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D3rlord was an empty vessel for the knowledge he'd been unfairly granted. It cut into his body's curves, filled his intestines. Pure words swam in his throat. Bubbled in the back of his mind, an angry beast waiting to be unleashed. The knowledge couldn't wait patiently, either. It scratched and bit at the confines of its cage, freeing itself.
D3rlord looked at a flower. Instead of it's sharp, tall petals, all he could see was the information. An Oxeye Daisy, known to scientists as a Leucanthemum Vulgare, was a perennial flower. He knew what perennial meant, too. A flower that lived for more than two years. Turns out all flowers die, and they all die fairly quick, only a couple them are lucky enough to live more than a year. He also knew what Oxeye Daisy meant in flower language—hell, D3rlord could write a whole novel in flower language now—it meant patience, innocence, purity, beginnings. This sure didn't feel like the beginning of anything worth it all.
His gaze drifted to the flower beside it, head pounding, aching from the sheer force of what had been bestowed upon him. Lily of the valley. Scientific name Convallaria Majalis. Also perennial. It signified the return of happiness.
D3rlord huffed, the world a blur. His hands found his knees, and the words sparkled in his stomach. All he could think about was the grass beneath his feet. Raw information shortening the circuit his brain had become.
Grass wasn't a single plant, as one may expect.
Saliva coat D3rlord's tongue. A bitter warning for what was about to come.
There were three major families for it. True grasses, sedges, and rushes.
The words left his stomach and heaved out his mouth.
There were over eleven thousand species. For grass.
D3rlord never felt more powerless. He hadn't done anything about that King in Yellow, and he couldn't do anything about the vomit wracking his body, and he couldn't do anything about Avery. He had the knowledge that Avery may make the mistake of going left. But was that set in stone? Would his message change anything? Could he even properly predict? The only thing he had was a strong, nagging feeling, rending through his mind.
All he could do now was act like a child. He sank to his knees, armor digging into his calves, hands digging his helmet over his ears. He closes his eyes tight, wishing for something or anything to give him any idea on how to go forward with this. It made him feel like he was at the crossroads again. Does he just live a normal life, now? Farm, mine, and build like anyone else? But he wasn't like anyone else anymore. Some people in his situation might comfort themselves with the knowledge. Comfort themselves by being the smartest, having comprehension above everyone. But it was the loneliest up at the top, even if you had just escaped the bottom.
It was like being a star. You could burn so bright but no other star may feel that warmth for light years. Stars. A star is a luminous ellipsoid held together by self-gravity. An ellipsoid is essentially a slightly stretched sphere. And self-gravity, as the name suggested, is gravity exerted by a system with no external force.
He was going to be sick again.
The pounding in his head intensified til it centered on one, fuzzy point. He felt hot all over. Sweating even though it was so, so cold.
Nobody was coming to save him. That's what his gut was telling him. And even if he was the most useless person on he planet, he at least had the knowledge to show for it.
D3rlord was too warm, under what might've been a sheet. A body bag. Maybe he was dead. A subtle pressure sent instincts wild as consciousness somehow occurred to him.
Vision came to him like a prophecy. Avery stood over him, and D3rlord was more inclined to first believe this was his guardian angel, not just that innocent person he tried to save. Avery looked so worried, scrutinizing him with squinted eyes. His thoughts were like clouds drifting in the atmosphere, unrelated, fuzzy. At one point, he fainted. When exactly?
This room was lived-in. Full of life compared to the nomad settlements D3rlord made during his expeditions. His eyes raked over pictures and flora decor and carpets. It almost made D3rlord jealous. How much this place looked like it belonged to Avery. If he could grace every mountain, every cave, every village, collect every artifact… Then perhaps he wouldn't be forced to realize no place would ever look so uniquely his own. That no place wanted his presence for long. He could already get the vibe Avery fit in every place he went, a puzzle piece thin enough to fit anywhere. And that meant, no matter how this went, Avery would soon realize how much of a freak D3rlord actually was. Like every other well-meaning person who'd try to talk to him.
Avery spoke to him. But D3rlord didn't respond, stuck in this detached space between thoughts and the physical world. A weird space where he was concerned about the wrong things, like the sun glare in his eyes, more than the fact he was in a stranger's home.
