Work Text:
Derek’s hand is hovering over the bedroom door handle. His arm is aching, his fingers twitching and numb. He lowers it once again, and –
Avery’s dead body. Context clues: a frayed cord, a burned and blackened outlet, and Avery’s blistered hand still clutching the plug of the toaster. Electrocution again. The last time Avery had died this way, he’d been trying to fix the very same outlet.
Derek stores it in his mind. Fix outlet in kitchen, the latest addition to the list alongside things like Reinforce deadbolt and Install additional smoke alarm. His hand still hovers, still moves only a fraction of an inch before flinching back from the handle as another vision of what awaits outside presents itself to him.
Avery’s dead body. Context clues: various cleaning products, their ingredient lists displaying both bleach and ammonia; the warning not to mix them too small for Avery to notice; the panic in his eyes and the bloody fluid coughed up from the choke of his lungs.
He can’t let that happen. By pure chance, he saved Avery once, and somehow he lived through it too. This is just the cost – the infinite knowledge shaking its way through his neurons, showing him every potential reality unfolding all at once. Avery’s apartment is, on the surface, Derek’s sanctuary, but his mind so easily peels back the surety of reality to expose the faulty wiring underneath.
Unsure how long it’s been since his first attempt at leaving the bedroom, Derek looks to the window to try and figure it out. He remembers that he had woken at midday, because the sun had been high and centred between the glass panes. Furthermore, it’s not unusual for him to sleep away the whole morning, so it makes sense. Now, his first glance at the window shows a darker sky, before the sun blinks back into vision, rising from the east. The moment he looks directly at it, it flickers away to the west, beyond where he should reasonably be able to see it from this angle. There’s a brief moment during the transition where it is simultaneously rising and setting, twin suns bookending the infinity of each day. Then, once he tries to focus once more, the sun blinks into the centre of the sky like no time has passed at all. Then – grey night, low-hanging clouds filled with rain that falls in the morning as the sun rises again. After that – stars, thousands of them, some static and some tearing across the sky. It’s too much to bear, and Derek forces his head back around to face the door, feeling the lag of his brain hitting the inside of his skull with the severity of the motion. This time, he manages to grip the handle before fear and possibility immobilise him.
Avery, not yet dead but startled by the sound of the bedroom door opening. Startled, holding a knife. Startled, dropping a knife. Derek needs no context clues to see it hit his thigh point-first, striking his femoral artery. The blood has already covered the floor by the time he drops to his knees, and if Derek pushes open the door right now, he might get there in time to apply pressure to the wound and save him, but he’d also be cementing this reality into existence. With the power to choose…
He can’t choose this. His hand flies to his mouth, meeting the wind-force of a choked gasp. In every universe, Avery dies somehow. There are a million ways it can happen. The living room window opens too wide to be wholly safe – he could fall. He could trip on the folded corner of the rug and hit his head against the coffee table. He could choke on a fish bone; slip and accidentally strangle himself with the wire clothesline hanging in the bathroom. Every time they leave the apartment, Derek can see which cars will hit him, which bricks will fall from construction sites, which alleyways will lead to a street robbery where he throws himself in front of a gun to save his life.
Backing further into the bedroom, Derek keeps his eyes on the door all the way until he hits the wall and slides down it, raising his knees to his chest and dipping his head down into the artificial pool of darkness created by his shivering, contorted body. This does not stop the inevitability of death. Now, he sees Avery leaving to get groceries, thinking that Derek is still asleep, creeping out of the apartment quietly and considerately, making it all the way to the shop where a runaway reach truck barrels out of the storeroom and runs him down in the bread aisle. Hitting the thought out of his head with the heel of his hand, Derek now sees Avery riding his bike down the street again, headphones on, turning to smile and wave at someone he recognises just in time for the bus to collide into him and send him flying across the street. Road rash, mangled metal, spilled groceries. Or, apartment elevator cable, screeching metal, broken bones on the basement floor; or, second in line at the bank, an attempt to play hero, a shot to the chest and a single bill floating down beside him.
Derek can’t leave the bedroom until he knows that he will do so into a reality where Avery lives. The only way to ensure that is to suffer through witnessing all the realities where he doesn’t.
A fall in the wrong position, a concussion, a shallow bath.
An unmarked construction pit in the dark, a broken leg, a hungover employee mixing concrete.
A wrong turn, an old GPS, a new road barrier.
It never gets easier, watching Avery die. Even when one vision ends, the trauma of being a witness does not leave alongside it. Derek knows that what he is seeing isn’t the product of some overactive imagination – these are very real possibilities that exist in the atoms bordering his reality, only one wrong move away from becoming the unchangeable truth of the past. His past, which will first be his present. If he leaves the bedroom now –
A faulty oven, a gas buildup, a lighter.
