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Derek didn't believe in soulmates. Never had, never would. Even upon visions of yellow that were washed out into greens and flowers and shades of his eyes, Derek did not believe in soulmates. Derek saw every version there was. He didn't retain all of them but he saw them and he knew them inside and out. Derek knew him—knew Avery—like a baby's first breath followed by its scream, like the way humans feared the unknown and the known, like nature knew death and life. Derek knew Avery instinctively and wholly.
Derek knew two things to be true, to be cross-universal concepts. One, he always found the gates. He didn't always see The King in Yellow, but he always found them. Two, he always knew Avery in one form or another.
Derek thought he didn't believe in soulmates.
Derek met Avery.
"Do you think we meet in every universe?" Avery would ask–will ask–had asked once. Hours–days–weeks–months–years after their first conversation. Derek doesn't always live to hear it be asked.
"Statistically impossible," "Of course, we do," "There is no me without you," Equally probable answers from varying Dereks who have seen and who haven't seen all the knowledge of all the universes of–
Avery would answer a Derek without infinite knowledge with a pout, shoving him and laughing with a "I believe in us." Avery would answer his friend Derek who had seen it all with the world's second most blinding smile and say "of course, we do," in that tone of voice that Derek will think doesn't mean more or will know means more. Avery would answer his lover Derek with the world's most blinding smile and press a kiss to the side of his mouth and say "and there is no me without you."
This Derek pulls himself up with his head pounding, vision swimming, stomach turning and twisting, and tears in his eyes as he returns to the gates. He didn't know what lay behind them. He knew infinity. He did not know this. Derek enters the gates.
This Derek doesn't know Avery, not yet, he knows him but he does not know him. He knows there is a chance his Avery will not ever cross his path. Not like this. Not in this space. In the space beyond the gates. He hopes, he almost prays that Avery does not. Derek does not want Avery to see The King in Yellow, Derek knows there are versions of him that do and he doesn't want it to be his.
Derek did not pray.
He would not pray now. Where the only thing that would hear him was The King. He would not pray.
This Derek would see a fake, his hopes would sky rocket in the moment before he turned to face Avery– It does not crouch in greeting. Derek removes a hand from his keyboard, running it across his collarbones in an attempt to self soothe. It does not work. He replies.
This Derek meets the real Avery in a library. He is reminded of a universe where the two do meet in a library, far different than this one and under far different circumstances. Avery crouches several times, excitement somehow bleeding into pixels and blocks and into his player character.
Derek smiles, exhaling through his nose as he crouches once back. Somewhere in the back of his mind he imagines it as a knight bowing to his prince. Derek's Minecraft skin dons a Roman warrior's armor and Avery's is… a slime wearing khakis and a Hawaiian shirt. Derek can have this. His prince is just a tad eccentric.
He knows the rules of how his story ends.
This Derek follows the rules of his story well. At least he thinks. He still doesn't know anything about the worlds and what exists within them, not from the well of infinite knowledge he received. All he knew was Avery. Avery lived in most universes. Lived wholly and as himself or… or as he had learned, taken over by The King. By Hastur. Avery lived and Derek died. Derek died either for Avery specifically or for the greater good… and also Avery. Avery was a constant.
Derek found the book. Derek will die. Derek has known he will die. He knew the moment he looked away from the screen the pain would return and he would die a slow and miserable death from it. Derek will die and it will have been for Avery and for the world. He is okay with that.
<d3rlord3> Derek is good too lol
He is less okay with it than he says he is. He wants Avery to say his name. Once, he would be okay with once. He wants to hear it. He doesn't want to just know Avery says his name under his breath with a resolute nod. Derek doesn't want to know that Avery thinks he's being helpful and excited for it all the while Derek is tricking him.
Derek doesn't want to be tricking him in the first place.
<d3rlord3> What's in your inventory
Derek doesn't want to have to be the one to say goodbye. It's not even a goodbye. He knows this. They didn't even get a hello. He turns back to the thing killing him, the thing he's killing, the thing dying with him, the thing dying inside him.