He only nodded to affirm he was alive. Avery took that as chance to explain. He paced as he told the story: he'd found D3rlord fainted in his own puke, got scared, and decided to take him home. Avery admitted he couldn't help himself, that he had to laugh a little at the ridiculousness of the situation. But he was also concerned for D3rlord. And if D3rlord needed a place to stay, well, he could make himself at home. For now.
Tempting offer. D3rlord didn't have a place on this planet let alone deserved to stay in this one. He'd always been this alien from the other lands, never able to make friends. Most people tired him. Not because he was stuck up, per se, but because he never seemed to be on the same wavelength. He zoned out constantly. He was zoning out right now, digging deep into his own self-pity as if it were something aesthetic and not annoying.
Still, he accepted Avery's offer to stay here. It's impossible to lose the belonging you don't have. He'd just stay for a while, then he'd go back to his exploration. Unless the world was set to explode—which technically he knew now it was doomed to be swallowed up by the sun in approximately five billion years—he'd have the rest of his life to explore.
So came the period Avery nursed D3rlord back to health. It wasn't intentional. D3rlord would never allow that under usual circumstances. But it kind of just happened. Something primal in him wanted the comfort, the concern, on a greedy level. Like inhaling pastry after pastry with sticky fingers, and still wanting more.
Avery insisted D3rlord not exert himself for a week, tops. Said that he would do the hunting for food. He brought books and had conversation for entertainment. They'd sit on Avery's couch, wrapped in blankets, D3rlord lying just beside Avery's thigh. They watched the sunset spill through the glass windows, the starry sky painting their faces.
Avery's conversations felt like actual words, more than the words stuffed in D3rlord's brain and more than the conversations he'd have with other travelers. They felt like something D3rlord could physically carry, hug between his arms to soothe himself.
D3rlord would talk about people he met on the way. Things he collected and whatever anecdote made his life seem shiny, interesting, without mentioning the King in Yellow and the cave. Avery talked about the games he played, food he ate, and things he'd built. He never minded when D3rlord would fall asleep, lulled by their conversations. And when D3rlord got up, Avery would still be just where they left off, maybe with food or asleep himself.
D3rlord loved the food Avery made. He still found them comforting on an off day. Stew that seemed to untense his shoulders and fill his stomach that was hungrier than he thought, especially now that food was a daily thing. (Avery had been so incredibly shocked when he mentioned food being more of a once or twice a day thing, and mostly crops looted from villages.)
And with that, all those fragments of Avery's care, a new thread unraveled in D3rlord's heart. Constricting but new. He realized that, hey, he actually liked Avery being around. Quite a lot actually. He made nice conversation. He had contagious energy that D3rlord could sense but never quite match. But Avery never seemed to care how low energy D3rlord was. It was like he didn't see it as a flaw, but merely a fabric in the patchwork that made up D3rlord's personality.
And the knowledge… he managed to keep it a secret. But balloons pop under pressure.
The first time he popped, he'd vomited again, spiraled over a farming book in Avery's attic he'd accidentally read. It was full of inaccuracies and his mind was quick to correct them.
Not having the mental bandwidth to experience embarrassment, he bandaged his face with his hands, shaking on Avery's couch. He became a mumbly mess of apologies once he processed Avery's presence, who asked him multiple times what happened before he truly responded. And that true response was: I don't know but I really can't think right now.
He expected laughter, hell, he should've gotten it. Or admonishment for puking, for being difficult. But what he got instead was Avery sitting there. Patiently. Waiting til he could speak again. (D3rlord remembered brushing it off like a scratch, claiming he got overwhelmed and dizzy. Avery very likely didn't believe him, but held his tongue.)
Being pitied was shameful but nice after years of roughing it out. And maybe that's why D3rlord started to feel actual dread when he gradually became healthy.
Because that meant he'd have to go back out into the elements. Make peace with all that happened with the King in Yellow. But also make peace with the fact he saved some rando's life, got nursed back to health by said rando, had a few good memories, but would might never talk to him again.
So when it was time to leave, and Avery yelled and waved as he left, saying he could stay whenever he liked, that he was sad to see D3rlord go… D3rlord turned right back around. He couldn't help himself. Literally and mentally. Not like he had anything to go back to. Avery smiled bright and ushered D3rlord back in, swung an arm around D3rlord's shoulder, saying "I knew you'd do that." Which Avery couldn't have possibly known, he didn't have the same information D3rlord did swimming through his veins, but he appreciated the welcome nonetheless.