Or, a second later – a cheap candle, an explosion, a shard of glass directly to the carotid artery.
All the experiences begin to blur into one. Derek can smell the wood smoke of the candle and can distinguish it from the burning plastic scent of an electrical fire. His hands against his knees are not protected from feeling the blood seeping through the fingers, marking him with fault for being unable to stop the knife, the glass, the razor. He recoils from one thing and ends up falling into another, the wind against his back as Avery falls from the window, into the elevator shaft, down the stairs. Derek is too scared to try and grip onto reality in case his hand meets the wrong one and makes it come true. As long as he’s here, swirling in the bedroom-dark of the uncertain future, he does not have to face the present and its harrowing tendency to become the past.
Unfortunately, in his indecision, the world acts around him. He hears the click of the bedroom door handle and cannot scramble up to stop it in time, facing a flood of light that surely indicates some sort of fire, electricity, rapture. Rising into a hunched, painful position with one arm outstretched, he desperately tries to close the door – to keep Avery safe like a cat in a box – and instead meets something soft and slightly surprised.
Before he can adjust to the new and immediate present, he feels warm arms around his back. Avery, his mind clicks into place. Avery is here. The potential tragedies build themselves around this new reality – a sudden, undetected heart condition; the roof caving in; a support beam from a crane crashing through the window. The relief, however, is undeniable. It’s reassuring just to have Avery here, even if Derek’s face is buried in his chest and he cannot see whether he is already bleeding.
“I thought you were still sleeping,” Avery says. “I should have checked on you earlier.”
He recognises Avery’s voice, but it is muddled amongst the screams and gurgles of his constantly-repeating death. Without demanding a response, Avery rubs his back and presses his lips to the crown of Derek’s head.
It would be unfair to ask Avery to spend every minute of every day by his side like this, but Derek suspects that they both know how much he needs it. Though the intrusive visions are still present, they’re much less detailed now – nondescript wounds, inconsistent blood splatter, silent groans of pain. Nowhere near as real as cotton t-shirt, rosemary and patchouli cologne, steady heartbeat. Derek presses his head to Avery’s chest and listens for it, cocooning his ear amongst Avery’s ribs like a shell singing to return to the ocean. He needs the closeness that he never dared to need before all this.
And Avery provides it so willingly. He is protective and generous with his love, which itself is strong and sturdy enough to tether Derek to wherever Avery – this Avery, his Avery – is.
“I thought you died,” Derek says eventually, his voice monotone and quiet.
“I didn’t.” Avery is so sure of himself that for the tiniest second, Derek believes he really could outrun death. He’s persistent enough. Derek, responsible for keeping him safe, loves him enough. Heart disease, lung cancer, plain old fucking age. It isn’t enough, and never will be.
“You will,” he says without thinking.
“How cheery,” Avery laughs. “But not today, I don’t think. Unless I get really bad food poisoning from the pizza I’ve just ordered, which would be a first for Mr. Iron Stomach.”
Derek looks up. How can Avery be so carefree after all he’s seen? Does he know exactly how much he’s holding Derek together just by being himself, being here? Avery’s smile is unreadable – in some universes, naïve; in others, confident. Reassuring in all.
“Come on,” Avery insists, his hands working their way from Derek’s back to his arms, lingering for a moment against the cold skin, then interlacing their fingers.
Suddenly gripped by fear, Derek shakes his head. “I can’t leave the bedroom,” he says, still unable to inject any emotion into his voice. “You’ll die.”
“That’s just not true.”
“It could be. It might be. It’s… easier if you’re just… safe. Still.”
“Who can stay still forever?”
“Me,” Derek says, and finally there’s the hint of something else in his voice, so small that it is only a fingernail prick into the flesh of his throat: shame. “It’s safer. If I walk into the wrong reality…”
“You’re in the right one. It’s just hard to see that you are.”
“Is there a right one?” Derek questions without curiosity. “Every choice we make influences what will happen. If we just stay still-”
“Then nothing will ever happen. And don’t you think that would be a waste of a life?”
“Not if you were here.”
Avery is so gentle, moving his right hand to rest it against Derek’s face. “I am here,” he reassures. “And I want more than just staying still. This is a second chance, Derek. You’re alive, and I’m alive, and you can’t think your way out of that. The only thing you can do is just… live.”
“Until you die.”
“Until you die, yeah. But nobody in the history of ever has successfully prepared so much that they could avoid death.”
“Nobody in the history of ever has had the information I have.”
“Information, schmimformation,” Avery waves his hand and turns his head, looking out into the hallway. “It’s fine to admit you’re scared, you know,” he says. “Just… it’s not fine to let that stop you living your life.”
Derek is still unsure as Avery takes a step towards the doorway. He tenses up and Avery stops, the tip of his sock almost touching the little strip of metal that officially separates the rooms.
“Do you trust me?” He asks.