Derek cannot help but to taunt.
Then he writes his goodbye letter. It is rushed and unfinished. He was never any good at endings. He apologizes to nothing. To Avery. Avery who slides away from his computer, ill and upset. Avery who grieves. Derek grieves. He told Avery to move on. He asked Avery to remember him. He's not ready to die but he doesn't want to haunt Avery like he knows he will.
God, he can't pray now. The King's voice echoes in his mind. Derek does not believe in prayer.
This Derek wakes. He sits up in a far too uncomfortable bed. Confused and head spinning, not throbbing, he feels like he went on a Tilt-a-Whirl. He blinks the sleep out of his eyes. He wakes in a rotted field of flowers and grass. It breathes. He does not know where he is. Derek runs a hand down his face, another trick. Of course, Derek couldn't even have the peace of nothing past death. Derek hadn't believed in a life after death, he had always thought that it just ended and that was that. Derek sighs through his nose, harsh and bothered. His eyes turn to the sky.
It's bright in the place he was ended up in, bright like a movie scene at night with its color correctors turned up the correct amount so the viewer can see. The sky is dim with stars lighting up patterns he has never seen. Then, they shift. The stars change and he can spot the Little Dipper. He follows the lines to Ursa Minor. He knows this sky.
The grass blows in nonexistent wind, he cannot feel the brush of air. Something shifts and there is wind tussling his hair and kissing along his exposed skin. Derek looks around.
There is something here with him.
The ground shifts underneath him and from the bed where he sits flowers bloomed to life. From under the bed came the grass regaining its color and breathing. Derek scrambles to stand. There is something–
A hand brushes his shoulder, not pressing just resting, and Derek tenses as another hand joins it on his other shoulder. Now, they press. He's settled back into sitting. Flowers around him die. The grass returns to rot.
Something shifts around him, moving–kneeling, and then there's a voice.
"The day I learn Life is the day I put you out of a business," It mutters, shifting again and the flowers bloom. There is the sound of twinkling laughter off to the side somewhere.
Derek's eyes are locked onto the air next to him where he knows It stands, kneels. It is kneeling next to him. Its hands are not the ones wrapped his shoulders. Derek looks down and he sees… nothing. But he knows they are there and he knows they are calloused and well worked hands. Derek is dead.
"It is not everyday that one of them, a human, finds its way to us."
"It is not everyday we are graced with a visit."
"How do we call this one?"
"Human, dreamer, player, d3rlord3, Derek Hutchins."
"Names, names, names. Players are such fickle little things."
Derek shudders under the weight of the voices. He still feels fear. He is afraid. A hand moves from his shoulder to brush hair out his face and pets his head. Something about the shifting, the movements, and the voices feels similar. Familiar. They are all encompassing. They are too much and too little all at once. The weight shifts and Derek is released.
"The player is small. Are all such?"
"It is ill. Recovering."
Derek looks down at his hands, turning them over and shifting. He is not small. The flowers shake and shudder, laughter. The stars shift and die, fond. Derek twists, looking behind him. A tree stands tall behind him. It shakes and it branches flutter. Derek had laid once where the tree was, he had sat up from there. He twists again. He had… he had been in a bed. A pace away it sat, it was further than he had moved. The ground shakes in question, the bed moves closer a step and freezes.
The ground shakes again.
"I… I am okay," Derek says.
The ground settles.
"D3rlord3, Derek," the voice speaks, leaning back into his space as the ground beneath it rots, "which do you prefer, player?"
Derek cringes, these two have to stand within the same circles as– Hands encircle his shoulders. The being behind him shakes its head from where it pressed onto the back of his head. Derek nods. Names? Something about names, he should know this. Derek swallows nervously, he did not want these beings to have his name but it had been so long since someone called him by name in a way he can hear. He works his jaw, preparing an answer.
