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It wasn’t healthy, but at this point what WAS Avery supposed to do?!
The blonde was laying in bed, making sure he was comfortable as he started his nightly ritual, closing his eyes and trying his best to relax.
He had to relax for this; he had to make it so that he could fall asleep. Medicine would make it difficult, so the blonde had taken great care to do everything he could to get the perfect nighttime routine; Dimming the lights at 9pm, avoiding screens, doodling in a sketchbook, taking a nice, relaxing shower and drinking some warm lavender tea- all in the hopes that sleep would come easily, despite what he was doing.
After getting into bed, making sure he was comfortable, Avery would close his eyes, try and calm himself down, and begin to think.
This was probably the most important step of the nightly ritual.
Avery would refuse to open his eyes, just thinking of Derek-
The man who died for him.
Avery would imagine what the other would look like- he’d only seen a single picture online after managing to find the other’s obituary-
He’d been so handsome in that photo. It hurt.
He’d imagine all sorts of scenarios, all sorts of situations he and Derek could’ve experienced together if they had only met under better circumstances; from dates to stupid domestic stuff. It was so incredibly important that Avery focused on those scenarios, without getting too emotional. It had been hard to do at first, but as time passed, he got better at it; got better at ignoring the pain and grief, so he could fall asleep without issue.
Avery’s ritual didn’t always work, but when it did, the blonde would fall asleep, and dream of Derek, and everything that could’ve been if he had survived.
It would always start the same, with a false awakening.
Sometimes Avery would ‘wake up’ before Derek did, and quietly admire the other, running his hand trough Derek’s dark hair, admiring how peaceful and calm he looked. Other times, he’d wake up pressed against Derek’s chest, the other humming absent-mindedly as he stroked Avery’s back. It didn’t matter which version of the dream it started with; Avery loved both versions equally.
What followed was mostly random, though the scenarios that Avery had focused on while falling asleep tended to appear in some way.
The dreams didn’t always stay pleasant, sometimes Avery’s brain decided to connect things that inevitably led to the moment where Avery lost Derek.
Aquariums would transition to scuba diving, which would transition to a deep darkness, which would transition to a platform surrounded by eyes and an endless fall- Avery had learned to avoid thinking of anything that could lead to darkness or falls. He had learned that the hard way.
But tonight was pleasant. Tonight everything had gone right.
Tonight Avery dreamt of cooking together, which turned into he and Derek owning a restaurant together, going to school together, playing games together, visiting theme parks together- raising a daughter together (she looked so much like him), their daughter losing her first tooth-.
And then it happened, the one singular part in the dream that Avery never really liked, but would always show up, regardless of how pleasant or unpleasant the dream had been up until that point.
He’d be hunched over a toilet bowl, throwing up what felt like especially sharp bile.
It wasn’t bile- it was always teeth- hundreds of them, some crumbling away, others fully intact. No matter how much Avery retched and dry heaved, there’d be more teeth being pushed out.
Derek would be there, comforting him, soothing him, but it would not stop for a while.
Tonight, it transitioned to Avery being tended to and pampered by Derek, who said something along the lines of ‘in sickness and in health’ before the dreams changed again, this time the two of them caring for a bunny.
It kept going like that, like a weird game of word association but with dreams instead of words.
But then Avery would actually wake up- without warning, without a proper end to the dream. He’d be enjoying Derek’s presence and then he’d open his eyes and see his own bedroom. It hurt, but not as much as forgetting even a single detail of the dreams would.
Avery’s dream journal was like a sacred relic, something he couldn’t bear to lose. When he had first started dreaming about Derek, Avery always ended up forgetting what exactly he and Derek had done together, and after obsessive research, he learned that writing down the dreams he had would help him remember them- remember his time with Derek.
So that’s what he did, tearing up as he took a notebook from under his pillow, determined to write down everything he had dreamt about, in order not to forget it. Every page told a story of a life that didn’t exist, a friendship or love that was never meant to be, and it meant everything to Avery.
After that Avery’d take a shower, cry until his head was pounding, brush his teeth, get breakfast and just… prepare for the day ahead, living his waking life like a zombie.
There was nothing to really enjoy anymore in the waking world, though he could certainly pretend for his family that there was, but that he was just struggling with insomnia. A lie- Avery slept better than anyone else he knew of, but he needed to keep up the lie, just in case.
Just in case the waking world became too much, just in case Avery got tired of being awake.
Just in case the pills he had stockpiled so far weren’t enough, and he needed more of them.
Just in case Avery was tired of performing the same nightly ritual over and over and over again, and wanted to do it one last time, and then be with Derek forever.
Every morning, before leaving the house, Avery would stare at the bottles in his medicine cabinet a little longer.
Every morning, he’d tell himself ‘not yet’.
Every morning, it sounded a little less convincing.