“Yes,” Derek says without thinking, then adds, “But I also know you don’t have the information I have.”
“Exactly. Which means I’m much more grounded in reality than you are right now, and I can see from an outsider’s perspective how there’s no connection at all between me stepping outside and dying.”
An overfilled bathtub in the apartment one floor above, a light fixture hanging on by a single wire, an earthquake.
“Avery-”
Maintaining eye contact and still holding Derek’s hand, Avery steps outside. Derek flinches first, then follows him, determined to protect him from whatever awful thing is about to happen. Avery doesn’t keep walking – has he stepped on a live wire and become frozen in place?
No. He’s just waiting patiently, looking at Derek with a smile. “See?” He says. “I’m fine.”
From here, Derek can see the rest of the apartment. It’s much larger than the bedroom, and he knows all the dangers it contains. There’s nothing he wants more than to open his hoodie, bundle Avery inside, and zip it back up again; take him to the bedroom, underneath the covers, and never move again save for breathing and heart-beating. However, it’s already embarrassing enough that he desires as much closeness as he does, so instead he focuses on the list still growing in his mind.
“Don’t touch that outlet,” he points. “And I want to reinforce the lock on the door soon. And we should test the smoke alarm and the carbon monoxide alarm and get extras for the bedroom. And one of us should contact the landlord to see when the building was last safety checked.”
“Okay,” Avery says. “I won’t touch it.”
“And we should-”
When Avery raises a finger to Derek’s lips, he instinctively stops talking. “Thank you,” Avery says. “Look, I test the smoke alarms on the first of every month. If your infinite knowledge is telling you that the outlet in the kitchen has a problem, I’ll call the landlord in the morning and I won’t use it until then. But you can’t keep trying to predict death around every corner, and I can’t keep indulging it.”
A white-hot bolt of anxiety strikes Derek right in the heart as all the potential universes in his mind pause. They turn towards him, unified at last, looking at him with an objective truth that he cannot hide from in another dimension: Avery is getting tired of him.
“Hey,” Avery says, giving Derek’s hand a squeeze. “I’m not mad at you. It’s just hard, watching you go through life like you’re in Final Destination. And I… I guess I don’t really get it. Infinite knowledge. It’s hard to imagine what that would actually feel like. I mean, I know it’s bad, but… I’m sorry. I should go easier on you.”
Derek shakes his head. “You’re not hard on me. It’s just like, there’s this… disconnect, I guess. Where you’re experiencing reality exactly as it is but I can see all the tiny little threads holding it together, and I know that if I do the wrong thing I could push you onto the wrong path. And it’s always one where you get hurt.”
“I think you’re forgetting that you’re still human. You’re biased.”
“How so?”
“If I told you not to think of a pink elephant, you’d immediately start thinking of one, right?”
Derek thinks of a pink elephant, and then the fact that the colour pink is really just light red with a distinct name, unlike light blue. Then, he thinks of the fact that the elephant population has declined by over 90% in a century.
“I’m familiar with ironic process theory,” he replies. “The more you try not to think about something, the more you think about it.”
“Okay, well, maybe you keep seeing all the ways I could die because you keep focusing on them?”
It’s an interesting theory. One that requires Derek to be a subjective participant within reality, rather than an objective observer. Avery might even be onto something, but his theory rests on one very unstable cornerstone: that Derek is still human enough for his perspective to be clouded by things such as rumination and bias. Well, no – he knows that he is still human, but he’s certain that having infinite knowledge precludes him from being a person rather than just a member of the same species.
“Maybe,” he says, but his voice betrays that he doesn’t believe Avery.
“But I also know that there’s no way I’m going to talk you out of this. It’s just something we’re going to have to learn to live with, and I’m okay with that. God, I’d be okay with anything as long as it meant you were alive, but it’s not fair for that to be the benchmark. I want you to live. I want things to be easy and good.”
“I don’t think that’s possible.”
“Because you’re not focusing on it,” Avery smiles, like he’s been setting up a checkmate that Derek has fallen straight for. His confidence might be misplaced, but it’s endearing nonetheless. He’s done so much for Derek in the aftermath of New Year’s Eve that it seems fair to agree with him in this reality, even if Derek doesn’t agree in the rest of them. And anyway – what’s another lie from someone who can no longer parse the truth?
Derek nods. “Maybe you’re right.”
Even without infinite knowledge, Avery sees right through him. “I’m not trying to convince you, you know,” he says. “I know what it’s like to not be sure what’s real. It’s scary when you’re so stuck in it.” He brings Derek’s hands to his own face, holding them there against his cheeks. “But you told me that I was real when I needed it most. And now I’m just asking you to believe the same thing.”
Looking at him, Derek does not see a man at the end of his tether. Even when he indulges himself in a glimpse at the various universes in which Avery is standing right here, he cannot find a single one where Avery is upset with him. He is so consistent; his thread amongst the universe is one of patience, woven into everything that he does and is.
