Chapter Text
The door handle jumps slightly, but fails to open, while a muffled groan could be heard from the other side. On the second try—although still haphazard —the handle clicks just enough that Avery could nudge it the rest of the way open with his shoulder.
"I don't understand why you wouldn't just let me do it," Derek says as he watches Avery struggle through their apartment door with two overflowing grocery bags in either arm.
"Because I'm a gentleman, Derek," Avery scoffs, "and you're still recovering. What if the door handle fought back? I don't know about you, but I am not ready for another hospital stay."
A shiver rolls up his spine as he thinks about those solid bricks the hospital was cruel enough to call a bed. That place gets extremely old after the first couple of days. However, the unease melted away as soon as he heard Derek's small huff as he followed through the door behind him. It could barely be called a laugh; that was a hurdle they had yet to cross, but it was enough for Avery.
After spending weeks watching Derek's already grim health deteriorate even further, anything animated Derek did could count as a win.
Derek pouts as he slowly walks up to Avery, looping his arms around his waist and placing his face into the corner of Avery's neck.
"You don't think I could take the door?" looking up slightly to 'size-up' the door, "I could totally take the door." Before laying his head back down, he kisses his neck gently as Avery scoffs.
Avery's brilliantly green eyes, ones Derek easily gets lost in, shut as he lulls his head back towards Derek and puts his hand through Derek's dreads.
"I'd rather not take any chances," Avery whispers into the side of his… lover's? friend's face.
Avery really isn't sure where he stands with Derek. After the said man was discharged from the hospital, Avery had offered him a place to stay while he got back on his feet, though it all kinda snowballed from there. The first few weeks were rough for both of them, with Derek not being able to accept any kind of help without an insane amount of stubborn refusal, and Avery being unable to do anything but worry about Derek.
Housing Derek, while something Avery would never regret, meant his anxiety shot through the roof. He was so nervous Derek would get hurt, or not wake up again, that Avery got borderline obsessive. A quality he never thought he would inherit, something he promised to himself on the night he left home for that exact reason.
That realization hurt more than Avery was willing to admit.
But after Avery realized his actions were doing more harm than good, things became a lot better between the two of them. There was no longer that silent tension, or words bitten on the tip of either of their tongues.
Instead, a heated tension, one so palpable it was hard to think when Derek even looked Avery in the eyes. One way to hard to resist, and Avery has found that he is a very weak man when it comes to Derek.
So, one night, he gave in and kissed Derek, at first just shy, gentle pecks when the tension grew just a little too suffocating. Although that innocence didn't last long, it escalated into sneaky hands on the back of Avery's lower back when Derek passed by, or the retirement of the guest bedroom when Avery asked Derek to stay with him one night.
And while very romantic, that's about all it was. Derek would pull away when things got too heated or when Avery would talk about their future plans. Avery couldn't make any sense of it, one moment Derek would be all over him, like Avery was some sort of drug. And the next, he wouldn't even look him in the eyes. A strange, alien coldness would wash over him like they hadn't just made out, and it always gave Avery total whiplash.
He knew something was wrong, but couldn't understand what.
Avery hadn't realized he had zoned out until Derek pulled back and broke their backwards hug,
"We should put these away, yeah?" he said with a final kiss to Avery's soft, brown hair and a gesture to the grocery bags.
Avery's look of distaste couldn't be more apparent, suddenly missing the warmth of Derek surrounding him.
· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·
Later that night, they both lay on the couch with some documentary Derek said was 'thrilling' playing in the background on such a low volume it was hardly audible. With Avery finally on spring break, they could finally have these quiet moments back without the threat of an exam looming over his head.
Avery was partially on top of Derek, with his face buried in Derek's chest next to his heart and his hands hugging him from either side, hands tucked under his back to warm up his freakishly cold hands.
It was so warm that it had Avery's eyes fluttering to stay open, and Derek lazily dragging his right hand up and down Avery's back definitely did not help his futile fight to stay awake.
Well, that was until Derek spoke,
"Stop it."
He mumbled it so quietly, almost as if the words weren't meant for Avery.
"Wha?" Avery says intelligently, turning his head slowly to look Derek in the eyes, with his own still droopy and unfocused, and his chin still resting on Derek's chest.
"Sorry, Aves," Derek pauses his right hand and brings his left up to run his fingers through Avery's hair, "I didn't mean to say that out loud."
His hand drops out of his hair to cup the rest of his face, his thumb rubbing Avery's freckled cheek slowly as the rest of his hand acts to keep his head upright, as Avery has stopped holding himself up entirely.
Something was off about Derek's eyes. Avery was too sleepy to notice it right now, but thinking back on it, he would realize their hue had changed from their normal deep cocoa to a light caramel color, the dim light catching them in a way they looked golden.
As well as his face, though whatever it was, Derek is doing a good job at hiding it. The only tell is the slight tension in his brow and clenched jaw.
"Go back to sleep," Derek whispers gently.
Avery wants to fight it, to question who Derek was talking to or why he looked so frustrated, but the delicate thumb caressing his face and the warm aura of the apartment enveloped him entirely, the pull of slumber just too compelling.
Although it's a temptation that will soon haunt Avery
· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·
Derek doesn’t know how long he’s been staring at the ceiling contemplatively after Avery fell back asleep. His hand moves on autopilot up and down Avery's back as his eyes refuse to shut. Avery’s shallow breaths act as white noise, while Derek's mind runs a million miles an hour.
He doesn't know what to do
He thought he could ignore it, that he was just being paranoid and that it wasn't really him, just the wind acting up or something. Was it a lie so foolish and desperate that he couldn’t even try to pretend he believed it?
Yes, absolutely, He could tell the minute he woke up in the hospital that the King had never left. The feeling of something foreign in his head, pushing against his brain in a very prominent way. Though he was dormant, unresponsive to anything Derek tested. There was no infinite knowledge flooding his head, no debilitating headache, and there sure as hell weren't any voices in his head.
So, other than the constant pressure in his head, Derek was fine.
And that's exactly what he told Avery. There was no need to make him worry more than he already does over an irrelevant variable. Technically, he wasn't even lying, just quietly leaving out unimportant details.
Even now, with a very awake King commenting on everything Derek does throughout his day, this doesn't concern Avery.
Derek can handle the, albeit annoying, constant commentary on his life. Besides, Hastur is too weak to do something crazy like take over his mind or anything; that would be highly unlikely.
He hates hiding this from Avery, but with how nervous he gets about everything to do with Derek, it would just give him something else to lose sleep over. Derek already felt guilty for letting Avery take care of him for this long. Avery had dropped everything for Derek, stopped hanging out with friends, his grades were dropping, and his position at his job was in jeopardy. It was so selfless of Avery, so kind that Derek couldn't take advantage of that.
It was a couple more hours before Derek decided it was time for bed. Gently, he maneuvered Avery off of him limb by limb so he could turn off the TV and the remaining lamp before scooping up the sleeping man so gingerly it took him an embarrassingly long time. And then carefully placing him in their bed.
He took a second just to look at the man in front of him, with his wavy hair spread out across his pillow, already giving him bed head. Derek could see the whisper of the grown-out, box bleach dyed highlights Avery had done when he left home as an act of rebellion, the patches so messy and washed out that it almost looked natural. And the choppy wolf-cut shape framing his face so beautifully, he looked angelic.
'You're being unsettling,' Hastur helpfully supplies.
Knocking Derek out of his Avery-induced trance, he shakes his head and makes his way to the left side of the bed, crawling in as tactfully as he could, before kissing Avery's forehead and shutting his eyes.
He was fine, and it is going to stay that way.