"Derek," A full sentence, deciding for him in a way. He was leaning that way anyway. This voice, the second one he heard, do they have– "████, ████, ████."
"Names are for beings like yourself. We hold titles, names, yes. We do not have in the way you do."
"It—you, player—cannot hear those yet."
"Will it?"
"It is beyond. It will."
"██████ had done that, hadn't He?"
"Are…" Derek swallows, running a hand across his collarbones. He knows based off context clues who they speak about and he isn't sure if he wants to question that line yet, "Do you have a name I can call you?"
"█████, ████, ████."
"It cannot hear those."
"Name us, d3rlord3, Derek?"
The grass rots beneath him, it feels less threatening now. It feels closer to comfort. It is touching in the way it can. Derek reaches out to the rotting grass, brushing the blades. It is strong under the tips of his fingers. It does not decay further. It does not break and crumble.
Derek shifts where he sits and he is released from the hold of the second voice. It shifts behind him. Allowing Derek the room and time to think.
"Rot?"
The first voice, Rot now, laughs. It sounds like stardust and bones creaking, "Yes. Yes, I am Rot."
"Why's that funny?"
Derek feels the shift, the grass underneath blooms again as Rot pulls away, "It is close. You are close to understanding. My name, Derek?"
"Bloom?"
Rot laughs again and patches of it appears across the field before blooming. The laughter fades, the patches of rot move as though it is walking away. Bloom chuckles too. It sounds like the rustling of wind. It brushes across his hair as it does turn into wind. Bloom shifts closer again, petting him.
"Yes, yes, I am Bloom. Bloom and Rot and Derek Hutchins. A player who was forced too close."
"Why am I… a player?"
"You played the game. Would you prefer dreamer?"
Derek shakes his head, "What's the difference?"
Rot returns in patches that circle Derek and Bloom, shrinking and growing before it settles in front of Derek, "A matter of framing."
Derek has a question, Derek isn't sure if they have the answer nor is he sure if he wants the answer. Bloom and Rot do not press him. They allow him to stew in his thoughts and to organize them well. They do not speak over him either, as they had done when he had woken.
"Am I dead?"
"No," Rot answers.
"Yes," Bloom answers.
"It is a choice," Rot corrects.
"A choice?"
"To join those in the eternal."
"To go home."
"The other waits, doesn't he? The other player of this one? Of ██████'s?"
"The other? Do you…" Derek sits up, leaning over himself into where he can feel Bloom, "Do you mean Avery?"
Bloom twinkles, a sound without a name, it is fond and it is amused, "Yes, yes Avery. He waits."
"Waits for?"
"You," Rot answers, "For me. For Death. For whatever is next to see you."
"I told him to… I…"
"Love does that, Love does not move forward."
"You grow around Love and Grief."
Derek lays down and the world shifts again, it is still night but Derek watches the stars spin and die and be reborn. He does not recognize the stars. They twist and turn again. They are the Minecraft stars.
"If I return… does He?" Bloom and Rot are silent for a moment too long and Derek exhales through his nose, "Will Avery be in danger?"
"I will tell the player a story."
"But not the truth."
Then, they speak. Over one another, beside one another, a story Derek knows well. He sits up, wait…—wait, he knows this story. Anyone who has ever finished Minecraft, and even players who haven't, know this story. He looks to where he had felt Bloom and there is nothing anymore. The same for Rot. They are there, in his mind, but they are not here.
"You. You. You are alive."
Derek exhales, running a hand across his collarbones. He tries to self soothe only for a moment longer before Bloom's hands are running through his hair, settling him into its lap.
"And the universe said I love you."
"And the universe said you have played the game well."
Derek feels Rot moves, pressing leg to leg as it settles against Bloom. One of its hands brush over his eyes. They are forced closed, but he allows it, he knows he could fight it. The two would allow him to fight it. They are not iron clad bars over his mind like ██████ was. They are trying to comfort in his final moments. They are–
"And the game was over and the player woke up from the dream. And the player began a new dream. And the player dreamed again, dreamed better. And the player was the universe. And the player was love," Rot continues, pressing against Derek, it does not try to force understanding into him but it wishes the understanding all the same, "You are the player."