“Tell me what you feel,” Avery asks.
Derek has to bite down the impulsive breath that catches in his throat, four letters and a feeling he spent his whole life thinking he was above. Instead, he focuses on the physical feelings to which he is sure Avery is referring. “Warm,” he says. “You have five fingers on each hand. Four and a thumb, actually. Your palms are very warm.”
“Good. What else?”
“I can feel my stubble because you’re touching it. I need to shave, but every time I touch the razor I-”
“That’s not a feeling. What else?” Avery steps closer. He moves his hands, wrapping his arms around Derek and resting his head on his shoulder. He’s a very tactile person, Derek has learned. If only he knew just how much it fixes everything, even if only for a moment. Desperate not to show his complete vulnerability, Derek controls his breathing, counting in and out as Avery breathes in tandem, slowly against his neck.
“What else?” He repeats.
“Y-Your breathing,” Derek says, feeling his face heat up. “It’s… warm, again. And steady. And I can feel your arms, with your watch on your left wrist.” He brings his hands up to Avery’s back, reciprocating the hug. “I can feel your t-shirt,” he continues. “It’s the soft one that you’ve had since high school. It used to have a funny picture of a cat on it but that’s long gone with how much it’s been worn and washed.”
“That last part isn’t a feeling.”
“Sorry,” Derek mumbles.
Avery raises his head and shakes it. “You don’t have to be sorry. It’s helpful to know how it starts. You know, you going from being in the real world to getting lost in your head. I’m sorry I’m not better at understanding what it’s like for you. I wish I could help more.”
“You help more than you’ll ever know,” Derek says. He’s not sure if it’s a trick of the light, or if Avery blushes a little. Avery averts his eyes, but he does so at the exact same time as the doorbell rings, so Derek can’t 100% confirm whether he’s flattered by the compliment or simply distracted by the sound.
The sound. Someone at the door – a robbery, a biohazard worker with bad news, a masked man with a knife.
“The pizza delivery guy,” Avery says. “Finally. I ordered plain so you could have some too.”
Derek follows closely behind Avery as he walks towards the front door, stepping in front of him at the last second and saying, “I’ll get it.” He times it perfectly so that Avery cannot clock his attempt to thwart death before the door is already open and the pizza box is in Derek’s hands. When he closes the door, he sees that Avery has his arms crossed.
“I see what you did there,” he says. “If you think something horrible is going to happen when I open the door, how do you think I feel when you open it?”
“I’m just… trying to keep you safe,” Derek admits, ashamed for having been caught so blatantly. “It makes it easier to deal with… you know,” he passes the pizza box to Avery and gestures to his head.
“I just wish you could understand that it isn’t your job,” Avery walks through to the living room, setting the food down on the table and slumping onto the sofa. He pats the seat next to him for Derek to join, opening his arm so that he can tuck into his side. “I wish you could understand that things are fine. Apart from all the shit going on inside your head, which sucks, obviously. But, like, objectively… we got really lucky. Maybe that’s just it.”
He keeps his arm around Derek as he leans forwards and pulls the pizza box into his lap. There’s something completely, innately magical about the way that he can go about his life after everything they’ve both been through. He rides his bike to work, orders takeout every Friday, and religiously keeps up with Love Island. He doesn’t play Minecraft anymore, but he’s got no problem sinking hours into 2D platformers and Rocket League. He hums when he cooks and sings when he showers. Life happens around him and he moves through it with such ease, fending off skateboard-scraped-knees and missed calls like his choices don’t have the power to radically alter the course of his fate. Derek is mesmerised by it, watching him like light dancing across the surface of water, adapting with the constant flow.
The slightly greasy feeling of a piece of pizza being held up to his lips breaks the thought pattern. “You haven’t eaten since yesterday,” Avery says, and Derek takes a small bite. Not wanting to seem completely helpless, he takes the slice from Avery’s hand and holds it himself.
He chews, swallows, then says, “I’m sorry.”
Avery pulls him closer, gently squeezing his shoulder. “Don’t be,” he says. “It’s only been a few months. It’ll get easier, I know it will. We’ll learn how to handle it together. I just… I know it sucks for you. But I can’t help feeling so lucky, you know? That we’re learning how to deal with it instead of…”
Instead of Derek being dead. Which would be instantly, infinitely easier as an existence, but would break Avery’s heart. It’s such a strange feeling, and Derek doesn’t know if he can exactly call it luck, but there’s certainly a nuanced perspective in it all. He’s so terrified of losing Avery that he forgets, outside of peaceful little moments like this, that there is a much simpler truth hidden within the overwhelming projection of Avery’s potential deaths – that, yes, having something to love means having something to lose. But it still means having something to love.