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The first night back in the lonely DMS hospital bed brings with it an insomnia stronger than medication. Derek cannot move from the thin mattress, but his mind is having no similar difficulty and is working overtime. His thoughts are not yet jumbled by sleep. He misses Avery. He did everything that was asked of him today, hoping that Constance would bring him back to the apartment at dinnertime and tell him that he’d be moving in permanently. The realisation that Avery would be visiting for a meagre two hours had put him off his food completely, sending him into a despair that even Avery’s gentle comfort could not pull him from.
Derek has always had a hard time understanding people. Even as a child, adults would frequently chastise him for acting without thinking, when in actuality he has always thought deeply about everything he does. It’s just difficult for him to intrinsically understand that other people’s perceptions of this world are shaped by life experiences that he can know but never understand. He has no problem putting himself in other people’s shoes, but the mental exercise only ever leads to an even deeper conviction that, if he were them, he would have acted differently. And throughout his whole life, he can’t recall a single instance of anyone except Avery putting themselves in his shoes, trying desperately to understand his motivations the way he tries to understand theirs. The indignity of not being meaningfully observed is not new, but he has not yet figured out quite how to make peace with feeling less than human.
All this to say – he does not understand Constance. He can’t think of any scenario in which he would willingly undertake a job where the regular, callous infliction of harm is considered standard practice. In gaining infinite knowledge, Derek saw just how many things can lead people to evil. Power, pleasure, justice. Nobody is immune to the ever-branching pathways that can lead any man from any choice to a place of no return. But Derek cannot see behind Constance’s eyes to ascertain any kind of motivation. He does not know how to sift through the archive of his mind to discover anything useful. Knowing that the information is likely already within him frustrates him, turning this from a point-blank unfair situation to one that he could improve if only he knew how.
And Derek hates not knowing.
It itches across his body and he cannot scratch it away. His mind is still so active that the medication does not pull him into a formless nightmare. Nights like these are rare, but when they happen, they feel like an endless fall through a thousand labyrinthine sleep paralysis dimensions until the lights come on in the morning and he lands once more in Hell. With no control over his movement, there is no way to flinch it away. He braces himself for fear and sleeplessness.
As usual, it begins with the floor losing structure. Derek’s chest stays on the bed while the rest of him rapidly dips below it, falling the way people do when they’re almost asleep. His gaze remains fixed on one specific patch of white tile, quickly soaking up the darkness underneath. It writhes as it spreads across the floor, an organic mass of living matter endlessly multiplying on itself, swallowing gravity and balance and order.
Derek cannot shut his eyes. He knows what is coming, and wishes that he could.
Hastur rises from the ground. He doesn’t emerge from the blackness like he’s breaking the surface of water; the shifting mass simply creates him without ever losing part of itself. He becomes part of the room like he has always been there, in the atoms of the white tile and the medication Derek has to take every evening. There is nothing that he does not touch, not even the smoky air that chokes the oxygen from his throat.
The world is now contained entirely in Derek’s mind, and this is what it looks like.
It’s a strange thing, being so unable to move that he is divorced from the sensations of his body. He can’t feel Hastur’s long, sharp fingernails brushing against his arms. It could be a light caress or a violent claw, taking flesh and blood with it, and Derek would never know. Every physical feeling must translate to its mental equivalent or be lost forever. Hastur’s hands feel the same way that birthday parties felt as a child – they are trying to include him in the experience, but he’s too scared that a balloon could pop loudly at any second.
From what Derek can understand of Hastur’s motivations, he too is not evil without a reason. The nightmares he induces are centralised around a sense of exploration that makes Derek uncomfortably aware of subconscious parts of his body. Hastur has never had an intestine before, and when he wants to know how far it can stretch, Derek has to remind himself of his own insatiable curiosity. He has to believe that, if he were to find himself trapped in the body of a spider, it would forgive him for not understanding how to use eight legs. A spider has no need to know that it has eight legs; it only needs to mindlessly use them. To become aware of this would be to confront each leg individually, and the knowledge would divorce the poor thing from the very instincts that enabled it to be a spider in the first place. It would sit there, webless, and think itself to death.
You are not a spider, brave Knight – Allow Me to weave You a soft web –
Derek feels the impulse to shiver bubbling under the surface of his skin. In these dreams, Hastur doesn’t normally talk to him. He offers no malice but no pause as he slides through Derek’s veins, making him aware of every single one. He silently remaps the land of Derek’s body, busying himself with the parts that go overlooked in the DMS’ focus on his mind.
What is Yours is Ours – What is Mine is Yours – I give You knowledge and You do not give Me power – There is so much I can do for You – Congenital analgesia is a rare condition wherein a person cannot experience pain. Though this may sound advantageous, those with the condition suffer profoundly worse injuries due to their inhibited awareness of bodily sensations – The ‘periaqueductal grey’ is a heart-shaped region of the brain responsible for altering incoming pain signals reaching the cerebral cortex – You think of Avery when We think of this?
He cannot be Your armour, Knight – You prevented Me from wearing him – You must prove Yourself
Your pride will kill the both of Us
get UP
But Derek still cannot move.
You have no choice but to accept My help, useless thing
Derek does not even try to move.
MOVE. I command You
If Derek could smirk, he would. Hastur sounds frustrated.