"Wake up," Bloom finishes as it presses love into him.
Derek feels the final press of something, of understanding, of love, of and the player was love and he wakes up. His eyes strain, flicking towards the window. It is day. He was alive. He was alive and he was… in a hospital? Derek tries to strain his memory, tries to force himself to remember.
It hurts. He needs to know.
He remembers Minecraft, he remembers gates, he has memories of a man named Avery, he has memories of two voices that should not exist.
There is a body next to him. He twists, weak and fragile and hurting but he does it. There is a head he knows, hair he knows, and a man he has been given a choice to know. He forces a hand up to pet Avery's head. Derek exhales softly as Avery shifts and wakes.
"Mm?" Avery looks up, eyes meeting Derek's. Derek watches Avery blink sleep from his eyes before, "Holy SHIT?" His voice lowers, "Wait, hold on, I need-"
Derek lays a hand on Avery's cheek, shaking his head. Wait, I want our moment. Derek works his jaw, he can't speak yet, he's healing. He is stuck in bed. Wait. He mouths.
Avery nods, somehow understanding Derek, "Okay, okay, our moment," he sniffles, he probably cried himself to sleep, "I have to get the nurse soon. And your mom."
Our moment. Derek mouths.
"Our moment," Avery agrees.
Derek Hutchins did not believe in soulmates. Derek Hutchins knew that across universes, timelines, and worlds he knew Avery. Derek Hutchins knew he always found the gates. Derek remembers this, he doesn't know it anymore. Not truly. The knowledge comes and goes.
"Der, do you think we're soulmates?" Avery asks months after Derek wakes, "Like do you think we meet in every universe?"
Derek smiles, he knew that Avery would eventually ask that. He changed the script just slightly, but it's Avery, he does that. It wasn't hours–days–weeks–months–years, it was two months and four days. Derek knew exactly how long it took now for his Avery to ask.
"Of course we do," Derek answers.
Avery smiles, "Of course, we do."
Derek does not read into Avery's words, he wants to. He wants to know exactly how Avery means it. He does not ask.
"Did you believe in soulmates? Before… all this?"
Avery lays down now, looking up at the stars. Derek looks down towards Avery and watches the flowers above the other's head shift and shake. They're white, not blue and not yellow. Derek plucks one of the flowers and turns it over in his hand as he imagines rot.
"I don't," Derek answers.
"You don't? Dude, you just said we always meet," Avery pushes Derek's leg with his foot, "I do."
"I know. I know we're soulmates too."
Avery falls silent. Derek turns, Avery's face is red and screwed up in confusion. Torn between being embarrassed by Derek's confidence in that statement and being playfully offended at the idea of Derek knowing they were soulmates but refusing to believe in soulmates. Derek takes the flower and places it on Avery's forehead.
He shakes it off and sits up again, "You can't be serious."
"I am."
"Then why don't you believe in soulmates? You have proof we are and still choose not to?"
"Because I don't love you because I'm meant to. I love you because I choose to."
Avery flushes, heat bounces off his face as he falls back into the grass and looks up at the stars with a huff, "I'll accept that."
Derek laughs, leaning over Avery to look him in the eyes, "I love you."
Avery forces himself to frown, "I love you too. I'm glad you're my Derek."
Now Derek flushes too, leaning away and settling next to Avery in the grass. He spots the Little Dipper like he had in the dream that wasn't a dream. In the dream he had between dreams. Avery's arm comes up and lightly shoves at Derek.
"You're too far."
"I'm right next to you, Aves," Derek turns his head and meets Avery's eyes.
