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When Derek caught the stench of rotting food, the tension in his body melted away. He could no longer prove to himself that once—eons ago, it had felt like—he too, was a living human being. Bloodshot eyes failed to rip from the screen, and his nerves spared him of the pain that decaying tissue would inflict. In-game music and sounds served only as brief relief from the otherwise incessant ringing in his ears. He lived torture in its most oxymoronic state: complete and utter numbness.
The smoothie gone beyond rancid gently tugged at his sleeve, attempting to remind him of the world he's in, while in-game he stood before a nuclear cluster of golden eyes,
and Avery.
"You lied to me! There was nothing at the tree!" It was as if hearing Avery's voice crystal clear, shattered with betrayal. The sound had never fallen on his ears, he had never known the warmth of his skin nor had he mapped out his every birthmark hidden across his body— "What are you doing here? What is this?"
...yet the infinity that forced itself into Derek knew everything about Avery. What it knew, Derek knew.
"Avery, I need you to leave, now." So he knew his heart lurched at the message, and he knew when the first tear made its way down his face. Derek's hand twitched, aching to leave the keyboard. It was lightning in his veins—remarkable, incredible, and so, so painful. By now, the tears were streaming, and neither of Derek's frail arms could reach him.
Derek would bear the infinite knowledge, would suffer through the ceaseless pain and numbness for all of time repeated over again—and happily too—if it meant that he could wipe the tears from Avery's eyes tonight.
"Disconnect right now, and I will tell you everything afterwards." But he knew the end of their story. He knew the end of their story as well as the end of every story across every universe in which they were. This was no different than their every iteration.
"I don't believe you, Derek! Tell me, what's going on?" The King watched Avery hungrily as he kept advancing toward Derek. His stomach twisted in disgust. "Well?" Avery demanded further, only indulging him more. Minutes, hours, spent in this treacherous game were worth the misery of living if Avery was there with him.
This would have to end soon though, despite his selfishness.
Hesitantly, Derek moved his nearly broken axe to his hot-bar. Shaky hands would be the executioner tonight. "If you don't leave right now, I will kill you." He brandished a single durability point.
"Will you?! Then I'll just have to kill you first!" Avery equipped his sword in response, to which Derek found himself holding a breath. It had more than enough points to get the job done, should Avery go through with it. For a moment, he second-guessed the infinite's knowledge of Avery. Doubt stole his voice, whispering in Derek's ear: I can't save him this time. The King bore deeply into him now, a predator in wait. "Tell me what is going on!"
Derek's vision blurred. All he could do was keep pushing further. "This thing's goal is to enter the mortal realm through you, Avery." The breath he'd been holding finally gave. "But if I force it to enter my mind, I'll take it down with me." From his mind's eye, he could see Avery struggling to stay composed. "I'm already too far gone. It'll be trapped with me, and you and I will win, okay?" He paused, letting his hands recover from the overuse. "But this won't work with you here. I have it under control so please, just leave."
Avery took more than a moment to himself. He anxiously bit his lip as his eyes darted around the room in sporadic thought. Derek learned of the posters on the walls of his bedroom, the glow-in-the-dark stars that would lose Avery the security deposit on his apartment, of the key holder hung crookedly by his door, of the calendar turned to December that would soon be outdated. With one final glance at the date, his gaze returned to Derek once he'd made up his mind.
"And what'll happen to you?"
Derek had made up his, too.
"I don't know."
"Don't lie to me!"
"I said I don't know!" The King's gaze pierced them as Derek hit Avery with his axe. His weapon was gone for good. "It doesn't matter what'll happen to me. I can't even look away from this screen without pain. Soon, I probably won't even be able to think at all." He sniffled, catching the smell of food gone bad again. Humanity just wasn't meant for Derek, not when this is his last remaining fragment of it. "But you can live, Avery. Leave, and forget about this world and this place. There's a life you're meant to be living."
Avery steeled himself. "And I owe it to you!"
