Chapter Text
Buzz~Buzz~Buzz~Buzz~Buzz~
Daphne blinks.
What was that sound?
A flash of multicolor lights draws her eyes to the sky, distant pops and thunderous booms echoed in tandem with the explosions of sparks.
Buzz~Buzz~Buzz~Buzz~Buzz~
Right.
It's New Years Day, she was watching the fireworks with her son, Alex.
She looks over at him, her sweet quiet boy -he wasn't always quiet, he used to be loud, be energetic, be outgoing before- and he was also looking back at her. His dark eyes were dazed, uncertain, lip being worried between his teeth.
Why is he worried, is it the fireworks? He wasn't scared of them before but maybe after-
Buzz~Buzz~Buzz~Buzz~Buzz~Buzz~
The sound hadn't stopped. It draws her attention back slowly, like she was wading though honey or tar; she couldn't tell if it was mentally and her mind was processing slowly or if she actually moving slowly, she wasn't sure.
Daphne glances down as something rustles the grass she's standing on. On the ground by her foot her phone continues to vibrate, the lit up screen casts a consistent faint blue glow on the dry blades below it. Oh, that's what the buzzing had been, but who could be texting her so much at this hour?
The woman takes a moment to think about it.
Buzz~Buzz~Buzz~Buzz~Buzz~
Her coworkers are either at their own events or on shift. They wouldn't be texting her on her night off unless she needed to cover for someone, but she had a specific ringtone for her shift manager for those very scenarios.
Buzz~Buzz~Buzz~Buzz~Buzz~
Alex was right next to her, still looking worried and not holding his new phone -the one she insisted on getting him after he had been returned- between his wringing fingers so it couldn't be him either.
Buzz~Buzz~Buzz~Buzz~Buzz~
That only left-
"Mom?" His voice is soft, barely audible under the the fireworks singing though the air and persistent buzzing of her phone. "Mom…something feels wrong."
The woman wanted to feel proud. She is proud. They had been working so hard on getting Alex to speak up again, to share his thoughts after-
Who had been helping her take care of him again?
Buzz~Buzz~Buzz~Buzz~Buzz~
Daphne nods vaguely in agreement, something feels wrong; she's never shied away from things even when they led to more problems than answers. Bending over to pick up the still buzzing phone she tucks her braids back over her shoulder and flips it over to finally catch the name attached to the raising number of text notifications.
Baby Derek - 148 Messages (Now)
A screaming firework launches up from some nearby house, neighbors cheering as it's booming explosion feels like it should rattle the ground and it paints the sky in red, green and gold.
Alex next to her pales, even under the night's bright moon it's hardly noticeable with his dark complex but she sees how his eyes widen seeing the name. Daphne had felt her own body go cold.
Her nephew… 'How had she forgotten her nephew?'
Despite the warm air her mind finally feels ripped free from the honey only to be doused in a frozen winter lake; the woman's hands shake as she swipes her code and clicks the notification that had yet to stop climbing.
Baby Derek
jhh
heee
hwell
hewlp
huuyuy
gwlp
hgwewoo
hgeee
asun t daphgne
ploesse
ghurtt
hyuurt
Daphne's brows fuse as she keeps scrolling. Over and over, broken, nearly illegible messages completely took over their old weekly check-in as the same sentiments persist. It makes her skin crawl, fireworks distant pops in her ears that add to her mounting panic. 'What is happening, what does he mean?'
Hurt. Help. Please.
It's only as the buzzing slows down and she gets to the most recent ones that they finally start turning into full sentences.
That frozen feeling returns to take her breath.
It isn't let my messages through
I'm sorry Im sorryu Imsorry I'm sorryIm so sorry
I was stupid
I don't know how long it's been
I'm scared
I can't even loook to see
iff my messages are readable
I'm sorry Aaunt Daphne
I can'tt let it get too him
Whats's one life for the rest oof the world
For Avery
Huurts soo much
Ii don't regret saaving him
Ii just wish I got to seee you and Alex aagain
Love you so much
She's throwing open their front door before she even remembers moving.
"Baby- Baby I need you to get dressed and get our chargers and such, okay?" She rubs Alex's arm comfortingly as he follows after her before nudging him towards his room when he nods. Rushing over to her desk where her keys and wallet are kept -thanking everything she had remembered to put them away after work- and tries to call Derek. She presses the phone between her shoulder and ear, pacing mindlessly as she listens to the ringing.
"This is Derek Hutchins, please leave a message-"
Voicemail.
The woman curses quietly to herself, ending the call she pulls up the school dorm number he'd had given her when he had moved out. She's so thankful he trusted it to her for emergencies, she had just never wanted to need it.
