Work Text:
Derek didn’t want to die.
This, he felt, was common knowledge. Amongst his family, at least; he’d been nothing but open towards them since he was adopted at age four, discussing with his moms and siblings—in grueling detail—what, exactly, had made him upset and what emotions he was processing through it. Did he go into too much detail? Probably. Did he often breach topics usually taboo to talk about? Absolutely. Was he loved regardless, with flaws and tributes and every odd thing about him? Yes, without a doubt.
It was this love he was sure of that kept him going, in the months he was glued to his screen. The thought of his Ma and Mom, of his siblings—two sisters and a brother, all three still in high school even after he went a state away for college. He would think of how they would destroy themselves seven times over if he’d given up, if he died without a fight, and that would be enough to put his fingers back on the keyboard and play idly in a game, waiting for AveryTheMayo to finally discover the laptop, find D3rlord3 waiting for him.
Oh gods, Avery. Someone Derek had been carefully avoiding thinking about, yet no matter what he did, his attention had always dragged back to him.
Avery.
That had been the first word to leave his mouth when he bolted up, in a room he didn’t recognize and people with blurred faces surrounding him, trying desperately to calm him even as he shook and trembled and screamed for him, for Avery, for him to please, for the love of god please be okay—
That was a time Derek didn’t like thinking of. Everything had been scary, for a solid week, brain scrambling for information he wasn’t quite sure was his own. People he barely recognized continuously surrounded him, touching him and whispering words he couldn’t begin to process, gentle reassurances that Derek only recognized as threats. He barely remembered that time, either way—he was told later on, by his Ma, that they’d needed to sedate him several times over to get him to relax. It had done good for him, it really had, but he could remember the absolute terror of being stuck with needles and feeling something cold pulse through his veins before his vision went black.
He was also told, later on, while both his mom’s slept smushed on the little navy couch together and his sister sat close to his side, that he couldn’t stop screaming when awake. That even from several halls down, he could be heard, causing much distress with their patients around and nearly sending him to the mental ward, under the assumption that his mind had been completely lost. That his screams were always the same every time—calling Avery’s name, begging him to be okay, pleading to an unseen force to leave him alone.
His sister had asked, in a low voice, who Avery was.
Derek thought for a long moment, turning to look out the window as he watched the city, unsure how to answer. He knew everything about Avery—from his favorite color to his least favorite foods to how he preferred sweet, tooth-rotting coffee. He could describe, in perfect detail, exactly how he acted and why. Everything about Avery had been laid out on a platter, spread across his mind for only him to see, and for a second—only a second—Derek was glad it was him, to experience the beauty of Avery’s soul.
But all the information felt unfair; he’d never once met the man in person, never gotten to hear his voice or touch his face, a face he wished to memorize. He had yet to witness his reactions to mundane things, how he went about his days, how he spent his time.
(Something in his mind screamed at him that Avery was not well. That something with Avery was wrong, something changed after New Year’s. It was something Derek desperately hoped was wrong and pushed off despite knowing, deep down, it would ring true.)
Derek was quiet for a long moment more, before turning back to his sister. “Everything.”
He was everything to Derek at the moment, and he couldn’t shake the feeling that something was terribly, horribly wrong.
He hoped Avery thought he wanted to die.
He felt that it would cause Avery a little less ache, a lesser pain than if he didn’t. Though he supposed that was how it always was; knowing that a loved one (and no, he did not feel any which way towards being referred to as a ‘loved one’ to Avery) hadn’t died without wishing to, that in the end, they’d done it to themselves and it hadn’t been another outside force to do them in. Derek knew this personally, after asking the revolving nurses who’d come check on him, led him to odd rooms for testings, helped him with day-to-day tasks. Each one had given him an odd look, asked if he was feeling well or if he needed to tell them anything, but the ending answer had always somewhat been the same.
He figured that if Avery ever asked him about it, he would look his friend in the face and lie. It would be the best for Avery if he never knew how terrified he’d been in his final moments, if he never knew how after writing his final message, he laid his head on his desk and sobbed. Not a loud thing, not the chest-aching cry that was expected—maybe even more appropriate—for the moment; no, he cried for what could’ve been, what his life had been leading to before his final moments. He cried as he felt his mind slipping, felt Hastur screaming in rage and anguish as they both went down, Derek’s mind being utterly destroyed in the process.