Avery frowns. He lays an arm over top Derek's chest before lifting it with expectation. His eyes are hard with emotion, even where Derek knows it's playful Avery plays it well. It's dramatic. It's… Avery. Derek sighs and shifts so Avery can tuck his arm under Derek and pull him close.
"You're so dramatic," Derek says. Derek tucks himself into Avery's shoulder and settles his head under Avery's.
Avery is silent but rolls his eyes probably. Derek thinks he would, he knows Avery would. Avery asks Derek to explain constellations to him, Derek does so happily. He feels like he can breath now, freely and without pain. …besides the chronic migraines and chronic pain and– okay, well he has quite a few issues now but he is able to live around them. Live with them. He is able to play the game well. Avery points to a star that Derek does not recognize.
Fear freezes Derek's blood as he sits up again. Avery calls his name and Derek watches Avery. Avery slows, staring back. Avery allows Derek his moment, time to stew and time to think.
The star, Derek turns back to it, shakes and dies. A flower twists around his wrist. Knowledge rushes past and through Derek. There is the voices far away arguing.
"Sorry," Derek says, "That star wasn't real."
"Oh. Uh, dangerous?"
"Rot says hello," Derek says instead of answering, "To you. It was watching."
Avery has flowers stuck in his hair with petals that fall onto his shoulders to land in his lap, "Bloom?" He asks taking a hand full of the petals as he looked to where he had be laying. There had been no flowers when they arrived. There were now flowers that encased him.
Derek nods.
"Oh. I thought…?"
"You're interesting. Still uh…"
"A good vessel?" Avery completes Derek's finished sentence, "I thought you said they didn't want a vessel?"
"I assumed. I don't actually know. Hastur is… around too."
Avery frowns, lips down turning and eyes narrowing, "Remind me why we like keep them around? Me being a vessel and attracting them sure, gods' favorite pet or something, but like why can you hear and see them?"
Derek laughs and there is sounds behind it. Sounds of bones and stars and the flipping of pages, "You are not their favorite pet."
"What else am I?"
"A really cool bug."
"Nice."
"Bloom and Rot have an interest in every human, you hear them too," Derek answers, returning to the core of Avery's curiosity.
"The dogs barking?"
"Rot, I think, telling you to go another way," Derek doesn't actually know for sure, "Bloom takes a more hands off approach. Sometimes."
"Cool," Avery nods and there's rustling somewhere to the side of him that forces him to flinch. It stops, calms, and moves again, "Stop that," It stops. It resumes after a moment and Avery sighs.
Hastur, The King in Yellow, will forever be pissed about His defeat. Waiting for death to take the two of them so that another perfect vessel will be born. He follows them around partially because He is still stuck within Derek's mind, a new prison, a prison He must keep alive if He wishes to be alive too. Derek is okay with that. Death will take him when he is good and ready. Rot will be there.
Derek pauses, shouting wordlessly and falling back into the grass with the sound of stardust and bones creaking and dogs barking.
"What? Derek?" Avery turns to him, pausing in his scolding of the grass.
"Rot is Death."
"…yes?"
Derek turns and meets Avery's eyes, "Capital r Rot is capital d Death, like the Grim Reaper."
Avery nods slowly, an awkward smiling stretching across his lips, "Yes? Have… You named them. You named them Rot and Bloom. Bloom literally creates all the time? I am actively in a fairy circle."
Then Derek sees it, why Avery is considered a perfect vessel. He understands. Derek sighs, "Look, if it's that simple why didn't they just tell me?"
"That was the whole fucking issue with Hastur?? Forcing knowledge makes you insane. Which you almost died from by the way. How do you boil frog?"
"You slowly turn up the heat," Derek intones.
"You slowly turn up the heat," Avery repeats with emphasis, "I thought it was obvious too."
"Shut up."
Avery rolls his eyes, sighing, "Are we only going to have these three? I know there's more. These three are barely manageable as is."
"I mean regularly, yeah. You're the really cool bug that they're turning a rock over to see, remember."
"Uncool bug me."
Derek laughs.