"Hello, this is Campus Dorm Apartments, how can I-"
"Hello I'm Daphne Hutchins, my nephew Derek Hutchins lives in your dorms in room 201-c. I believe he's experiencing a medical emergency, I will be calling for an ambulance, please check his room."
"I-I'm sorry but-"
Gritting her teeth she tries to keep from snapping at the poor girl on the other end. "Yes I know you can't give me information without proper verification and all. I'm saying send someone to check on my nephew right now, I'm calling 911, they will be there soon."
Hanging up she does just that. Having no actual information on what's happening to him gets her more questions but she does her best to stay level headed. New Years always has accidents and she refuses to waste time; all of her work experience is telling her they are on borrowed time and she isn't losing her nephew -not when they just got her baby back- so slipping into the car with Alex she scarcely follows the speed limit while dodging any major areas of people still celebrating.
He types something into his phone before looking over at Daphne, she catches his eyes for a moment and reaches over to squeeze his hand comfortingly before returning it to the wheel. "….We forgot about him. I…I forgot about him, my last text to him was in July. Mom do you think-"
"I don't know but I do know it's not your fault Alex." She answers softly. Both of them were too tense to turn on the radio so the car was quiet besides their breathing and the engine's hum. "I really don't know, but whatever is happening we'll get him back. Derek is strong. We have to be strong too."
The rest of their ride is silent, lost in their own thoughts and watching the road pass by. Slipping away from the more residential areas the fireworks and people enjoying their night become more sparse, seen thought bar and apartment windows more than out on the streets. Fireworks still faintly echo, cheers and music lulling as the clocks tick on to the new day. The peacefulness of it all itches at Daphne's skin, everything feels so…normal despite the undercurrent of wrongness she had had since realizing she had forgotten Derek. She couldn't even remember when the memory of him had disappeared, like his existence had been a puzzle piece she only remembered was missing when it was slotted back into place.
What worries her is what took the piece to begin with.
Her phone rings and she puts it on the car speaker when she sees it's the dorm apartments' number.
"Hello?"
"Hello, is this Daphne Hutchins?"
"Yes, were you able to check on Derek? The ambulance should be there by now or soon."
"Yes, they arrived a few minutes ago. I'm Manuel Hobbs, one of the Public Safety members, I wanted to call you back to let you know your nephew was alive when the EMTs took him but…he looks to be in very bad shape ma'am. I don't understand what or how he ended up the way he did, I want to extend our sincerest apologies and if you want we can start an investigation if you wish?"
'Something tells me this isn't something campus security can handle.' Daphne grips the steering wheel tighter but Alex hesitantly reaches over and puts his hand on her elbow. He softly smiles, it's weak and obviously more for comforting her than actually feeling calm himself -she can see his phone lighting up on his lap, did Derek send him any messages, she never got to ask- She takes a deep breath, stopping at a red light Alex returns back to his phone and the woman drums her fingers for a moment before responding, "No, for now I just want to know what hospital he is being taken to, everything else can wait please."
"Understandable, he's being taken to the downtown medical center about four miles from here. Do you know where that is or do you need the address?"
She did know where that was. "I know where that is, thank you for your help Mr. Hobbs." Looks like she'd be heading to work after all.
"I hope he recovers swiftly ma'am, ask for myself if you do want to start that investigation later on. Derek's room has been locked until he is able to return or his things need to be gathered. Goodbye."
Echoing the farewell she hangs up and turns down the familiar route to her work.
'We're coming baby, just hold on.'
'That absolute JERK!'
Avery pants, heart pounding as if he had actually been pushed off a platform in real life and not just in game.
'Or that might be just the panic attack that's been building since -focus I have to get back to D3rlord first, panic later!'
Wiping the sweat from his hands, and reclamping his claw clip since it had gotten loose at some point, Avery quickly clicks the respawn button, the void and mocking 'TheMostMayo was doomed to fall by d3rlord3' message finally leaving the screen. He honestly hadn't been sure how long he had been staring at it in total disbelief, after all he was a Skywars player, a great one if he did say so himself; he saw D3rlord moving towards him and should have easily been able to move away but the knight had hit him way harder and further -taking two hearts and back at least three blocks- than he should have been able to, he'd been left numbed by shock and betrayal after the rest of his hearts had quickly been stripped away and the platform faded from view.
Avery perks up as the game finishes loading and he's ready to bolt back through the gold doors he had last spawned in front of…
Only to find himself back in his small starter house.
Feeling the panic raising again he jerks his mouse around, the house was just as he had last left it before he had gone down to the mine. Red bed wedged between his crafting table and chests, barely any room to move around the box shaped space with holes left in the oak walls to be made into windows that he hadn't gone to get the glass for yet and a simple oak door he had left open in his haste to go check out what had happened to the mysterious man that had apparently lived in the world before he had. Looking down at his hotbar he even sees he's back in creative like he had set himself in before going.