Eventually, "Avery and D3rlord" became a routine. It all just happened like a quick, offhanded comment. Avery and I are friends now, no doy.
Maybe Avery was just used to these spontaneous, effortless happenstances that brought him with people. D3rlord wasn't.
It was fascinating how they fell in step with each other. They mined, built, planned and talked vaguely about what they'd do together. Emphasis on together. For a long time. He had walked, sat, paced, and analyzed why this happened and how and there was never an answer. "Because you're you," Avery said when D3rlord asked, "Why me, out of everyone else?"
Something unknown was all he needed. After weeks of knowing everything ad nauseam.
He was saved. He got what he thought he wanted, a place to call his. Yet he couldn't find himself happy. His selfishness was an eroding, abrasive substance that stopped for nobody and nothing.
And thatch why he stood below the oak tree. The shadows of the branches curved over his face. The rope in his hand frayed. One for getting up to high places in order to terraform, not for D3rlord's cowardice reasons. One of the reasons he wanted to leave was so he wouldn't have to explain how he felt. But that was one reason. He wanted to leave the world because he didn't feel anything in it. Regardless of the fact that feeling never stopped him until now.
He was a machine. That was the only way he could describe himself—not as the reader, thinker, or explorer he described to others. A repetitive, rusting machine that did as told, acted right, and was cunning enough to survive most things, but never the aftermath.
A structured routine made D3rlord realize how much of an unmotivated slob he truly was. He dragged Avery down. He never woke up in a good mood, reasons he just couldn't place. The knowledge he had eaten him from the inside out, and he wasn't sure how much longer he could keep it at bay and just be normal.
And later on, he didn't want to do anything. Not even that default mode he'd accepted most his life, the endless exploring and discovery. Days blurred in with each other. How much times had he told Avery to go on without him? How much times had he stayed in bed, sleeping more, or trying to make himself eat?
Back when he was alone, these pathetic episodes were hardly a problem. Push through it. Or spend however long in bed he could get away with before he starved. Motivation would be nice, but momentum gets you farther. Feeling above himself was how he functioned, always trying to find something, always trying to save a stupid, smelly stray animal he'd find in the middle of nowhere and abandon in the middle of nowhere.
But there was never such energy to search anymore. And he hadn't realized it til he was sleeping in a proper bed, under clean blankets, that all the work he'd done was for nothing. What was the point of saving Avery from the King in Yellow if any curious person would and could find that place? It wasn't a place you could mark. Too big for any signs, too big to be sealed. 'Don't turn left' brought the challenge of people turning left anyway.
And it dawned on him then, that he was suffering for no reason. Nightmares and vomit and trembling and burdening Avery every step of the way like a little leech. This knowledge was agony he knew would happen again. Saving Avery was hardly significant. He would know, better than anyone else, it was impossible to stop. And the only logical response was to end his perception of others' suffering. Even if that meant a noose and a tree. Too bad he couldn't be effortlessly happy like Avery. That man didn't seem to even have the capacity to be sad, and if he was, he handled it like a champ.
For once, D3rlord would need to stop thinking and just do.
He wrapped the rope in his hands tight along itself, a noose. He strained his calves as he reached up, hooking the noose to a branch with a throw. Yanking on the rope, watching the branch jostle but not break, proving its sturdiness. D3rlord felt a jolt of nerves, nervousness sparkling in his chest. For once, the unknown perturbed him. He didn't know if he was going to die, if he was actually going to have the gall to go ahead, just do it.
It seemed like the most obvious thing in the world, to just step up and swing on the tree. Most recounts of survivors said suffocation only caused panic and pressure in the head, so he just had to wait it out, til respite came. Medical books said the lack of oxygen to brain could cause seizures, strokes, brain damage, so no matter what he would die. And if D3rlord regretted it, he could kick the tree to propel himself free.
An image came to him. He imagined Avery, one day, sneaking into D3rlord's room after he killed himself.
Instead of finding D3rlord sleeping in the room, the one Avery tore his house apart to make, that bedroom of performative bookshelves and knickknacks from traveling days, he would find an empty spot on D3rlord's bed. He might call out for D3rlord, searching each room for him, the living room and the kitchen. He may even ask his dog if he's seen D3rlord anywhere. Of course the dog wouldn't be able to communicate back, but Avery would do it just to cheer himself up.
He'd get worried quick. Maybe he'd wait for D3rlord to come home first for a few hours, maybe he'd go out searching instantly. Perhaps once noon arrived his hand would be forced and he'd go looking either way.
