Work Text:
Derek was not one for sentimentality, even now, as he could feel the last remnants of his sanity slipping away, falling out of his hands like drops of water. Yet it was all he had left to hold onto- tears he could only just choke back, memories of Avery’s face, and the breeze, tickling the skin that he could hardly call his own anymore.
His window was open. Fireworks bloomed in the murky sky above him, covering the flecks of stars in huge blossoms of color and light. Avery did mention it was New Year’s.
He felt his mind tumble with every movement of his hands, and with each crackle of New Year’s celebration, his vision would blur with pain- but even still, he fumbled his way to a new document. He could hardly see the keys on the keyboard anymore- it was muscle memory that brought his shaky hands to every new letter.
You know
Know what? As the hex color of each hue on his screen appeared in his mind, he couldn’t help but feel like Avery wouldn’t know. It was what made him so beautiful- he learned and grew and did the unpredictable things that only Avery, with a dedicated, nervous heart of melting gold, could do.
it’s weird writing a final letter.
Temptation came surprisingly easily to a man with infinite stores of knowledge- he wouldn’t want to see any more than he did, and he already saw the fireworks outside in a thousand different timelines, already heard the fizz of each separate spark, and the claps and cheers of the none-the-wiser people. But he could feel his eyes begging to be torn from the screen, his only solace, still. His gaze remained firmly on the screen, leaving the fireworks to his vast imagination.
How strange that he’d never have the chance to see them again.
Almost as if I have to come to terms with… whatever this is.
He willed his fingers to move, though his eyes could not do the same.
Which is something I find quite displeasurable.
Somehow, the noise of his rattling breaths, each one he was sure would be his last, overpowered the crackling fireworks. With every blink, a new sight would cause a surge of new information into his mind. A bird flew past- he could hear the shuffle of its feathers- a rock dove, spooked from its nearby resting place by a burst of light. In a few minutes, it’d scramble to find its way onto the clothesline of an apartment on the fourteenth floor, belonging to a family of four, the parents struggling and bickering every day while the daughter took pictures that’d lay unseen underneath her bed and the son spent too many nights away from home in the house of a friend whom he was tangling with feelings for. The pigeon had never known anything but glittering city lights at night and hopping for crumbs in the day, and in a few minutes, when it landed, it’d peck at the clothesline.
But here I am.
The clothesline. Jérémie Opdebec. Gilbert Toyne. Lance Hill.
The rock dove. Also called the common pigeon or rock pigeon. Scientific name: Columba livia.
He decided he’d be better off not blinking. His left hand reached down, clawing around, occasionally hit by a wave of cool air and tracing its path back to wherever that was, until he clutched a cold smoothie. 51.6% dairy milk. 26.12% bananas. 19.78% Greek yogurt. The remainder was a clump of dried, cooked oatmeal that he’d found in his Greek yogurt and tossed in anyway.
Why did I even record all of this?
Everything hurt. Numbers- not just the percentages of his smoothie, which now tasted like everything and nothing at all- sped through his mind a mile a minute. Some of them didn’t even get a label attributed to them until a few moments later, when they were already long gone. Birthdays, death dates, years, the details of every flight in the next forty-three years. There would be 2,028 crashes.
His fingers moved with more deliberation than he had in years. For each inch they moved the keyboard, he felt himself split further in two.
I don't know. Well I do know. I just don't wanna be forgotten.
Somehow, despite the agony wracking his flesh puppet of a body, he found the energy to hope that Avery would remember him. His last words to him- Until next time friend- were said with no ignorance of their weight.
My head hurts like hell. I can feel myself slipping as we become one. And my mind becomes a prison. What a true shame it is. All the knowledge in the world and no way to use it. That's how it should be I suppose.
We stumbled into a world we have no business in. This is just the cost.
Please don't think you failed, Avery. When you read this, don't think you let me down. You didn't. It's thanks to you, and all that you did, that millions live to see another day.
He hoped that his words would get through- he could barely even tell if he was typing, despite the rush in his head. His quivering fingers barely managed to navigate to the top of the page, and he changed the font to Times New Roman. Avery, he thought to himself hazily, liked that font.
Despite the splitting of his head and the presence of the King looming, grasping at his thoughts and desires, he almost pitied the crowd down there. They didn’t know the weight of their lives tomorrow.
And thanks to you, I got a chance to see all the beauty of the universe. Things I never even knew were in the world. Or could be. A chance no human will ever get again. I'm grateful that I saw all, even if it was just for a little.
Perhaps, in some other world, this would be a lesson. People do often say that curiosity killed the cat. They often neglected to remember that satisfaction brought it back. He saw galaxies unfold before him, saw the sheer beauty of the world they had the miraculous opportunity to bear witness to, and knew words in long-obsolete languages that could not parallel such simple human words like “beautiful”.
If he could, he’d take the opportunity to look into Avery’s eyes one more time, shove him off that cursed platform one more time, and he’d uncover dialects that had been spoken by no tongue in centuries. He’d take the agony of the vast universe and bestow only its most beautiful parts on the person whom he believed deserved it more than anyone. And only then would he fall, for Derek would want nothing else than to know Avery was safe.