'Why am I back here? I spawned in front of the doors last time, it's going to take so long to get back! You better hold on D3rlord, we're handling this together and I'm not getting tricked like that a second time.'
Groaning he practically slams the spacebar twice to get himself flying and speeds off as fast as the game will allow back to the mines. The slime avatar races away from his shack in the flower field, pointedly ignoring the blue pixels below that try to draw his eye, and through the plains until he makes it to the forest where he thankfully remembers the entrance had been in a small clearing with torches outside it.
Dropping his flight the slime sprints down the cobblestone steps and ignoring the other doors along the left side and the chest still resting in the middle of the room he turns to the right only to find a smooth unbroken wall.
Avery freezes.
'What?'
He lines up one block away from the torch and breaks through the two layers of stone. There should be a cave, a winding one with patches of moss and grass and trees that grow larger and more outrageous until it leads a huge caves with trees that are stacked on each other so they loom over any person that dares go near and draw you into the mudbrick passageway that pushes you further and further into the depths and the gold door that sit in them. He remembers, he knows he saw it in D3rlord's footage that Wifies had found, that he had seen himself after looking into the drive and then flying through himself just hours ago. So why? Why?
'Why isn't the cave here?!'
Punching over and over wildly he forms such a deep strip mine that he can't see the light from the mine anymore. He starts breaking blocks around him wildly, surely he just missed it right? He just remembered the wrong spot to mine into! That has to be it, just Avery screwing up again as usual but he's good at being stubborn! He'll find it any moment now and he can rush through all the creepy, vacant and confusing worlds back to D3rlord -to Derek- the guy who was so insanely smart that he could decode puzzles that Harvard students couldn't and he tanked being force fed infinite knowledge and living with it for who the heck knows how long and who apparently is saving Avery from some unknowable god that wanted to use him as some vessel or something to destroy the world and-
"Damn it!" The young man screams, slamming his fists on the desk before gripping his curls.
He hadn't even noticed when he had started hyperventilating but he feels it when sobs restrict his breathing even more, leaving him gasping and heaving, lungs straining to get much need air in.
'I can't panic!' Avery cries to himself, tears blur his vision of the small cave he had broken around his character. 'I need to focus! I can't screw this up, D3r-Derek NEEDS me! He's facing a freaking GOD by himself right now and I'm just sitting here crying like an idiot! C'mon! C'mon, think! Stop being so stupid and be helpful! There has to be something, I told him there has to be a way and now I have to find it!'
He tries desperately to think of something but his mind is going fuzzy. Tingles make his hands twitch, either from the panic attack or how tightly he's clutching his own hair, so he reluctantly lets go and instead wraps them around his elbows, kicking back from the computer a bit he sits up more and leans forward. He can't quite remember what his moms taught him to do for the breathing exercises -another stupidity on his part he's been having attacks since he was like twelve he should know this by now- so he settles on just trying to slow his breath by breathing through his nose, difficult since he's all snotty from crying but it's better than gasping like a fish out of water so he'll take what he can get.
BOOM POP POP POP BOOOOOOM
Chair nearly flipping, Avery spins in it to see fireworks going off on the street behind his neighbor's house. Dazed, slightly, he watches the colorful display fade out before more replaced it, faint cheers seep through the cracks in his window and for a moment he almost feels like the world is cheering for him working himself out of his spiral.
Then he looks at the time and realizes it's actually just mocking him.
12:04 AM
'Guess it's no longer New Years Eve…' Avery thinks hysterically. He feels tears already trying to well back up in his eyes but he presses his hands into them until he sees more stars than fireworks. Getting his breath back he gets back to thinking. 'I can't get back in for some reason, I don't want to think about why. There has to be some way to get to or contact D3rlord some other way… Maybe in the game logs? But I don't know how to get into those. …Wait. MY FOOTAGE!'
Hastily pushing himself back to the desk he pulls up his OBS, hoping that his footage hadn't been lost or corrupted with how long it's been recording for since he barely remembers checking it after leaving the church -if he never has to look back at that footage again he'll be happy- before skipping to the library where he had finally met D3rlord.
It had only taken around ten minutes of wandering to get to the podium D3rlord had been hiding under, an insane miracle given the size of the place. 'How long did he wait there? Was he there the whole time after placing the path of crafting tables or did he see me wandering from a level below and build up?' He wouldn't have those answers until he got to talk to the other himself so he watches through to see if there had been anything he can pick up from the books he had flipped through back then. He thought some parts of the books sounded familiar but since none of them screamed out to him as related to D3rlord he decided to skip ahead to their conversation.