D3rlord hadn't gone too far from their house. Avery would eventually find him, and that was the point. It wasn't that D3rlord wanted Avery to find his corpse, or wanted him traumatized or miserable. It was that he didn't want to look like he'd gone missing. He didn't want Avery left wondering.
But imagining it in practice…
Maybe Avery would come up here, on the hill D3rlord was going to die on. He'd be panting from how long he'd been searching, throat raw from calling out. He would brush off his tattered shorts. Then he'd look up to see D3rlord hanging. Maybe his eyes would widen, maybe he'd be in denial of what he was seeing. But in this daydream, it was very real.
He'd shake D3rlord. Or he'd take his sword, the iron of it gleaming, and free D3rlord from the noose. He poke and prod at D3rlord's corpse, but D3rlord wouldn't wake up. He hanged himself at dawn and now it was dusk. Beyond that, there was no saying what Avery would do. Maybe he'd bury D3rlord, in the earth or at sea. Maybe he'd just leave him there.
And after that, it might haunt Avery. For once, since he shook on that floor and named flowers, D3rlord didn't know. He didn't even know if he mattered that much to Avery. But it was enough to get him to step away. He couldn't do this.
He walked through the forest, ambling down hill. Mentally navigating his way back to Avery's house. (Their house.)
D3rlord would like to say how he felt ended there. A knot he'd tie and leave behind. Something Avery would never know and didn't need to know. He'd just live his days like he always dreamed of—with a friend. But nothing seemed to be easy for him.
He embraced the fact he was just a machine. He only needed to live so he could spare other's feelings. Living for oneself is admirable but not something D3rlord could live by. And no matter how much he wanted it, he would never get it.
So he forced himself awake. He forced himself into conversation. He forced himself to read books he already knew, tried to have an interest. Convinced himself that he felt okay so he could be as normal as everyone else.
He'd sit in the dark of his room, gazing out the window as he tried to imagine a universe he'd be happy. All that came up was blanks. The world didn't offer much if anything at all, a few cookie cutter obvious choice one had to slog through like school and later finding ways to make survival. It made D3rlord wonder where in history humanity had failed each other, when the decision that someone must be fed on the value they gave the world and not on the fact they were a human.
That opened another hole in his chest, a slit that grew into a gaping hole. There was no meaning in any of this. No cosmic reason to slog through.
If he killed himself that day, it wouldn't matter. His death might shake Avery's routine, but Avery wouldn't lose sleep, that's just who he was. He'd get over it. Unlike D3rlord, still caught up in how unfair everything was like a small child. The crossroads, the fucking king, the pressure to live like an alien trying to be human. Or else life might go on without him and he'd be deeper in this hole.
In short, Avery would be just fine. D3rlord would not.
With that revelation, the only lifeline he had fell. Like a cut string.
His death would hurt for a month or a few at best. Nothing but a passing memory after a year. The ultimatum was to live, deal with all that suffering, or to die, and know that suffering may or may not happen when you're gone.
So this time, he sat at a cliff overseeing a river, the moonlight cutting into everything. His mind gleamed with images, of him tipping over and falling with gravity, of him curled up in the deep water below. His knight's armor naturally causing him to sink.
Then he heard a noise behind him. A branch snap. Here we go. D3rlord had that gait memorized—it was Avery. So he didn't bother looking back.
"D3r, is that you?" Avery said. The nickname made a flame flicker in D3rlord's chest—Avery and him were friends, how could he do this to him?—but it extinguished quick. His steps stopped there, like he expected D3rlord to get up. D3rlord did not. "Did ya' Leave your armor here? Because it'd be pretty cool to see what you look like under it." Avery walked so he was an inch away from D3rlord, but a few inches away from the cliff. Ah.
"You're scared of heights," D3rlord responded, kicking his legs from the cliff.
"Yeah." Avery stepped a single step forward, then stepped back immediately. "Not very fond of them. Why're you sittin' here?"
"Enjoying the view." A bold lie. But the view here was unique, something D3rlord had seen before but not too frequently. The cliff looked much like a chasm, this side a grassy meadow, the other side he looked at a stony cliff side descending into a sandy coast. To think that this was the last view he'd ever see.
"You could enjoy the view a few feet away. Just saying." Avery didn't usually push like that. He might be suspecting something was wrong.