His vision was blurring. Was it because of the pain, or the chance that he no longer had the willpower nor the ability to choke back welling tears of grief for a friend who’d lived while Derek died? Sight was not a necessity, anyway- he could live without it. But he would not dare let himself leave this world without expressing how much-
Time’s ticking, boy. Unless you’d rather make the intelligent decision of seeing Avery another day. It’s not too late. The desire for liberty is one of mankind’s greatest failures.
His thoughts.
He felt them collide on a physical level with the King’s, as his thoughts blurred between wanting to stay and needing to go.
You are my fool, dancing for me for meager pay.
Perhaps, but he was also a knight, willing to defend those he loved until his dying breath.
Defend? An overstatement, considering you are leaving him, consumed by loneliness and memories of you. Selfish, to want to be remembered.
He was one to talk about selfishness and overstatements. Derek would not dare let himself be swayed. Not now, not ever again. Something much more important than him was on the line here.
Why not let him know in person? Meet him face-to-face.
Did the King in Yellow ever shut the fuck up?
He swallowed, feeling the constant waves of his mind ebb into a gentler tide. His fingers were finally willing to move again, and as he saw the line flicking on and off of the document indicating where to type, he knew, simply because of a gut instinct, like where he’d know to mine to find diamonds, that he was Avery’s knight, now and forever and wherever forever would lead next.
Sentiment, however sappy and uncomfortable, was what would fuel him to write.
You're capable of great things. You'll do great things. So, believe in yourself. And I don't just say that because I saw it.
It doesn't take a god for me to figure that out. I know it because I know you. Goodbye, my friend.
In the back of his mind, the voice kept getting louder. Whispers, murmurs, pathetic pleas for freedom from the King that were poorly masked with arrogance. He could feel more of his thoughts being stripped from his mind, and more memories flooded and crowded with thousands of new ones. He was suddenly incredibly cold.
Time’s up, boy. You made the wrong decision.
Fat chance- he’d make the same one every single time.
Whatever you do at the crossroads. Keep going forward.
Or something like that
(I was never really good with endings)
He moved his head. It felt like every degree he turned, he had to cross a thousand mountains. It was worth it, in the end, when he just barely managed to see the fireworks, still going off, still loud as ever.
He was still cold, though he doubted he’d ever know the feeling of warmth again.
He was fairly certain his hands were clutching the armrests of his chair, but he couldn’t tell- all the knowledge in the universe, but losing control over himself. What color were his eyes? Brown? It didn’t matter much- in the reflection of the window, they were yellow now.
In his last moments, as he felt his consciousness run away from him, too fast for him to reach, to grab back, to do anything, he wondered if, somewhere out there, Avery could see the same fireworks he did. Or could see the gently shining moon, carved in half. He didn't know- it was ironic that he could know everything but what was most important to him. He'd laugh, even, if it didn't hurt so much. He'd laugh sometime else. Though "sometime else" was surely a cypher for "never".
How grateful he was, he thought to himself, internal monologue quiet underneath the King’s growing whispers. To share this one last moment with him, on the minuscule chance that Avery was there too, looking at those fireworks, those beautiful, unparalleled flowers of splendor and color and light, blooming in the sky.
Thank you.
For everything.
With the color exploding into the sky, clear in his vision, he felt himself careen onto the floor- the cup that held the smoothie tumbled out of his hand. His feet- no, legs- no, even worse, lower body no longer obeyed his will, and they stiffened like rotting planks of wood.
His eyesight is hazy, but colors are still fresh in his mind. They’re beautiful.
He sees green, a familiar lime. With every shift of its movement, the sun finds a new, beautiful way to reflect upon its verdant canvas. The shade darkens the lime, as if swirling rich black paint, and you can see the creases in their expression only in firelight, the tears staining the sides of their eyes, the worry in the furrow of their brow. It is a beautiful shade- he knows, even without his boundless knowledge, that no palette will ever replicate it.
He sees inky gray. The fabric dyed in the color is folded over itself tightly, no doubt due to the closely clenched arms of the wearer. Rich marigold flowers bloom across it, stitched with precise care. He can see the sleeve stretch toward the sky, and he yearns almost pathetically to be able to take the hand that it protects so dearly.
The colors manifesting in his head almost wrench away the agony for one blissful moment.
God.
The sky is beautiful.
Tomorrow will be a day with clear skies. Temperatures would be cold, the cold that Avery would enjoy only inside with a mug of something warm, hitting just under twenty-four degrees Fahrenheit.
His eyes drifted closed- through a dreary veil of black, he could almost see familiar softening eyes blinking back at him in the dying remainders of the next (last) firework.
No one would know of the things he’d sacrificed that day. No statues would be erected in his honor, no heartfelt speeches at his funeral. No history books would have his name carefully written, and the endlessly replicated script of the King in Yellow would remain on the shelves, with no mark of a Derek, and less mark of D3rlord3.
That was okay, he reflected- on another day, maybe the day just before, this would be a lament, but he found himself almost satisfied- for he needed no grand collections of flowers and notes at his grave, nor did he need his legacy etched into history. He just needed one- one single flower, one person to remember his name. He only needed one bouquet, signed with a tear-soaked note to “D3rlord3."
I’m sorry, Avery. That you have to spend your life remembering me instead of knowing me. I would love, in another universe, to get to know you too.
Quietly, as though his room had never stirred, he slumped onto the floor as the King stole his final breath.