Watching himself fall through the floor again got his heart racing and it aches when D3rlord comes into his view again, he can't help but pause to take in every detail about his model. How dark his cape is, how the blocky form is mainly covered in blacks and brown like leather and he really only has golden knee pads and one gauntlet on his right hand, it's such a random detail but it leaves Avery wishing he could know more even over such small stupid things. 'Why this skin? Does he change skins regularly or has the always used this one? It goes with his username, why did he pick that name, has he had other ones or any alt accounts?'
Before he can get dragged into a spiral of just how much he doesn't know about the other he plays the footage again.
His eyes flint between reading their conversation over again and watching D3rlord's character carefully for any movement, any physical details he might have missed back then when he'd been completely overwhelmed with joy and disbelief -and left over fading feeling from the church- that he had actually managed to stumble on the other after what had felt like an eternity of searching.
D3rlord's character doesn't move much, not really gesturing or moving around like other players might when talking like in the servers Avery was used to but he found it kind of endearing.
'He really does look like a knight, standing all stiff and proper besides the idle sway animation.' A small smile curls the man's lips. 'Wonder if he's like that in real life too…'
Shaking his head he watches their past selves talking about the book on the lectern, feeling the same small flash of embarrassment from having to get so close to the other before pillaring back up-
<d3rlord3>1oKnSYbxE2tilcmJiGivRGxuQPX0owEZS
Avery freezes.
He couldn't believe he had forgotten that message, he pauses just as his past self had sent back some question marks and he remembers how d3rlord had told him to not worry about it and just read the book.
'This might be it!' The man feels his heart skip a beat, hope kicking starting it back up as he races the write down the string of numbers and letters on one of the stray papers that litter his desk. He double then triple checks it, making sure that he didn't miswrite any before quickly jumping back to his browser. 'I hope I'm right because if this is some cipher then I'm screwed-but it has to be!'
Pulling up Wifies video that he'd saved in his favorites he skips to the part where he talks about finding the google drive link and copies what he had put on the screen before adding the string from his and D3rlord's conversation at the end.
He rubs his chilled fingers together as he waits for it to load, nerves acting up as he hopes he had actually worked something out for once. 'This has to be what he sent that for right? He must have known I would remember or find it again and he's still guiding me on where to go? There must be something here for me to find him.'
It loads and he immediately sees the first file is a video file named "d3rlord", his heart skips again, he'd done it! He'd been right, he had figured out what D3rlord was trying to send him and now he had the other's footage to go off of! D3rlord had said when they were on the platform that he would explain later, maybe he had figured out a way to survive the merging and just didn't want to say it in front of the King! He could learn what happened after he was pushed off the platform and find D3rlord in real life, there was still a chance for them to meet and talk and-
Eyes drifting to the side he catches the name of the only other document in the folder.
A word document.
"Goodbye"
'No…'
That has to be wrong…
'No'
Goodbye?
'No'
Goodbye means D3rlord lied when he said he would explain later.
'No no'
Goodbye means no getting to learn more about D3r-Derek, not the knight not but the person behind the screen.
'No no no'
Goodbye meant he's gone.
'No no no nononono'
Goodbye meant he died.
Derek died for Avery and the world.
'NO'
Avery doesn't acknowledge his chair fully falling this time, to busy pushing himself to his feet despite the pins and needles he feels stabbing up and down them. His head is fuzzy. Is he breathing? He can't tell. It feels like he's not getting any at all but he can feel his mouth gaping to he must be taking in some right? His chest is tight like his ribs are trying to fold in on themselves, he can feel his heart pounding away at them -'Did Derek's heart pound like this when he was dying-'- and his vision is getting dark at the edges but that must be from the tears he already feels slipping down his cheeks. He needs to get out. He needs to leave, to find Derek. He'll run through the streets if he has to. He'll scream his name louder than the fireworks still echoing outside. He grips the edge of his desk like he desperately tries to grasp at his thoughts. They had to have been close if he'd found Derek's laptop in his mom's shop, he has to be somewhere. He will find him.
Avery refuses to accept Derek's goodbye, he hasn't looked at it yet and it doesn't exist until he does so he just has to go out and find him. He takes a step-
Thud
Eyes refocusing -'when did they unfocus? When did his vision get so dark?'- Avery sees the floor was way closer then it had been before, between one second and the next he had collapsed. His left cheek and temple pressed painfully against the cool hardwood, both arms were uncomfortably folded under him and a new ache in his ribs and legs joined his pounding heart in making his whole body feel like it was throbbing. He felt so heavy but he needed to move, he needed to find Derek. He can't accept that he's…
A weak pathetic sob leaves him, tears blurring his vision again and turning the shadows into dark blobs that faintly get flashes of color as the fireworks continue.
The man tries feebly to get back up but his leg only kicks slightly before stilling again.
'I have to find him. I need to get up, he's dead or dying I have to find him…I…have to…Derek…'
The google drive still on his screen and the fireworks outside the only things to illuminate his room as Avery's consciousness fades.