Chapter Text
Avery stared at the screen in shock.
A Minecraft death screen.
One without a respawn button.
D3rlord…No Derek…had just pushed him off. The jerk had just killed himself to save humanity! Who does that!?!
Avery had failed…Derek was now probably dead because of him….
Avery didn’t know how long he stared at the death screen before he was suddenly pulled back into reality by a loud sound. He flinched violently as he turned to his left to find the source of the noise.
Oh. Right. Fireworks. It was New Year’s Eve. Avery had almost completely forgotten about that.
Avery turned back to screen as he continued to mourn Derek and stared at it some more as the light attacked his eyes but something was different.
Above the text “You died”…there was extra text in yellow. It was in the normal Minecraft font and almost looked like it belonged.
It was an address!
And underneath it said, “Go find your knight”
Avery stopped breathing for a minute. Was this…Derek’s address!? Did…did the King give it to him??? Why??? After a moment of thinking, Avery decided he didn’t care why. It didn’t matter if he was playing right into the King’s hands, he already decided he would do anything to save Derek.
He looked at the address more closely. Derek was in Berkeley, that was only about an hour and 45 minutes from where Avery was. Although, trying to go through Oakland on New Years Eve would probably be hellish and he would need to stick to the highway as much as possible to get there fast enough.
Avery didn’t waste a single second running to his car. It was only once he was on the road that he realized he probably should have grabbed some supplies. Hell, even just a jacket would be useful. He realized he had no idea what he was walking into…would Derek even be alive?
No.
Avery refused to let himself think like that. Derek would not be dead. Avery wouldn’t let him be.
Derek had just finished writing his goodbye letter when the pain got to be too much. He collapsed onto the desk and wondered how it was even possible to feel this much pain.
A few seconds later, Derek didn’t even register that he had fallen from his chair and onto the ground.
This pain was unlike anything Derek had ever felt before. It felt like every individual atom was being agonisingly pulled apart and twisted. Before, when he first saw the King, it just felt like his head was trying to split open. Now it felt like every part of his body was unlocking a new level of pain for him to experience.
And what was almost worse than that was that Derek could feel himself slipping. He could feel himself merging and becoming one with the King.
The King in Yellow…Hastur, the unspeakable one, him who is not to be named, Assatur, Xastur, H’aatre, Fenric, Kaiwan.
Derek already understood some of the King when he first gazed upon his form…but now? He understood it all.
And holy hell did it HURT.
This was a different type of agony, it was mental pain but it wasn’t emotional. Derek knew there wasn’t any word in any human language to properly articulate this new type of suffering.
When he first gained infinite knowledge, it hurt because there was too much trying to squeeze itself into the confines of his mortal brain. Now however, his mind was being ripped open and reshaped to hold all of this knowledge.
Derek lay writing on the floor for a long time. And as all of this was happening, he was still reciting “I STAND AND GIVE MY EYES TO YOU ONE BY ONE SHADOWED SHORE FAR UNDONE TO YOU I POUR CORRODED SUN WAKE ME AS ONE”. Derek wasn’t even consciously doing it, the words just poured out of him on their own accord.
And as Derek felt his mind and life slipping away, all he could think about was Avery.
Avery.
From the moment Derek was hit with the infinite knowledge, he knew he was in love with him. And that he would never get to do anything about it.
Derek knew everything about Avery. Well, Derek supposed he knew everything about everything but he always paid more attention to the knowledge he learned of Avery because he knew he would never get to meet him.
As fully fledged thoughts started to elude Derek, he held onto an idea of Avery coming and saving him. In that world Avery and Derek would grow close and eventually live together and grow old with two cats.
It was a nice idea but Derek knew it was just his dying mind coming up with something to comfort him. Avery wasn’t coming to save him. And even if a selfish part of Derek wanted Avery to, he knew he shouldn’t. The King needed to die with him.