Chapter Text
Or something like that (I was never good with endings.)
Derek sat back in his chair, brushing a stray strand of hair from his face as the barrage of pain and knowledge filled his mind to the breaking point.
”..You..” A pained, ancient voice spoke louder than the rest. The voice, the being, panted despite not having lungs to fill, unless He now shared Derek's. ”..Do you not understand what.. you've done..?”
The distant booming took Derek's attention, bright lights burst into his small room. The sudden splash of color against his gray walls and trash infested computer desk made him turn slowly, watching the fireworks rupture in the sky. It was midnight, billions all around the world celebrating the coming year. Though, for just a single, selfish moment Derek let himself believe it was a celebration of his sacrifice.
”..You've doomed both of us.. Was this your plan all along? Do you.. consider this ‘winning’?”
“..I don't care about winning..” It felt odd to speak aloud after all these months, he adjusted his glasses and wiped a stray tear from his eye, or was it blood? He was too weak to look down and check. “..As long as you lose..”
The trapped King had suddenly started to shout with whatever strength He had, His voice falling on deaf ears as Derek's vision began to double. His body slowly grew weak, feeling the chair dip further backwards until he hit the hard wooden floor.
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Derek felt like he was being held underwater, not sinking but not floating to the surface either, as if attached to a weight that kept him tethered right in the middle of the ocean. It was strangely calm, his body was limp with a strange kind of relaxation, perfectly fine unmoving in the center of this space. A limbo, was this what death felt like? No, not death, unconsciousness. Unconsciousness like he'd never felt before. He wasn't dead.. that was good, but that also meant the King was also alive. Which was bad.
His relaxation quickly soured when he remembered the King, and as if He knew He crossed Derek's mind, His voice suddenly rang out from all around.
”You need to wake up.” Derek stirred, unable to open his eyes, trapped within this mess of yellow- how did he know it was yellow?- until he felt a sudden shooting pain in his side, almost as if something had begun to jab him with a cattle prod.
”Wake up.”
Derek's eyes creaked open, a faint buzzing of a light above him echoing through the room. The bulb was flickering every few seconds, though most wouldn't have noticed. He tried to move, a dull ache in his muscles from the restraints. Why was he tied to a wheelchair? What was taped to his head?
..This.. wasn't his room..
“Good.” A woman spoke in front of him. Weakly, Derek looked upwards to see three people. A man covered head to toe in tactical gear, a heavy automatic gun in his hands. His face was obscured, but he was the only one. The other person standing was a short pale woman in a lab coat, in her hand a bottle that had a syringe sticking out of it, she nervously read the information on the side of the bottle in an attempt to avoid eye contact.
Then there was a woman sitting across from him in a freshly pressed suit, she wrote something down on the clipboard before her “..subject wakes in..” she looked down at the watch strapped to her wrist.
“..What is this..?” Derek croaked out, his head was throbbing.
“..And remains responsive.” The woman sounded surprised at his lucidity, finishing her writing and setting the pen down.
“..Who are you people?”
“Who I am doesn't matter.” That.. Derek should know this, know her. His head felt so fogged, did they drug him with something? He looked to the IV standing beside him, watching the clear liquid pushing onto his wrist. It was just water, with some form of nutrients mixed in and.. something else, he didn't know what but it was making him feel worse that he already was. He could feel the liquid traversing his veins. “What matters is, I'm a friend. We're only here to have a conversation about your recent.. situation.”
”Do not listen to them.” The King's voice suddenly rang through his head, Derek almost forgot He was here.. ”Their altruistic guise is not to be trusted.”
“..I'm aware..” He murmured,
“I'm glad we are on the same page. We're only here to help you.”
“..And who is ”we”?” The woman hesitated, as if she wasn't expecting the question.
“I work with the Department of Metaphysical Sciences.” Derek tried to speak up and ask questions, but she didn't give him the chance. “We work to contain the preternatural, and stop any unearthly.. entities from harming humanity. We've been searching for a specific entity for a year now.” She unclipped a page from the bottom of her clipboard and slid it across the table.
“This is a map of the spikes in energy we've been able to detect.” Derek leaned forwards to look at the page, it had various markings all throughout a little more than a dozen. “This entity has made contact with several people, all of which have either become unresponsive, or have died. All except you. We want to know what happened to you.”
“..Is that why you have me hooked up to those machines in the room behind me? Or.. how about the fact you broke into my apartment pretending to be police on a welfare check? Seems a bit overkill for a social call, wouldn't you say?” The woman's professional smile faltered, the guard and the doctor looked between each other as everybody fell silent. A smile quirked at his lips gotcha.
“You're quite observant.. though, I wonder how you know what happened while you were unconscious.”
”..Now you've done it..” The King growled within his mind.
“That is promising, I believe you'll really be able to help us understand what this thing is.”
“..What are you people talking about..?”
“Ma'am you.. You're going to want to see this.” A voice suddenly spoke from behind Derek, causing him to jump. Where did he come from? The woman stood and rounded the table, stopping right outside of his peripherals. He felt a hand brush his hair away from his neck, falling in front of his face and constricting his vision more.
“Is that..”
“Yes.”
“What? What are you looking at-”
“Get him out of here.” The woman suddenly snapped, the doctor jumped as if she'd dozed off and rushed to the IV, retracting the syringe from the bottle in hand.
“What is that?”
”Why are you just sitting there, stop them!” Derek started to pull at the bindings as she brought the needle to the side of his neck.