In an instant, adrenaline coursed through Derek's veins. "No, you do not! You don't even know me!" His own words wounded him, though they were truth. Avery had not a clue of Derek's rotting form, and he never would. Perhaps there was comfort to be found in the truth.
Comfort terrified him.
"You're saving my life, Derek, I can't let you die for that!"
Derek would give every one of his lives for things to be so simple. To not have to type so brash a message to earnest and hopeful Avery.
"Don't you get it already?! If you don't go, we'll both die!"
Silence screamed into the nothingness. Neither one could bring themselves to move, not with a key or with a muscle. Avery's breath became choppy and stifled, while Derek took in shallow, controlled breaths of poisoned air. He'd been sitting in it so long, his lungs finally took notice as a coughing fit tore itself through his body. He doubled over in true physical pain, a sensation he'd long since forgotten since booting up the game. Every fiber of his being was pulled taut, daring to snap while he hacked. Still, his eyes stayed glued to the monitor, where Avery was on the other side at a loss for what to say. The pain of looking away, of leaving Avery alone in that wretched place would kill him if this fit couldn't.
Slowly, Derek's hands would return to his keyboard as he began to stabilize. "It's okay. You might not even remember me." He laced his every word with tenderness; Avery's hands hesitated above the keyboard, trying to get his own words out.
"Even if I don't, my recording will." Tension once strung tightly now softened into something more malleable. Avery took it into his hands, shaped it lovingly, and presented it back to Derek, as if he'll be the one doing the saving.
Just this once—for Avery—Derek let himself be saved. "That'll do," he typed as the corners of his cracked lips tugged into a fragmented smile.
From his headset, The King's whispers dragged him back to the game he'd been forced to play. All that is good must come to an end, and Derek knew this would too—not now, not with his next message, or the one after that.
It was over when it was over.
"Please Avery, leave now." It was his final, most essential plead.
"No, I'm staying with you, Derek." He had seen it coming, yet— "I don't care what you say. You warned me and saved me." the ache in his heart grew with every message rolling in— "If you're doing this, then so am I. We'll do it together."
but what hurt most was forcing its expulsion.
"You won't leave?" Derek took a step forward,
Avery took a step back. "No."
"You'll stay?" Another,
and another, dangerously. "...Yes."
For all the knowledge there is to be known, every corner of Derek's mind was painted only with Avery. From the very moment the infinite breached his mind, Derek knew every strand of DNA making him up, knew every second of every lifetime he would live, could derive every law of physics from a single hair from his head—there was infinity within Avery.
If The King threatened to know him so badly, then Derek would let it.
"Avery, what's in your inventory?"
He jolted, caught off guard. "What?"
"What is in your inventory?" Derek didn't have to command, he was fully aware. Avery's heart of gold couldn't have known.
As quickly as his inventory opened, Derek sprinted, striking Avery off the platform before he could react. It was already too late to react.
"Wait!" and he plunged beyond the plane, soon to find himself back at world spawn.
Finally, the ringing in Derek's ears had quieted. He stared into the abyss where Avery had fallen for an uncomfortable amount of time. It was naïve to hope that maybe Avery wasn't down there after all, especially when he could see for himself the truth. But maybe, just maybe, Avery was by his side still, and they would stand before The King together like he'd said.
"Until next time, friend."
Maybe Derek was still human.
"If you're so smart, then why are you still so afraid?" A new voice had made a home in his skull, that of his tormenter.
He'd be stupid to refute The King's claim. Lying was a fruitless endeavor against the being he'd invited into his mind.
"You idiot," was Derek's last message in the chat, his fingers trembling with every press of a key.
For the first time in an infinite forevers, Derek let his eyes fall shut, in spite of the immediate throbbing pain forced upon him. Whatever cosmic force that propped up his body in the many hours before had finally given way for Derek's hollow bones to collapse under their own weight. His head thumped onto the desk, surely fracturing something.
"I could have given you everything. Knowledge, power, life—anything you so desired!" The King shook his brain with rage, and the ringing in his ears returned despite his headset having slid off. "We could have been gods among men! And you threw it away for nothing at all!"