It was fine. D3rlord just had to get Avery off his back. For a fleeting moment, he thought that if he actually wanted to die so bad he should just fall over now. He dismissed the thought. Of course he wanted to die, just not in front of Avery. "You don't have to be here if you don't want to."
"What if the ground beneath your butt breaks? You'll fall and die. It's a long way down."
Works for me, D3rlord thinks but doesn't say. "If the ground was unstable, it would've fallen already. I promise you won't fall if you come over here." He could spare one final conversation with Avery. It'd be pretty nice.
"Eugh…" Avery says. "No thanks. Why don'tcha come here? I was just about to start dinner. I could use your help." D3rlord never really helped Avery with dinner, they both alternated on making it. 'Help' meant just sitting there and talking through the monotony of tasks. Thinking about that made D3rlord a little happy for a second. Only a second though. That domestic sort of life, for the few months he could manage it, really suit him.
"Go ahead without me," D3rlord said. "I just need to sit here and think for a bit more." He bit his tongue before he could say he'd join Avery later.
"Why don't you tell me what you're thinking?" Avery pressed. D3rlord clenched his teeth beneath his helmet. Why was he being so difficult?
"I'll tell you after," D3rlord replied.
"C'mon, I wanna know! I'm curious."
"I'm not done thinking, so I couldn't possibly tell you."
"That's stupid. Tell me your half-finished thoughts, then."
"Don't you get a hint?" D3rlord spun his head around, looking up at Avery—and wow, he was way more nervous than D3rlord anticipated. "I wanna be left alone. Stop bothering me. God." He immediately felt a little guilty for being so harsh. It didn't matter. Whatever got Avery to go away. His mind had tunnel vision on getting that task done as soon as possible.
"Excuse me?" Avery said, hands on his hips. More firmer than D3rlord was expecting, even if Avery usually came off strong. "You can't just say that. If you've got a problem with me, tell me that instead of exploding. Do you have a problem?"
"Of course I won't tell you anything if you're being patronizing." D3rlord crossed his arms. Avery wasn't necessarily being patronizing, and even if he was, D3rlord knew his intentions were in the right place. But it felt almost good to be angry. Like allowing the pressure valve of his bitterness to release.
"D3r—" Avery bit his lip, groaning a bit. "You always tell me, without fail, what you're thinking. You're a ranter. And I like that about you. So forgive me if I'm 'patronizing you' because all I am is worried you're sitting on the edge of a literal cliff and being all cranky and cryptic. Because you never act like this."
"What do you think I'm doing?" D3rlord asked, genuine curiosity even if the right answer was obvious. "What do you think my agenda is, sitting on the edge of a cliff, arguing with you?"
"Just—Just come inside. You're scaring me." Avery placed a hand over the hem of his shirt.
You're scaring me. Such a choice of words. Why did that almost make D3rlord reconsider? He'd been thinking about this for what felt like ages. It'd be easy to tip over now. Avery didn't have to stop him from doing anything. But he couldn't do it. And he hated himself more for just thinking about it.
"No." D3rlord looked away, childish and ineffective. "Go away. I'm seriously fine." As if adding 'seriously' convinced anybody.
"I don't want to leave you alone."
"I'm a grown man. I can be left alone."
"You can sit here later. Please?" Please. Wow. He got Avery to start pleading. D3rlord was a complete and utter asshole.
"I'm tired of being pushed around by you."
Avery blinked. "What does that mean?"
"Whatever you'd like it to mean."
"Wha—well, I'd like to know what you meant by it."
"Fine," D3rlord said. "I came up here to kill myself. I was going to fall then drown. But lucky me, you intercepted that." He sighed through his nose, words spilling out as if somebody else were saying them. There went this attempt. Swirling down the drain. "And the last time I tried, I couldn't do it because I was thinking of you. Leave my head, Avery. Stop pushing me around." He bandaged his face with his hands. Couldn't even care how vulnerable that was anymore.
Before he could even react, Avery darted over, hooking his arms beneath D3rlord's. He hauled him up in a snap, leaving D3rlord momentarily disoriented. He didn't expect Avery to react in any particular way. But he didn't expect such a fast reaction. Avery stumbled back, as if surprised by D3rlord's weight, taking them yards away from the cliff.
D3rlord didn't resist. No real point in it. If it were Avery here, sitting on the cliff, D3rlord would do the same. He wouldn't even need to have this bullshit conversation, he'd just see Avery all sad-like and then yank him up.