“Get that away from me!” A hand grabbed onto his head, ripping the device off and holding him steady against the back of the chair, “Stop!” A sudden prickle bloomed in the side of his neck, the King scoffed as Derek's limbs began to grow heavy.
”Pathetic..”
He wasn't unconscious, no, he was awake.
But Derek couldn't focus on anything other than the heavy pounding of his heart, heard through the blood rushing through his ears. Through his blurred vision he watched as they wheeled the chair he was strapped to down a hall, the bright fluorescent lights above made his head throb.
His arms were suddenly freed as he was pulled up onto a cold metal table, his sweat caked pajamas he'd worn all these months being stripped from his body and quickly replaced with thin cotton clothes. He was forced back into the chair, his attempt to stand quickly being met with failure when one of the men forced him back down, restraining him tighter than he was before.
A buzzing suddenly filled the room, a razor? The other man walked behind him, running it across his scalp. He tried to pull his head away, shout out some kind of protest, but his mouth refused to cooperate. He watched the long dark locks land in his lap, quick to be brushed aside as they moved onto his beard. In some twisted way he felt strangely glad about it, seeing as it had grown longer than he was comfortable with.
After he was clean shaven, the men unlocked the wheelchair and he was pushed forwards again.
By the time they had reached the next room, Derek's mind was beginning to clear. The room was dimly lit, bordering on dark. A small light above was the only source in the room. He was lifted onto a cot, the paper thin pillow beneath his head providing little comfort. The men worked diligently to remove the IV, haphazardly bandaging and retreating shortly after. He couldn't fully make out their conversation, only able to pick up a few words.
“..Don't we.. lock him up.. others?”
Others?
“..Just.. to lock.. door.” With that, the distinct slam of a metallic door. The heavy lock shifted and he was alone..
”Well, this is splendid.”
Well, as alone as he could be.
“..Why are we here..?”
”We are here because you decided thwarting me and my plans was necessary to feed your own delusions of being some sort of ‘hero’, and your government caught wind of the whole affair.”
Derek scoffed, hero? He had no idea what He was talking about, did He? All-knowing God my ass. “I mean.. why are we here..? I thought we were meant to die.. Why are we..”
”I don't know. It goes against all logic…” The King stayed quiet, only for a second before speaking, a venom in His voice as he muttered ”This is all your fault.”
“..How is this my fault..?”
”You could've convinced them to let you go, but you just had to showboat.”
“I was not showboating.”
”No? Is your lack of showing off the reason for the burst in pride you felt as they dropped their facade?”
Derek turned his head towards the room, ignoring the King's comment. His head knocked against the thin pillow beneath him, A sudden dizziness washing over him.
“..Where are we?”
”You- Now why do you expect me to voice observations as if I were a touring guide, after you've trapped me both figuratively and literally? You can use your eyes.”
“I can't focus on anything.. what did they shoot into me..” He groaned as he tried to think, he should know this.. why didn't he know anything around him? “Don’t act like the victim when we're both trapped.. the least you can do is help me fill in the blanks..”
”It's a small, gray room. Painfully drab is the best way I can put it into words. The door is a few feet in front of the foot of the bed, heavy duty with a small barred window in the center.” The King spoke slowly, a certain anger underlying his description. ”The left extends but just barely. Enough to hold a sink and a toilet beside it, set along the wall as if to give the illusion of privacy. The-”
The King stopped when He heard Derek groan once again, a familiar taste was rising up his throat. Derek shot up and stumbled towards the toilet, bile forcing its way out of his mouth.
”..You're disgusting. ” He sat there for a moment, staring down at the bowl before weakly reaching up to stand, only to grab onto the handle and pull it down. The sudden loss of security making him land onto the cold ground, his headache worsening at the rumbling of the flushing toilet. ”Get up. I refuse to have My vessel appear in such a pitiful way.”
“I am not.. your vessel..” Derek hissed as he sat up, grabbing onto the sink and lifting himself up. His knees wobbled beneath him, in a moment of panic he put all his weight on the sink. “..I don't care if You're stuck in my head or not. You will have no control over me..”
”We shall see about that.” Derek scowled as he turned on the tap, letting the clear lukewarm liquid run into his cupped hand before bringing it to his lips. The water dragged against his dry throat, he repeated the action until his thirst was quenched and looked up at the mirror hanging above. It was a plastic mirror built into the wall.
His reflection was.. worrying. Derek didn't recognize the man he saw in the mirror. Dark circles boarded his sunken eyes, there was a strange yellowish glint in his eyes he tried to ignore.. and his hair..
He'd spent months growing it out, and he was proud of it. Shakily, he reached up to run a hand through what remained. Frustration had bubbled up inside of him, showing itself through tears pooling in his eyes.
”Do not tell me you are crying over the loss of your hair. There are much more pressing matters to deal with at the moment.”
“Shut up..”
”Excuse you? You think you can speak to Me in such a manner?”
But Derek ignored the God's useless lecture, examining himself more in the mirror. He was so thin now.. lifting up the thin gray t-shirt he now wore to see the ribs that were close to protruding from his skin. He sighed and went back to looking at his hair. It hadn't been this short since he was a child, his neck was cold..
..His neck..
”Ma'am, You're going to want to see this..”
There was something on the back of his neck, but what? He pulled the shirt over his head, setting it against the sink and turning.
”What are you- oh..” They both stood for a second in silence. The King in awe, and Derek in fear. Nestled right between his shoulder blades a symbol, no, a sigil had appeared. The Yellow Sign was set into his dark skin, as if it had always been there.
This might've been worse than he thought..