Derek's head pulsed and throbbed as the extra entity crammed itself into his already occupied form. By now, he could feel the pain in the marrow of his bones; dignifying The King with a reply would be a waste of his final moments. If he would die tonight, his mind would no longer be his own, nor would it belong to The King—Hastur, rather.
They were all so vivid, the memories of Avery. Every bright smile he'd worn, all the objects he'd infused with love, and every single cat he's ever pet. In many other lives, he and Derek had learned each other's names before their gamertags. Some Averys had found him first, and many Dereks couldn't stop themselves from falling into his gravity.
Except, what he and Avery had couldn't be explained by the forces of gravity. Across every timeline, there are a great many where the Earth does not bound itself to the sun, where Saturn's rings are missing from their love, that Orion's sword does not hang from his belt in the night sky. Simply, it was the single weakest of the fundamental forces. Even in their current timeline, the universe is drifting apart, and future life will look up and see a starless sky.
Derek and Avery however couldn't be ripped apart by the laws of physics. Perhaps their names were not always "Derek" and "Avery", sometimes they were more exotic.
Like "up quark" and "down quark". Their every configuration populated empty space with baryonic matter. In this universe, they were the universe; were pollen stuck to a bee's behind, or stainless steel of a beloved water bottle, or hydrogen fusing itself into helium inside a star, or the wood pulp making up the pages of somebody's most hated book. Life, as any creature would study it to be, was pixelated in a resolution of Avery and Derek.
But there was more to the universe than "up" and "down". Top, bottom, charm, strange, leptons, their anti counterparts, and the bosons mediating the forces holding all of reality together; they all bore what had forced itself a part of them. "It's not too late, Derek Hutchins." Hastur whispered down his neck. "Cancel the spell, and you can live so simply."
Maybe Derek was wrong to so blatantly indulge in his attempts at manipulation. He took a peek at Hastur's promised future anyway—as if the life Derek could lead after this could be called "simple". Not that there would be any future he would have at all.
He'd find himself sitting on the couch, quietly reading with a cat settled in his lap. As the sun began to set, he knew Avery would be getting home soon. Oh, they were older here, proper adults with careers rather than odd-jobs. He'd be home from... from the college campus, where he taught pottery.
A memory intruded on his reading, one of Avery showing Derek the ropes of throwing a piece. The book wasn't that interesting anyway. He'd been wearing those denim overalls stained with every art supply under the sun, while Derek was seemingly so inappropriately dressed, Avery forced him to wear an apron.
"I can tie a knot myself, you know," he'd deadpanned while watching Avery loop the straps twice around his waist. His first time handling clay, and he wasn't even allowed to touch the apron.
"Mmmm don't care! Done!" With that, Avery gave one last tug on the bow. "It looks good on you. Maybe you should leave your computer and join me in the studio," he joked while absentmindedly dipping his hands in water. Derek rushed to do the same; he knew it was too easy to be left in Avery's creative wake.
"Why, so I can get carpal tunnel squared?" He rebutted, eliciting sweet laughter. Avery felt so outwardly and proudly, it was no wonder he loved art. The studio where he taught was littered in relics of him.
"Okay okay, for real though! You're gonna wanna start with shaping your clay, so get ready to grasp it."
"Grasp it—?" Just then, the wheel started spinning slowly with a low hum, and Derek's hands flew to ball of clay at its center. It was denser than he'd thought, so he applied some firm pressure to the clay, feeling its shape attempt to change under his hands. The clay seemed to fight him back, protesting against its own change. Weird. "Like this?" He'd looked back up to Avery who was now studying his hands intently.
"Hmm, sorta! Try giving it a little more umph though," was his earnest suggestion, in spite of Derek's incredulous stare.
"What is umph. And how would I give that to a ball of clay," he asked with more snark than necessary. Sometimes talking to Avery felt like deciphering alien poetry.
(That sounded like a good time to Derek, though.)
"Umph like..." His voice trailed off as his hands wrapped themselves around Derek's, guiding them to gently shaping the clay. "...like this. See?"
