Chapter Text
It's the very first thing he thinks. Amidst the horror, amidst the agony, it's the only thought in his mind:
I wish I'd known you, he thinks, when he is filled with everything and nothing at once.
In the middle of nonexistent, he knows Avery.
In the middle of Knowing, he sees Avery.
The player who follows him, who puts his life on the line to try to save him. A person that doesn't even know him but acts like he does, like he's known him all his life.
And Derek thinks, I wish I'd known you.
In his head, it's a very stark difference—of knowing Avery, of getting to know him over the course of his life, versus being forced to know him, trapped into having the knowledge that Avery's favorite color is green and that his favorite game is Minecraft (of course it is), and that he's a master at Skywars and his favorite mob are slimes (of course they are), and he has the kind of way of seeing things and trust only a person like him could have after his parents divorcing, after losing his best friend to some selfish asshole that couldn't be patient enough to wait for his girlfriend to pick him up after a night of drinking, some selfish asshole that'd ran a red light and barreled into the Honda Odyssey Avery's friend had been driving since he was gifted it on his sixteenth birthday.
Derek has to know this without any of the nuance behind it, without any of the long days and long nights, without any of the quiet moments, without meeting Avery and learning his name based on his own introduction, without meeting Avery's parents for himself, without meeting any of Avery's other friends, without getting the news in the darkness of night from the speaker of a call made to him. Without grieving, and talking with him on the phone about his best friend and memories of him from childhood and their adult years and everything in between until the break of morning. Without playing Minecraft with him and without playing Skywars with him and without being friends with him.
He knows Avery without knowing Avery.
And that hurts.
And, somehow—somehow, that makes him care all the more. In the absence of knowing him, Derek wants to know him, in the right ways. Nothing about this is right, can be right, but…
He knows everything about Avery.
But, he wants to know Avery.
*
Derek knows nothing of what will happen from here on out—a damn blessing, through and through—but, the very moment he sees Avery on that bridge, his stomach plummets.
Something's wrong, it tells him, desperate, clinging to life.
He feels sick just looking at his skin on the screen. Which…
Why would he ever feel this way face to face (digitally) with Avery? That's not right.
Something isn't right.
How did he get here?
Why is he here, didn't he read the book?
<TheMostMayo> lol
<TheMostMayo> I wanted to find you
His response makes Derek feel even sicker.
Avery wouldn't say it like that.
This isn't how Avery laughs.
This isn't how Avery talks.
He would—
<TheMostMayo> I had to make sure you were alright
But there's no question. No genuine inquiry, no actual making sure he is.
Derek doesn't like this.
The only time "Avery" seems to show proper concern for him comes in the form of, What about you? And, even then, it feels hollow—more like he has to ask to seem like he cares. It's forced. And…
…He…
Wants to look around.
Somehow, it thinks Avery would want to look around right now, after finding him. As if Derek doesn't matter. As if the most important thing to him had never been finding d3rlord3, but exploring.
As if he was at all like Derek. Careless and thoughtless and far, far too overconfident to even think clearly.
That's the main thing that tells him. Only confirming his theory in the end, but the ultimate writing on the wall.
This thing is not Avery.
As Derek disposes of it, he can only feel cold, yet stark irritation gripping him. Not even full anger. The sort of thing one would feel towards a rowdy, clueless child that knew nothing of the world yet.
He feels disdainful enough at the King that he might as well be talking to a child, anyway.
Idiot.
Be a more convincing Avery next time.
*
If it had caught him before the entire knowledge of the universe was thrust upon him, Derek would've fell into the world's trap, surely. He can almost guarantee that fact.
As it is—knowledge that is infinite tends to humble you, a bit.
Or, rather, do the opposite of that. In a way.
He looks at the text on the page, and he is simply disgusted by it.
He knows he is nothing, and he has accepted that fact. He knows he isn't real and that hasn't stopped him yet. He knows how powerless he is, and he knows how much he doesn't matter in the grand scheme of everything—and in the grand scheme of everything, how powerless and worthless he is doesn't matter now.
It's just… Noise.
That's all it is to him.
Horrible, ugly, pathetic noise.
Endless nonsense in order to make it feel in control again, to get him to lose his own mind and forget himself.
Derek's smarter than that.
He might not have known it before seeing the King, but he does now.
And that's what matters.
…
But…
He knows the back of Avery's mind, just as he knows his own.
Just as he knows anyone's.
Avery would feed into the noise.
Will, if he chooses to come here.
He will let it destroy him. Let it strip himself to what it thinks he is. What he thinks he must be, for he does not have the foresight to understand just how special he is.
Avery is…
Real.
Real, in a world that very much isn't.
And Derek gladly leaves him with something just as real.
*
Derek meets Avery.
The real Avery.
And, for all intents and purposes, if nothing else comes out of this mess…
He is glad for it.
Avery speaks and acts in a way known, but unknown all the same, and Derek never wants him to stop. He takes so long to say anything in the chat, and Derek figures it's because he can hardly believe what he's seeing, so Derek speaks first for him in great fondness, with great fondness.
He suddenly realizes how sacred it is—to be here, to have finally caught him, to get to speak with him and finally say his name for the first time, even if it's still simply through text.
It's you, Avery says, and Derek confirms Me, and now it does feel as though he's known this player his entire life. Avery says I found you, like he still can't believe it, and Derek feels overwhelmed with how much, and how easily he softens to this man—a man he shouldn't soften so easily to, shouldn't know like the back of his hand. He realizes he wants Avery to interrupt him. No—he needs him to.
And, of course, because it's Avery, because Avery is perfect in all that he is, can't seem to stop rambling or interrupting anyhow, a fountain of disbelieving awe, and Derek fully lets it spill over, just to see more of it.
<TheMostMayo> oh my god i found you
<TheMostMayo> i was starting to think I'd never find you
<TheMostMayo> are you okay??
<TheMostMayo> what happened
And, the more Avery says, the more Derek's heart softens to him.
The more he falls.
He knows what this is. Of course he does.
Of course he knows why his very being softens to every further word that Avery types in the chat. Of course he knows why he listens to Avery with rapt attention, never once moving to interrupt him in turn, waiting for him to say all that he needs, and only losing himself deeper because of it.
He's fully lost himself, he realizes—and not in the way that the King had wanted.
In Avery's way.
In that Avery, somewhere along the way (maybe since the moment Derek knew him), had snatched his heart, his very soul right up, and kept it for himself, until Derek forgot it was not meant to belong to someone to begin with.
But, well.
Fuck.
It sure as Hell is Avery's now.
He's pretty sure he is, as a whole. He's pretty sure if Avery just asked, he'd give him the world and the universe and everything else that only existed by a technicality. Or—or, maybe, something else entirely. Something more real than that, if Derek could ever possibly manage, because Avery was far more real than any of it.
There are only two things in his mind, in that moment.
Only two things he really, truly wants to say, before it becomes too late.
I wish I'd known you, he thinks of saying.
I think I love you, he thinks of saying.
He says neither.
(Of course he doesn't.)
(Of course he won't, nor ever will he.)
(Not as long as he's alive, anyway.)
And Avery is ripped away from him.