He supposed the crying was warranted, even now, when it would normally seem like a useless reaction. He would never lead a normal life, not ever again. His main doctor, a lovely older woman with stern eyes yet a kind smile, had told him he’d ‘had a seizure’—something Derek knew wasn’t correct, yet didn’t bother correcting. The months of sitting in front of his desk without movement had caused his muscles to seriously deteriorate, especially his legs—knees, in particular. It would be likely he would need help walking, need help standing for longer periods, would be unable to do what his old routine had consisted of. His mind was horrendously skewed, many functions it completely ruined, causing him to have to re-learn to do a lot of things after sense had come back to him.
His entire life would be changed, due to his… ‘incident’, as he would be further dubbing it. None of it felt fair. It wasn’t his fault, he swore—had he never opened Minecraft, had he never logged onto a world he never created and gone left when everything screamed at him not to, had he never looked the king in the eyes and was from then on entranced to stay, unmoving, scribbling out a warning he already knew Avery wouldn’t heed then waiting for him, for so, so long, to meet in the library.
He still remembered seeing Avery’s little avatar for the first time. He remembered being so happy that Avery was finally there, in front of him, excitedly exclaiming how he had found D3rlord3. Derek had to take a moment, a quick thing with how he couldn’t look away, to swipe tears away from his eyes and focus on the moment.
He didn’t like to think about how that had been one of three times he’d truly seen him. How the last time he saw him, how the last words spoken to him, were rotten with betrayal.
He wished he’d not taken those moments in vain, like how he had then. He wished he had taken special care in spending just a moment longer with Avery, the most beautiful soul he’d ever known, before betraying him for what was sure to be certain death.
Derek kind of wished that he’d died. Not in the worst sense, no; he was very much so happy alive, glad he was where he was. But he felt that death would have been much more merciful; he wouldn’t be reduced to a crying mess each time he tried to eat and failed, tried to write properly and failed, messed up basic tasks he was sure he had known. Things that he should be able to do, always had been able to do, now all lost due to his lacking sense of self-preservation and a hope that, after it all happened, Avery would turn out okay.
Avery had to turn out okay. He wasn’t sure what he’d do if he wasn’t.
(His mind continued to scream at him, scream that Avery was not in as good a state as Derek was delusional for dreaming of. That Derek was making a fool of himself, for not getting to him sooner.)
(Derek figured that he had a good excuse, though, as to why he couldn’t get to Avery to help him.)
—
The first time Derek had tried to ‘leave the hospital’—a generous term for it, really—he made it exactly ten steps out of his room.
Technically eleven, if he were being generous. His foot had landed on the eleventh step, him already a small distance from his room, yet his legs hadn’t bothered supporting Derek as much as he believed they would continue to. He face-planted on the floor, too tired from walking at all to bother with sticking his arms out to try and catch himself, which then led to his Ma fussing over him while one of the nurses—Laila—reattached him to his IV and heart monitor, glaring at him all the while.
“Why would you try to walk?” His Ma breathed, staring at him with horror equal to if someone had gotten murdered in front of her. A fate that she looked like she’d be performing on Derek himself, if given the opportunity. “You know you have to be cleared by the doctor for you to even try, Derek.”
“The one time you’re active, and it’s to cause Ma grey hairs,” his brother—Roman—huffed, from where he’d stolen his Ma’s place on the little couch. His Mom had him tucked under her arm, trapping him while she slept, treating her son like a stuffed bear—a fate that his Ma had also been subjected to, before hearing Derek crash outside his room. Really, it was a miracle his Mom hadn’t woken up at all, with all the shrieking his Ma was subjecting him to.
Derek sighed as he leaned back in bed, watching Nurse Laila fiddle with his heart monitor for a long moment before sighing, looking back at Derek.
“You can’t leave bed without clearance from the doctor,” she sighed, a disappointed-sounding thing that immediately made Derek feel bad. “And if you do, at least try to use a mock-cane thing, something for support. You’re lucky if you haven’t just set yourself back another week.”