If there was anything Derek could see, it had to be that even though Avery's hands were smaller than his, when at the wheel, they commanded anything beneath them to bend to their will. And bend Derek did, as the clay began to look more like a vessel than a formless blob under their guidance. The tips of his ears burned with the pressure on his hands steadily rising and falling, rhythmic in their machinations.
Rather than acknowledge it, he simply poked in their familiar way. "I hope you don't do this with all your students. Might break some hearts, y'know." The studio quietly watched, unjudging of the two fools dancing their dance.
Avery let out a quiet giggle, eyes still focused on their hands. "Absolutely not! Some of those students, I swear, do not moisturize after class. Even though I remind them to every week! Their skin looks like actual sandpaper!"
Derek smiled just a tad as his (hopefully well moisturized) hands began to mold the clay themselves. Avery slowly let him retake the reigns while still watching carefully, and he would catch Derek stealing a glance or two at him back.
Although, a white cat paw to the chest startled him up from his reminiscent daydream. Marshmallow, he was named, had made a bed of Derek's chest and was making biscuits of his lungs. The book he'd been reading was sentenced to the floor at some point during his mental escapade.
"You scoundrel," Derek accused while scooping up the cat. "You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be held against you in a court of law. You have the right to an—"
Just then, the door swung itself open with a light kick of Avery's foot, who immediately began to play along with a gasp. "What's his crime, officer Derek?!" Quickly, his work bag fell to the floor now neglected as he joined them on the couch.
"Illegal biscuit making," he replied flatly, side eyeing the cat. "I think he's selling this contraband too." Poor Marshmallow meowed a plea of innocence, clearly displeased with being in air-jail for so long. Derek stuck his tongue out at the white-furred criminal.
Avery nodded in understanding, humming. "Officer Derek," he stated, placing a hand on Derek's shoulder. "I think we're gonna have to set him free. Look at that face!" The face in question slow blinked at the both of them, lightly bapping a single paw on Avery. "He's too cute for maximum security prison!"
With a quiet snort, Derek gently tossed the cat onto the ground, where he'd scramble to go find the other. The two remained, sitting closely enough to feel warmth being shared. "Ah," he recalled out loud, "Do you remember when you tried teaching me how to throw?"
Avery shifted to face Derek, but his eyes danced around the room in thought, widening when the memory came back to him. "Oh yeah! You kept getting clay in your hair! I swear I heard you complaining about it in the shower for like, an hour." He smiled warmly, even though the tease in his voice was palpable.
"Whatever happened to the mug I made? You said you'd fire it, but I haven't seen it since."
At that, Avery let out a quiet hiss while avoiding eye contact. "Well," he dragged the single syllable out, "one of the students—actually the one I told you about the other day, who asked me for a letter of recommendation. That still makes me mad, like no way she was serious. All semester, she'd been—"
"Aves," Derek gently reminded him to get back on track. Talking endless circles was a talent of his, but he oftentimes forgot the original point of conversation when doing so.
"Right! Anyway, she made a teapot which was actually pretty beautiful before going in the kiln, but it was way too wet! And I told her as much—so kindly too!— that the assignment being late but in one piece is way better than betting the grade on it not exploding." Avery paused with a huff and a head shake, as if chiding the student in his head all over again.
"...Did it explode?" Derek asked, as if he couldn't guess.
"Completely. And it went right into your mug and I felt so bad so I never brought it up again!" His hands flew to cover his face in embarrassment. Avery could be so dramatic at times, but it was one of Derek's favorite qualities of his. It kept life exciting.
A small laugh escaped him, to Avery's dismay. The betrayal warranted a scoff and complete eye roll, with a light kick as the finishing blow. Derek laughed a little harder, and the grin on Avery's face widened just a tad. They sat for a little while on the couch, not needing words to fill the air. Rarely were words ever needed, but they were always welcome. They could have a conversation in complete silence, communicating solely through expressions and actions. Sometimes Derek felt as if Avery could read his mind.