D3rlord slipped himself out of Avery's arms, but his hands zipped to his shoulders and turned him around. The look Avery had was painfully genuine, an emotional expression that was almost confused.
Perhaps he was waiting for a punch line, for more explanation. But there wasn't any and there wasn't going to be any. So for a few moments, they just stayed silent.
"Christ—" Avery stuttered out, shaking D3rlord a bit by the elbow, as if confirming whether he was alive or not. "You can't just say that so casually."
"Can't implies it's physically impossible," D3rlord said, that fact taken from the disgusting amount of grammar he knew. Not by choice. "But I just did. So it is possible. This situation is hardly considered casual."
"You're deflecting!" Avery accused. "C-C'mon, just—" He looked up and down at D3rlord, seemingly speechless.
"This is the first time I've seen you think before you speak."
"What's that supposed to mean? Do you think I don't think?"
"I didn't mean it insultingly. I mean this is the first time we were in conversation and you stuttered."
D3rlord wasn't trying to ignore the suicide-shaped spectre in the air. Too late for that—it lodged itself deeply between them and had no intention of slipping away. But something about this moment made him want to say anything, because he knew Avery would tolerate whatever nonsense he had to say.
"Whatever, man. Inside." Avery tugged D3rlord's arm. Then he must've realized what he said was incomplete. "Let's go inside. Even if you don't want to—especially if you don't want to!" He looked a little flustered, now. "You're stupid if you think I'll let you stay out here."
Avery didn't know much about suicide. He knew the actual definition of it, everyone did. But he only ever interacted with it in a light-hearted way. Like saying that plan would be suicide, or whatever else people said. He couldn't really think, not about anything other than when he saw D3r on the cliff.
The memory was still fresh in his mind. All he remembered the star light gleaming over his armor, washing over everything sickly. How stubborn he was. How careless he was. How.. honest he was. I came up here to kill myself, he had said. Not even trying to fluff it up by saying he was gonna take his life, or end himself, or even just not stay it at all. That was the part that scared Avery the most. He could've lied. He could've just fell over, right there, Avery watching or not.
Avery could've have been late. He could've decided to make dinner himself. He could've just… never found D3r at all. Would he just have gone back to being alone after such a person like D3r came back into his life? Would he even have known D3r died? It would just look like the usual. Some person comes around, takes a short honeymoon period with Avery, gets bored and tosses him away.
Avery hates to imagine himself getting all bitter at home, thinking D3r abandoned him, when in actuality D3r was floating down a ravine somewhere. He felt a little disgusted with this imaginary Avery, but he can't say he's not any less selfish in this universe. How didn't he not notice how miserable D3r seemingly was? D3r was staying inside a bit much a few weeks back, but Avery just thought he was tired.
The furnace fire's light dances along the tiles, soft and orange. Avery was sat in front of it like an idiot, letting its warmth swallow his face til it felt sweltering. Then it comes to a stop. Suddenly cold.
The steak was done cooking. He swallowed, going over to put it in a plate, along with a glass of water. He could only hope D3r was where he last left him. Avery didn't wanna distrust the guy, or baby him, but he didn't know how at-risk D3r was of pulling that again.
Avery pushed the door open with his shoulder, hands occupied with the food and water. He peeked through the door crack before he fully entered—some weird kind of precaution. D3r agreed to go home, but as soon as they arrived, he flopped to his room. Only after Avery stayed for an hour or two. To try and give himself some peace of mind.
D3r was exactly where Avery left him. Now Avery felt stupid for worrying. D3r sat on his bed, running a finger down the crevice of a thin book. The moon outside his window made his armor shimmer. Just like when he was on the cliff.
"I've got food," Avery said, offering it to him. He never felt more awkward. He never felt anything like how he felt now.
"Put it on the desk." D3r shifted in bed a little. "Because I have something to tell you, Avery."
That sounded serious, more serious than Avery knew what to do with. But he wanted to hear it, more than anything, especially after all today had been.
Avery dropped down on D3r's bed, sitting on the edge. He put his elbow on his knees, looking over at D3r, shrinking beneath that helmet.
"… So." D3r left his book on his lap.
"So," Avery echoed back. He felt like they were on the precipice of something way bigger.
"Do you remember when we first met? When you found me in my own vomit?" D3r slipped his fingers in between eachother. "I don't think I ever told you why exactly I was so sick. And I think it's time I should."