Yep. You better change your title from Skywars god to Kart King.”
“Nah, I’ll pass. I’m fine with you being the only king.”
“If I get out of touch, promise to become my jester?”
Derek bit his pizza.
“Always.”
The two shared a laugh. Derek felt… human, again.
ᨏᨐᨓ ᨓᨐᨏ
As much as he was glad that Derek was trying to lead a cosmically comically conformed life, he was also worried; worried about Derek’s health, and worried about his humanity, an already fragile mirror he was praying would withstand a sledgehammer.
He didn’t know how long Derek spent every night with no idea who he was, how long until something guided him into thinking about humanity, but Derek had told him it was taking longer and longer.
Truthfully, Avery was scared that one day, he’d never remember.
Derek’s twenty-first birthday was coming up, which he only knew because Derek’s mother, who he still called momma, which made Avery’s heart melt, had told him while she was bringing over an apartment-warming gift; a small potted tomato plant they’d both decided to name Hynes.
Derek was the one that watered the plant, because sometimes Avery got distracted, and Derek could also just look at it and know exactly how much water it needed. Avery wished he could hold his botany knowledge over Derek’s head, but Derek inarguably knew more than he ever would.
One time a few months ago, he’d asked Derek to give him infinite knowledge of plants, and Derek had responded with:
“If you want to be reduced to a vegetative state then sure, I can give you infinite plant facts.”
Avery had never tried asking after that. He’d also found that Derek, to his dismay, would never help him cheat on a test, no matter how much he got on his knees and falsely worshiped him. He kept doing that, though, because he noticed how Derek smiled and blushed when he got on his knees and pretended to pray.
“At least my biology knowledge is certified organic.” Avery muttered, lapping Derek for the second time in Mariokart.
“Thinking about tomorrow’s test, I see.” Derek commented.
“Hey,” Avery began a joke, “Stop reading my mind.”
Derek took this far too seriously.
“I would never read your mind without direct permission. That would be gross.”
“Okay, job-” Avery crashed into a wall. ‘COME ON! Job application cheater.”
“It’s not cheating,” Derek drifted, “To use my resources. Even if my resources are cosmic knowledge.”
“Cosmic knowledge is definitely cheating.”
Derek laughed. After a few seconds, Avery laughed with him.
The pizza was all but gone; Avery had been sure to order one side with only cheese, because Derek didn’t like mushrooms on his pizza like Avery did. He did, apparently, like pineapple, but Avery refused to ever spend money on something so atrocious.
“Why don’t you like mushrooms on your pizza?” Avery asked, watching his name be displayed on the top of the rankings (it hadn’t moved).
“I used to like it, but after… you know what, I was able to hear every thought it had ever had.”
“Thought?”
“You’d be surprised,” Derek shuddered, “fungi are smarter than you’d think.”
“Oh. I mean, I knew they were more similar to animals than to plants, but.”
“They use their “root” systems for complex thought. They don’t think in any way a human does, but still.”
“Do you still think like a human?” Avery wondered aloud.
“Sometimes. Most of the time, when I’m awake, I do.”
Most of the time. Avery chose not to think too deeply about that, or rather he tried to. But he still asked, “what’s it like when you don't?"
“I can’t tell the difference, I just know there is one.” Derek explained. “When I'm awake and I think like that, it's kind of like an intrusive thought, so I dismiss it.”
Avery looks over for the clock.
“Ten o’ five.” Derek says, before he gets a chance to check for himself.
“We should probably get to sleep.”
“Yeah.”
Avery, for one, slept like a rock; Derek always did, and Avery didn't doubt that loosely draping an arm over his side helped.