Right now, Avery was looking at him like he could.
"Oh, Derek! I'd forgotten," he'd started excitedly, perking up at the thought. The way his name sounded from his voice was sickeningly sweet; their eyes met like it was the most natural thing in the world. "I stand and give my eyes to you."
Immediately, Derek stiffened at monotonous words, not knowing why they perturbed him so deeply. "...What?" he asked uncertainly. A pit opened in his stomach where nausea began brewing.
Like a man possessed, Avery continued. "One by one. Shadowed shore, far undone." The uncanny scene was only made worse when Derek realized the words his lips read didn't match what he was saying. Avery's worried frown would go unnoticed.
"Aves, stop, you're freaking me out." Derek asked, backing into the corner of the couch subconsciously.
Out of sync again, this time reaching a hand toward Derek, "To you, I pour—"
"Avery!"
Derek's eyes flew open, and before they could register the scene before him, his body moved despite its own plea not to. He rushed from his desk to Avery on the ground, who clutched in his hands a piece of paper, clasping his hand over his mouth before he could continue the spell. His muscles cried at the physical exertion; some of the bones in his feet broke bearing so much weight.
He hastily wheezed out words, unintelligible, but Avery beat him to it. His hands easily tore Derek's away from his mouth. Every movement set his nerves aflame, though all he could do was wince.
"...It's you." His voice wasn't bright as it was in the false life Hastur had shown him or in any of the universes in which Avery was. Instead, it was breathless, small, shattered, as he took in Derek for what little of him there was left. Eyes never lingered in one place for too long, there was too much that wasn't right.
Derek tried acclimating himself to speaking again, thinking very carefully about what his body needed to do. "Me," he'd whispered, familiar with this exchange of theirs. The hushed tone was all his vocal chords could manage. "How—"
"I- I—well, um, okay—hang on," Avery tripped over words as he tried composing himself, in spite of the rampant thoughts that must be going through his head. That would make two of them. Derek had seen all of it, everything, it was unreal to consider him having missed a timeline in which Avery came to save him.
"Not possible," Derek muttered under his breath, sifting the infinite for this single, microscopic instant. He could recount 13.8 billion years across billions of timelines with perfect accuracy, but didn't know of this future?
His heart stuttered when he'd realized he couldn't even foresee the next minute of this present.
Avery began shakily, "I don't know... how. Or, I guess, what allowed me to," as he delicately squeezed Derek's bony hand. "But I saw you, here, seeing me, there. And-and, my legs..." he paused to shudder out a breath, as if recalling it just then. "...I don't know, they just carried me to you."
Slowly, Derek's gaze shifted from Avery to their hands, still loosely intertwined. He'd taken note of the crumpled piece of paper cast aside, bearing words Derek was far too acquainted with barely legibly written. The spell sat in their chatlogs; Avery didn't need to find the village or the book to invoke it. He'd been there with Derek, stood before Hastur with him. Suddenly, his previous indulgences in false promises stabbed him in the heart. It was then and only then, even after the countless hours spent in-game while his body eroded from the inside out, that Derek felt rage.
Through gritted teeth, his words dripped regret: "I led you here." If he were sufficiently hydrated, maybe he would have even cried. Hastur had, once again, used him to worm its way to Avery.
"A pure vessel is worth every length. It can set us both free." A throbbing headache returned with Hastur's voice in his head again.
The way it spoke about Avery, calling him 'vessel', 'it', only brought Derek closer to throwing up. It knew too well how consumed Derek's mind was with Avery, how desperately he tried to keep it that way. If he'd known his own infatuation would bring Avery closer to Hastur—
"Do you regret what you saw, Derek Hutchins?"
He had no answer for the being.
"So what?! We get to try again, Derek!" For the first time in this life, Avery had said his name, and the sound cozied up against Derek's ears. The entity may have gone to great lengths to lure Avery to it, but for all its successes, Derek still stood in its way. It brought him only slight reprieve from his agony.