The brief relief in pettiness ends when Hastur’s tone changes. He speaks softly, with a similar gentle cadence to Avery. Derek is allowed to feel a strong hand on his shoulder.
Brave Knight, You have no choice. I will not allow You to debase Yourself. You are Mine to command and I command dignity from You. Your position is not hopeless, can You not see?
Derek would be more comfortable if he sounded slightly wrong, or even just a little bit unsettling, but Hastur sounds like he genuinely cares. It terrifies him to think that Hastur’s impeccable mimicry may have come from a study of Derek’s own vocal cords.
Something rusted yet still golden catches the light. The darkness is holding out a bronze chestplate, lowering it onto Derek’s body. He is permitted its full weight against him, offering comfort in steady pressure and cool metal against night-hot skin. He remembers what it feels like to splash water on his face on a sunny day. The presence of his armour steadies him as Hastur fits the next pieces around his legs and arms. All that remains is his helmet.
This is My gift to You – You must accept it willingly
Derek yearns for the helmet over his head. The thought that nobody except Avery will ever get to see his face again salvages through the wreckage of his pride to find the core undamaged. Is Hastur right? Does he have more power against the DMS than he is currently capitalising on? Or is this just a trick – a way to get him to surrender his autonomy to Hastur as well?
You must accept, brave Knight – Accept My help – Don your amour – Raise your sword – There is fight in You yet – If not for Yourself, then for Avery – The things they could do to him to get you to talk, Knight. You must establish Your power lest You lose it – and Him – forever
“Yes,” Derek breathes quietly, unsure of how he is managing to talk. “I’ll fight.”
Hastur obliges him instantly. The moment the helmet is placed over Derek’s head, everything quiets. His mind feels clear for the first time in ages. He can think and follow a train of thought without distraction. Accessing the library of information in his mind no longer feels daunting, but like a task he is willing to train for.
Good – Very good – What can You see, Knight? What will You search for?
A way out, Derek thinks. A way out of here for me and Avery.
You seek a path, Knight?
Derek considers the conversation with clarity. First, I seek leverage. Against Constance.
I liked Your thought about the reason behind evil. The concept fascinates Me.
What can I use against her?
I am trying to tell You. Constance Garraty has worked for the Department of Metaphysical Sciences for over thirty years. For the past twenty, her sole focus has been the acquisition of infinite knowledge. She wears contact lenses with the same prescription in both eyes. She was born on February 20th, 1965, which was a Tuesday – the same day that the Ranger 8 lunar probe intentionally crashed into the moon after serving its purpose to document the surface through six television vidicon cameras in preparation for later Apollo missions. She has no partner and no living family.
So there’s nothing I can use against her apart from her shitty eyesight and the fact she was born at the same time some random space probe died?
There is a name. David – derived from the root dôwd (דּוֹד), which originally meant 'to boil', but survives in Biblical Hebrew only in the figurative usage 'to love'.
Who’s David?
Derek’s mind clears completely, like the hush of lights at a cinema before the movie begins. Out of the dark, an image begins to fade into focus. It’s Constance, her hand reaching into the black. She is almost touching the formless shape of a person – a dimensionless, faceless thing that reaches back for her. Her hair is messy and her eyes are wild with tears, though she makes no sound.
David is Your leverage.
Derek wakes with a crash. The room is dark and shatters around him. His body heaves up into a sitting position. He can move his hands. It’s still night, and he can move his hands. He can move his legs! He can swing them over the bed and sit up even though it makes him feel slightly dizzy. He can stare at his hands and command them to move and they do so, fingers curling and stretching. He can smile – he can smile wide.
The lights turn on and Constance enters the room a minute later. Her hair is in rollers, and she’s got a suit jacket over a pair of pyjamas. Running over to him, she reaches her hands out for his arms but he pushes her away.
“Things are going to change right now,” he says, confidently. “No more nighttime medication. And I want to move in with Avery this instant. Otherwise you can say goodbye to any form of cooperation from me at all. You’ll have to kill me and lose Hastur too.”
“Oh?” Constance smiles and cocks her head. “And what has prompted this level of boldness?”
“You don’t get to know. You don’t get to know a fucking thing anymore unless I want you to, and I can be a very stubborn man, Constance.”
“I think we both know you’d fold the moment I threatened to touch Avery, don’t you think?”
“Probably, yeah,” Derek smiles. He’s got a bargaining chip of his own, but even if he uses it, it only creates a stalemate. He’s going to have to try and outwit her a little to make this work. “I do love him, after all. Problem is, it’s not me you’d be trying to convince. It’s Hastur.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. Unfortunately he’s not a fan of the whole lab rat thing. Much less forgiving than I am about it, too. And he controls the access I have to the infinite knowledge you keep asking me about, so-” he shrugs. “He’s given me an ultimatum. Stop letting you walk all over me or he’ll erase all the knowledge in my head about David.”
Constance’s poker face drops for a moment. Her nostrils flare and her eyes widen. “What do you know about David?”
“Nothing,” Derek sighs. “And it’s going to stay that way unless you agree to my conditions.”
He does not back down as she remains silent. He keeps staring her down, wordlessly demanding an answer, until she reaches out her hand to shake his.
“Deal.”