“Sorry,” Derek murmured, looking down at his lap. He was grateful, he really was—grateful to be alive, grateful to be able to upset his Ma and Nurse Laila. Not that doing so felt good; he hated disappointing people he cared for, and his Ma looked nothing but upset with him as she sat next to Roman, still glaring daggers at Derek. The nurse was much nicer about it, having been talking to him in a kind, gentle voice thus far; but he could see the faint frown lines and promptly decided, right there and then, that any and all escape attempts—though he didn’t remember even beginning this first one, having gained awareness from what had been a nap in the middle before deciding to keep going—would be made while the other nurse was on shift. She was a lot meaner, she’d deserve the stress a lot more.
“I forgive you,” Nurse Laila hummed, offering Derek a kind, gentle pat on his shoulder. She straightened back up after a moment, giving the people in the room a nod before finally stepping out.
It really hadn’t been his original plan to leave the hospital. No; he didn’t mind being stuck there nearly as much as everyone was acting like he did. The bed was scratchy, the room was cold, and he never enjoyed being prodded much anyways, but he understood the necessity. A little too much, sure, the lingerings of Infinite Knowledge making it incredibly hard not to know something, but he digressed.
Point was, he didn’t mind the hospital. The people were nice enough—except for Nurse Judy, but he was half-convinced she ate lemons for breakfast just to ruin her own mood—and the food wasn’t half as bad as people made it to be. His only true issue was that he was bored out of his mind, and even that was solvable once Mom came stumbling in after the first few days with enough books to fill a small library.
No—what he did mind was the never-ending nightmare that he would have, each time he closed his eyes, every time he dared bother trying to get some sleep.
It always started the same. Not with what he expected it to be, never having once seen the gates or torches, the eyes a distant memory then.
No; it started at a train station.
He would be sat to the left, legs glued to a bench that didn’t do wonders for his back. He figured he looked similar to how he did while awake—hospital robe, hair tied back in a messy bun, beard unevenly shaved, and himself shivering in the city’s cool winter air. He’d be forced to face towards the tracks, towards the other side, where people with blurred faces would pass by and ignore him entirely.
And then there was him.
Sitting directly across from Derek, on the other side of the railroad and facing towards him, his head hung low while his leg bounced where he sat. Dyed blonde dreads with green tips, tied back messily, fell over his tired, forest green eyes, eyes that looked sunken in with his hollow cheeks. A too-large coat threatened to swallow the man whole, with twig legs sticking out of the bottom that looked far too small for the basketball shorts he wore. He almost looked sickly, in the poor railway lighting, and it had made Derek’s heart ache the first few times he saw the unrecognizable man.
It would stay that way, the first ten minutes or so. Derek would watch the man bounce his leg and grip his own arms and look very nervous, almost as if debating something. As if his being there at all was to be questioned, a reason to be anxious.
A stream of light made itself evident from the tunnel separating the two, streaming onto rusted rails. Derek would then watch, almost in slow motion, how the man would slowly stand. How the anxiety clinging to his frame bled to quiet resolve, clearly having made his decision, a decision Derek would only find out a few moments later.
A decision Derek held no power in stopping as he watched, helpless, as the man sprinted forward. His voice stayed choked in his throat, his body rooted to the bench as the man sprinted forward, only speeding up. The train whistled as it came bursting through the tunnel, unable to even begin to slow as the man leapt, throwing himself sideways as the train—
He always woke up, right then. Breathing heavily in his hospital room, curled up on his side and staring at his sleeping parents and bored-out-of-their-minds siblings, wondering who the man in his dream was.
It hadn’t taken too long to get his answer; though the way he got his answer was, really, not how he wished it to be.
No; the answer had to come in what had to be the most annoying way
possible.
“You are not supposed to be here, still.”
“What did you expect?” Hastur, the King in Yellow, drawled, almost as if annoyed by Derek’s quickly boiling anger. Derek couldn’t see him, thankfully; to anyone else, it would look like he was talking to himself in the mirror, hands gripping the sides of the porcelain sink so hard his knuckles were turning white. His Ma had gone out to scrounge up food for the rest of them, taking his siblings with her, leaving his Mom—who was far more lax than Ma was, allowing him to get up and move around with some aid—to care for him. Something that Derek, personally, preferred; as much as he was grateful for his family traveling so far so he wouldn’t be alone, they got to be suffocating. This was something his Mom completely understood, which was what allowed him to shuffle himself off to the bathroom with the support of the wall while she idly sat on her phone, scrolling through her emails.