Avery's dewy optimism was not contagious, however. "Try again how?" he asked, becoming more comfortable with speaking. "I have no plan. It's in my head." Scratches littered his voice, but he could hold a conversation.
With slight pushback, Avery was at a loss. His eyes began to dance again, partially in thought but mostly taking in his surroundings. Every inch of Derek's room was depression epitomized. Glance after glance, his breath shook and welled tears threatened to spill.
"I don't know..." he shrunk in defeat and let his gaze and hands fall from Derek's to the ground. Perhaps subconsciously, they found the paper and clutched it. "I thought maybe I could save you from him... or things would be better if I were here... for some reason?" Tighter, he gripped, to which Derek kept a close eye on. Some more broken bones wouldn't phase him if push came to shove.
Gently, he tried coaxing their hands back together, away from the spell. It may have felt like knives in his bones, but— "Avery, it's okay." —watching him falter and crack, Derek just couldn't bear it. He peeked into Avery's gaze, squeezing his hands as best he could when their eyes met. "The universe... is so beautiful. I wouldn't have—" A cough interrupted him, briefly. "—I wouldn't have known, if I'd never known you. I'm grateful... to have seen it." His vocal chords were furious. "Even if only for a little."
Avery took a deep breath, eerily controlled. "Do you regret what y—"
A firework boomed deeply in the air, making Avery screw his eyes shut and fly to cover his ears. It was still New Year's Eve, like he'd said in their chatlogs. Derek, thinking at a mile per minute, took the opportunity to ball up the paper and throw it far from Avery's reach. With his aching muscles in immense pain, that wasn't very far, but Avery hadn't noticed its disappearance.
More pops, varying from loud to weak, small to huge, and Avery was nearly unrecognizable. He was still healthy, strong, and so very capable of closing the distance to find Derek, yet he trembled like a leaf on his floor. Infinity may have been slipping from his grasp, but he remembered a great deal about Avery.
"You're afraid of fireworks," Derek recalled, fondness spilling from his voice. "And you ran here?" He reached up to brush Avery's hand, easily prying it off his ear.
An embarrassed frown tainted his face, defenses up. "Yes, I did!" he yelled. Slowly, he blinked his eyes open, seeing Derek again. He tried again, unarmed this time. "It was... actually really horrible. But you needed my help ...so I came."
With a slight huff mimicking a laugh, Derek had finally come to terms with what he should've long known. There was no protecting Avery if Avery could help it. He'd thrown himself into harm's way so many times, afraid every step of the way, all for the stranger Derek was to him.
"You're not going to let me die, are you?" A lilt colored his voice as hope began to trickle in. It was so silly of a question, Avery snapped his head up to glare at Derek, offended at the suggestion.
"No! Why would you even ask me that?!"
But all the tension wound up in Avery's body would soon melt as Derek pulled him into a hug. He froze for a moment, feeling frail arms wrapped around him, and embraced them back. Derek's mind quieted completely, as if there was nothing but fuzziness to be found inside. Avery's skin was so warm, and he squeezed lightly so as to not hurt Derek. A sentiment so kind that Derek's ears began to burn hot, and he could only hope Avery didn't feel it through their hair.
This fate was one Derek could accept, even if the future was unknown to him.
The first step forward, he would take while gently separating them: "Avery, I need to go to the hospital."
He blinked at Derek a couple times before fully registering what he'd said. Some fireworks hissed in the distance. "O-okay! That, I can do!" he jumped to his feet, holding out a hand to help Derek up.
"Avery, I can't walk." Adrenaline was beginning to wear off from his bursts of movement, to his disappointment. Maybe he could, but the act would be so excruciatingly painful he might actually die.
Not something he wanted to test; Derek was done trying to die. Living was proving to be much harder, and he'd always loved a challenge.
"Right! Then, umm..." he hummed in thought while his foot tapped. "Oh! Get on my back and I'll carry you there." Avery knelt down to where Derek could reach around his neck. He was slightly embarrassed needing so much help, but Avery seemed so happy to provide, even if it was unnaturally easy to hoist him onto his back.
