Chapter Text
Beep!
Tucked into the corner of his bedroom, Avery stares at the screen of his laptop, squinting as the bright light hits his eyes. He sighs as he returns to his search bar for what feels like the thousandth time today.
Can ghost possession break your microwave
How to fix beeping microwave
Microwave constantly beeping how to fix -AI
Beep!
"Exhaustion" was a severe understatement for what Avery was feeling right now. The grating noise started when he arrived home from work, as always. He brushed it off, assuming that it was just Derek saying hello…Until it happened again, and again, and again, going on for hours.
And of course, google yielded no results, at least none that actually helped.
Tired eyes scan dozens of "solutions" that either haven't worked or involve tools that Avery just doesn't have the energy to go buy at midnight. His head hits the keyboard with a defeated thunk, accidentally entering his next search, but Avery couldn't bring himself to care.
How to DIY fix broken microwavenbgbhyjhhksfgik
A familiar knight suddenly makes his way onto the screen, poking his head out from behind one of Avery's many games.
Avery,
Those aren't words :/
Or at least the last one isn't, anyway.
…How insightful.
"And hello to you too, Der…" Avery mutters, utterly miserable, "And I know that those aren't words." He reluctantly lifts his head from the keyboard, wincing at the pain in his neck from the drop.
Avery watches with half-lidded eyes as Derek's sprite fully emerges from behind the game icons, pausing as he sees the…snow? That blankets his shoulders and cape in little pixelated piles.
"…Woah," He whispers, "Where'd that come from?
Derek tilts his head at Avery, a small question mark appearing at the side of his helmet as he looks around.
What?
Avery, I don't see anything.
Where'd what come from?
Avery nearly laughs at Derek's confusion. He rests his head in one hand, using the other to drag Derek's sprite back to the notepad, not before shaking the snow off him, of course.
"The snow on your cape, Der. I didn't know you could do that." Avery grins, making an effort to ignore the beeping coming from the kitchen even as the sound bleeds through his door. He has something far cooler to focus on, literally.
Oh
The snow!
:)
I almost forgot about it,
I'm pretty sure it's from one of the games I was in earlier.
Not that I was snooping or anything, I was just bored,
I can stop if you want me to,
Sorry.
"And you say that I ramble?" Avery teases, "You live in the computer, Der…It's fine if you wanna play games sometimes…Wait— What'd you do in the snow? Was it actually cold? Can you, uh, can you even feel temperature?"
…
"…Was that too much?" Avery backtracks, suddenly embarrassed.
What?
No, it wasn't,
You're fine, Aves.
I didn't do much, I didn't really stay for long.
And I guess it was cold? Everything feels muted when I'm like this.
I don't know if it's because I'm dead or if it's because I'm bound to the computer.
"Dead."
Derek being dead is a topic that neither of them have been willing to touch, at least not in the few months that Derek has lived in the computer. Avery tries not to focus on the way Derek turns away when he says the word.
"Oh, uh…Cool! I think? I mean, I guess it's a good thing that you weren't freezing or anythi—"
BEEP!
That was still happening.
Avery buries his head in his hands, letting out a muted sound akin to a sob, completely dramatic in every sense of the word. He's quickly pulled back to the "reality" of his situation, away from the cool ghost knight covered in snow and back to the realm of his broken, beeping microwave.
How was he even going to sleep tonight? Come to think of it, he probably wouldn't; it's already midnight.
Avery?
Aves?
Are you alright?
"I— I'm fine, Der…I'm not actually crying." Avery mutters. He looks at his laptop through the gaps in his fingers, watching as Derek moves across the desktop without a care in the world. He envied the ghost sometimes.
So why are you so
…?
"Dramatic?"
Absolutely.
No offense, though.
"Well," Avery shoots a glare toward his bedroom door, listening as the beeping persists, "My microwave has been torturing me ever since I got home…Y'know, I thought it was you at first until the noise just kept going."
Avery laments about the perils of his still-beeping microwave, but Derek doesn't listen to a single word of it; he's focused on other things right now.
Derek messed up.
"Messed up" as in Avery would probably make him die a second death if he knew exactly what Derek had, accidentally, done.
There are very few things that manage to capture Avery's attention when he isn't at the computer, and the whole "turn into an actual ghost" thing both scares Avery and hurts Derek, because being outside of any device just has to be painful for some reason. What's even the point? He's dead!
So when Avery got home from work, Derek went into the closet device that would get Avery's attention: the microwave. Sure, the constant beeping is annoying, but it's admittedly a bit funny to watch how confused Avery gets at the sudden noise.
He doesn't exactly know what he did afterwards that "broke" the microwave…Something must've gotten messed up in the process of switching back to the computer, hence the current noise.
Oh.
Well, I've been in the computer the whole time.
You know, with the snow.
That sounds annoying though.
Unfortunately, Derek Hutchins is a coward and will not be fessing up to this.
BEEP!
…Okay, maybe he will if Avery can't fix it in time.