“I expected death,” Derek breathed, staring into his own eyes—as if treating his own reflection like Hastur himself. It was the closest he would get, he imagined—his reflection didn’t look at all familiar to him, after spending months unable to look at anywhere but the screen. Long, dark brown hair fell over too-thin shoulders, landing near his middle back—something Derek would have to cut back down to shoulder blades, when given the opportunity. His eyes looked dull, lifeless, sunken into his face like a caved-in hole, similar to the rest of his frame. He looked nothing like he once did; nothing like the man that would work out every other day, nothing like the man who’d help others with their own issues or go out just for the sake of going out. “I think this fate is a little worse.”
“I’m not that bad,” Hastur grumbled, sounding entirely offended. “I cannot believe you feel so revoltedby me being in your mind.”
“Oh, but you are that bad.” Derek’s glare darkened towards the mirror, jaw tightening. “If I’d known that this would be the causation of my plan, then I would’ve come up with something far more devastating for you.”
“Isn’t that funny,” Hastur hummed, offense now sounding more like smugness than anything else. “One who once held infinite knowledge, no secrets hidden from their simple mortal minds, and yet you hadn’t a clue of the probabilities of… this.”
“Don’t act like you knew of this fate either,” Derek hissed. He knew for a fact that Hastur was more shocked than he was; in fact, the moment he’d first heard Hastur—middle of the night, after yet another dream, followed by a grumble of ‘really, I thought he was smarter’—he’d acted rationally and ignored him. The king, on the other hand, had decided it was in both their best interests to start shrieking and freaking out, acting impossibly unprofessional and ungodly.
If in any other case, Derek would have found it hilarious; but he found nothing funny about being stuck with someone who’d tormented him for months, someone who threatened the one person who’d actually fought for him when he needed someone most. Derek would have been nothing but content if Hastur hadn’t shown up at all, and it was all he wished for Hastur to be gone.
“Don’t worry, little mortal,” Hastur huffed, a dragging sound that reminded Derek of a moody teen. “I feel myself fading as time drags. If my hypothesis is to ring true, I’ll be completely gone by daylight of the next New Year’s Day.”
“You can stop speaking like that, you know.”
“Like what, little mortal?”
“Like— ugh, like you’re trying to sound smart but failing.” Derek grumbled, taking a moment to brace his elbows on the side of the porcelain sink before burying his head in his hands. He felt exhausted,standing up for so long, the annoyance Hastur was causing not exactly helping out either. “You sound stupid, doing it.”
“How rude—“
“Anyway, you said you’d be gone by next New Year’s?” Derek glanced back up at the mirror, as if meeting Hastur’s gaze once more. “That feels like too long a wait.”
“I’ve never heard such utter disrespect uttered by someone as fragile as you,” Hastur hissed. “Oh, if I were to take control of you now—“
“But you can’t, can you?” A smug look crossed Derek’s face, a grin creeping up on him. It was a gamble, sure, but— “I won’t let you. My mind’s far too strong. I’d have to grant you that permission.”
Hastur was silent for a long moment, all the answer Derek needed. Derek hummed as he stood straight back up, stretching slightly only to wince when it made his limbs ache. He must’ve been in the bathroom for a good few minutes, by then, doing nothing but stare into the mirror and mutter to himself like a crazy person. Something that Derek would not be admitting to, not in any reality.
Clearly, he didn’t need to admit anything to his Mom, who probably knew him just as well as he knew himself at that point. There was a gentle knock on the door, followed by a kind, “Derek, hun? You okay?”
Derek almost immediately felt guilty. His Mom sounded worried—he hated making anyone worry. “Yeah, I’m okay,” he called, “I’ll be out in a moment.”
Derek promptly ignored Hastur for the rest of the evening.
—
“Hey, Hastur?”
“Awe, finally speaking to me again?”
“Shut it, I had a—
“My Vessel.”
“…What.”
“You were going to ask who it was, in the vision I keep providing,” Hastur huffed, sounding utterly annoyed. “It’s my Vessel.”
Avery.
Derek felt his stomach drop at the realization that Hastur had called it a vision.
—
“I am not using that thing.”
“Sweetheart, you have to.” His Ma looked like she was about to cry, if only from the stress Derek was causing. Derek couldn’t find it in himself to care, however, as he stared at what his Ma was trying to force into his hands.