"Thank you Avery," Derek said intentionally quiet this time, settling into the nook of his neck. "Everything hurts so much." It strained him to say.
On the right side of his skull was a linear fracture due to the impact from his desk. The second and third metatarsals in both his left and right feet were broken, and they were swollen to boot. His skin was chilly, feeling more like a corpse rather than somebody who was alive. Too-prominent bones dug themselves into Avery, which Derek was more than aware of. His body had been eating itself alive for who-knows-how-long, and continued to do so. Physical pain aside, the ache in his head began waxing and waning again, but wasn't throbbing so horribly now that Hastur kept quiet.
"I can't imagine how an eldritch creature could do this to you, but I'm sure it's nothing modern medicine can't fix!" Avery cheerfully declared as he found his way to the door.
Left behind was a PC that would sleep for a long time. Surrounding it were many bottles of smoothies; most bottles emptied, some gone terribly rancid. Derek's bed remained unmade and unslept in, and the dog plushie he always slept with left fending for himself.
Bound to the far corner, the spell that almost sentenced Avery to a worse fate than Derek's, written in his chicken-scratch handwriting. It would stay only until Derek could come back and burn it, along with the PC. Maybe taking a hammer to it would be far more satisfying? He would think about it during recovery.
(...Recovery sounded nice.)
"Malnourishment is very well studied. There's nothing Hastur can do except make my head hurt," he attempted to reassure, voice growing hoarse. It was a gross oversimplification, but Avery didn't need to know all the intimate details of his situation.
"So what then, you put in gold contacts before hopping on the game?" Avery joked lightly, opening the door to the outside world again. Derek tensed on his back, clung a little tighter to his neck. He'd yet to look in a mirror, was too afraid of not knowing what he would see. At least he wouldn't be surprised to find one difference now. "What do you think about a burger on the way to the hospital?" He gently nudged Derek's head with his own.
"I think you'll give me refeeding syndrome." Although he was entirely serious, Avery laughed so hard they both shook, and stepped them outdoors.
Outside was simpler than Derek had thought it would be. His hold of the infinite knowledge was weak, but it still managed to overwhelm him with sensory input and useless information about everyone and everything there.
But there were people who were simply outside for the love of it. Some stood on balconies with their lovers, kissing while holding matching champagne flutes, others fiddled with a lighter surrounded by their friends and family, eager to set off mild explosives. At least one person, Derek noticed, laid flat on the concrete sidewalk, looking at up the stars. Among groups of friends out on the town, some people as kind as Avery carried their friends on their backs too. Avery gave them a playful salute, which was returned with toothy smiles.
More fireworks went off, and each time, Avery would flinch, holding the tension in his body. Still, he would keep trekking forward in spite of his own fear. Derek thought himself silly for trying to protect him so aggressively; Avery was the bravest person he'd ever known.
"Can you tell me about how you started doing pottery, Aves?" The nickname slipped so naturally, as if they hadn't just met today.
"Derek, I thought you knew like, everything?" he spryly accused, though it was partially true. The story was one Derek already knew. He could probably tell it to Avery himself with more accuracy than even he remembered, but details and facts hardly measured up to what it meant to tell a story.
Derek's eyes flitted shut, not in exhaustion or to welcome his death, but from finally feeling safe. His muscles ached but knew recovery was coming. Fight or flight mode switched itself off after the many many... months it had been, he'd just remembered.
"...Humor me? I'm kind of dying here." He didn't have to plead, but it made Avery giggle so it was well worth it.
"Well, when I was a kid, I loved making, quote unquote, potions. I'd make them outside out of like mud and rainwater and rocks— ooh, but this one time I made a potion of invisibility from my mom's fancy shampoo and sugar scrub. I think there were chunks of lipstick in there too. She was so mad! Anyway, my art teacher at school..."
Derek listened intently while Avery went on telling his story, and sidetracking often too. Every step kept bringing them farther and farther away from the wretched place where Derek had wasted away.
He took a deep breath and smelled the fresh air, relieved to continue being human.