Derek had gotten familiar with the prospect of using a cane. It wasn’t something he was particularly upset by, not something he completely hated. His doctors had come to him with the decision of either using a wheelchair or doing workouts for the ability to use a cane, and Derek had chosen the latter without much hesitation. It seemed like the obvious choice to him; a cane would allow much more mobility, would allow him to perform daily functions and tasks much easier. It only seemed, to him, like a natural step in the process; a side path needed to be taken, so he could get out of the hospital much faster.
But now that he was looking at it, now that it was being handed over to him in such a manner that made Derek feel nothing but small, he didn’t want to even look at the damned thing.
“You need something to help your mobility,” his Mom sighed from next to his Ma, arms crossed and looking particularly peeved. Not that Derek could blame her; if he were in his usual state of mind, he’d recognize that he was acting bratty, in which case he would apologize and work to better himself promptly.
But he was tired, damnit. Tired and bored and kind of achy, and he was not in the mood to be reasonable about things.
He hadn’t been particularly in need of a cane here recently, anyways. Against the wishes of his doctor and Ma, he’d get up rather often to… ‘explore’. Which was a much better way to put it, rather than ‘escaping the hospital so that My Vessel will not die and all isn’t for naught’ as Hastur had put it, much to his dismay.
The escape attempts from the hospital were, by what Derek was proud of and much to the dismay of everyone else, getting increasingly better as time went on. He could tell he was getting stronger, at least slightly, as the weeks went by—he’d first awoken in the last week of January, barely able to stand or do much of anything with himself. He’d been instructed to take things slow and easy, avoid all unnecessary pain to make recovery more manageable; clearly, the doctors didn’t know Derek at all. Being told to take things ‘easy’ only ever drove him further along.
Derek had pushed himself into a sitting position by the beginning of the second week; whenever he was in a much clearer state of mind. A miracle, by what his doctor said, when she’d found him in his room in said position. This was then followed, barely three days later, by him pushing himself out of the hospital bed entirely—only to just barely catch himself on the wall, pitching forward at the new unfamiliarity of gravity doing its job. His Ma and Mom were, blessedly, not in the room whenever he’d failed the most basic human task of standing; his sister—Cyndi—had been watching, however, and had immediately reported his failure to their parents whenever they both came back.
It was humiliating, really; and what was almost worse was that everyone acted as though it were normal. As if Derek couldn’t help it, as if he needed to be treated like glass because of it.
And maybe he did need to be treated like glass; he didn’t know.. Hell, he’d allow them to treat him like nothing but the dirt under their shoes if it meant they’d stop looking at him with pity.
Derek remembered, vaguely, whenever he could lift his entire family combined. When he was asked to haul his siblings around just for the sake of it. Derek had never minded; in fact, he’d wished that that was what he was being asked to do at the moment, instead of being looked at with such sadness and his cane being gently pressed into his hands.
There was a thought, something distant and unknowing, that wondered how Avery would feel about him having a cane.
Then another thought, more likely Hastur’s doing than not, that asked how Avery would feel if he was trying to deny the help of a cane.
He gave a long, dragging sigh, giving the cane a considering look for a long moment before allowing it to be pressed into his hands.
He just hoped that when he got to Avery, Avery wouldn’t mind the weak state he was left in.
All he had to do was get to Avery first.
—
Avery really had looked awful, standing in the shoddy train-station lights with thrown-on clothes and windswept hair, bloodshot eyes, and a tremble to his frame that made Derek’s heart ache.
—
Derek’s legs moved, before he could stop them, his heart screaming at him to stop the one person he cared for most before he could do something unforgivable.
—
“Avery?”
“Yeah, Derek?” Avery murmured from where Derek had tucked him under his arm. The Uber ride to the hospital had, thus far, been completely silent—save for when Avery tried to make a joke, try to make light of the whole night, and broke down crying halfway through.
Derek thought for a long moment.
“…Nah, it’s nothing.”
(He wanted nothing more than to tug Avery up to eye level, whisper in low tones how perfect Avery was, how no god would ever take him from Avery again. He wanted to hold Avery as tight as possible, wanted to grab his jaw and shove their mouths together before Derek knew what was happening.)
(He did none of these things. Hastur would be giving him an earful later, he was sure.)