Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Regret defined his days.

D3rlord3 should have never turned left, should have stayed curious, should have ran out of that cave while he still had his wits about him.

Now, every memory, every detail, and every moment that could have ever existed remained burned into D3rlord3’s eyelids forever. As was the faulty nature of the human mind, the most horrific of truths tended to stick out in his memory; things that nobody mortal should have ever been privy to. Things that kept him awake as he attempted sleep on the cold, packed dirt of forest floors.

Reality seemed only a pinprick as he trudged through the caves, retracing his steps. He was convinced he’d go mad— and maybe he did, for a while— until one day he blinked and found himself standing unsteadily in that abandoned village once again.

The cobweb-dusted homes stared back at him, their streets silent, wood dry and slowly rotting. Down here in the caves, it was completely silent.

D3rlord3’s legs ached, his back sore from carrying his belongings for so long. He turned to squint at his true destination: the single, abandoned home on the outskirts of the village.

It seemed the only place fitting for a man like him.

—-

He made the decrepit house his own easily enough. He slotted his belongings— sword, metals, paper, seeds, spare cloak— into shelves and piles. Dusted off the sheets from the bed. Scared the mice out from under the furniture.

It was weird to move into a new house but already know every detail of it. No room was unfamiliar to him, no quirk foreign. He knew why the single floorboard by the stairs squeaked— the builder years ago installed the plank too loosely. He knew why dust settled on one shelf the most often— it was in the path of a draft from the window.

Despite the curse bestowed upon him, he had to learn to live again: a bitter joke from the universe.

Slowly, and as shaky as life was nowadays, his days’ habits began to slot into something familiar:

Every morning, he would awake to silence, and drag himself out of bed, garbing himself in his armor before scraping together the appetite to eat something. He would explore more of the massive cave (not that there was much to discover. Nothing was new to him.) and pick at his meager crop garden, inevitably getting his cloak stuck in some brambles. More than once a week, he would make the trip back to the room with the wall of cyphered text, just to read the poem to himself again.

Even without the universe’s knowledge engrained with him, he likely still would have been able to recite the coded words by heart. It was an odd feeling, to retrace his steps back when he was dumb and curious, and just following a puzzle. Or so he thought.

Back at home, every evening he would unfasten his armor pieces and polish the metal until his hands were sore, even when it didn’t need polishing. It gave him something to do. He would eat an early dinner and lay in bed in darkness until sleep took him.

In between everything he did, D3rlord3 struggled to keep a reign on his mind. His thoughts was always wandering, always elsewhere, running along grooves of endless information, near-infinite. Routines kept him somewhat grounded to reality.

Naturally, he came to relish those handful of seconds every morning in bed, when he could blink tiredly up at the ceiling, still half-asleep and his thoughts blissfully empty. A few seconds of calm before his mind was invaded by every fact, past and present.

Otherwise, his thoughts never seemed to stop buzzing.

----

It was evening— or at least he assumed so, given the lack of sunlight— and D3rlord3 was finishing polishing his armor, getting ready for another evening of wallowing in self-pity. As was typical.

He stared at his own tired reflection in the surface of his knight’s helmet, sighing. He considered it an ironic joke that this was his daily garb— a knight’s attire. He was running a hand through the weathered red plume when he heard it.

A knock at the door.

D3rlord3 was on his feet in an instant, helmet back on his head. No other sound could have struck as much fear into his heart— This was surely impossible. Nobody could have possibly made the trip all the way down here. Nobody could have tracked him down.

His hands tightened to fists, eyes on the window as he tried to catch a glimpse of who or what was at his door. He couldn’t see a thing from this angle.

The knock at the door repeated, more impatient this time.

D3rlord3, preparing for the worst, slowly crossed over to it. One, firm hand gripped the doorknob and steeled for a fight as he swung the door open.

…And that thought was abandoned as soon as he saw who his visitor was.

Even with his stores of near-infinite knowledge, D3rlord3 was not prepared for the sight that awaited him when he answered his front door:

On his doorstep stood a scrappy-looking young man in a Hawaiian shirt, cargo shorts, and a beaming smile. In his hand was D3rlord3’s hastily-written book.

The man, still smiling, tilted his head and asked, “Did you write this?”

D3rlord3 said nothing. He was staring at the book— he remembered scribbling his warnings out so fast, and assumed he’d never see it again. This must be the man who found it in the chest.

He was hoping his helmet concealed enough of his shocked expression.

The man— the damn man dressed in cargo shorts— took D3rlord3’s silence in stride, casually continuing on as if he were talking to a friend and not an armored stranger. “I’m only asking, ‘cause, well, I found it in this mine, and I really don’t know how it got there. Like, at all. It said all this stuff about crossroads, and turning left. Er, not turning left, to be specific.”

He tilted his head as he tried to search D3rlord3’s helmeted face for any kind of expression. He was failing.

“Did I come at a bad time? I can go, you know. Or come back another time. I’m flexible like that. I just assumed you wrote it, since you’re the only other person I’ve found down here, and these crossroads you mentioned are prob’ly down here somewhere, too. I mean, I almost wanted to go and check it out for myself—”

In a heartbeat, panic flared, and the man didn’t even have time to flinch— D3rlord3’s armored hand shot out, grabbing the front of his shirt and shoving him back against the doorframe, holding him there as if he weighed nothing. His helmet stopped an inch from the man’s wide-eyed expression.

D3rlord3 seethed, “Do not.”

Anyone with half a brain cell would have gotten the message loud and clear. Unfortunately, this mystery man was evidently an idiot.

Even at the hands of an armor-clad knight shoved against a doorframe with barely a breath of personal space, he had the audacity to smirk. “So he speaks.”

The man’s eyes were searching D3rlord3’s helmet fruitlessly for any hint of his expression. Good thing that he couldn’t, since D3rlord3 wasn’t entirely sure he was doing a good job of covering up his utter shock.

Perhaps the one upside of his otherwise regrettable curse of knowledge was that it made away with the need for introductions: he knew everything about this guy already, just like he knew everything else.

This was Avery, who received D3rlord3’s warning in his book and for some damned reason still decided to seek him out. And succeeded, at that.

D3rlord3 did not loosen his grip one bit. “I wrote that message to warn fools like you,” he said stiffly.

“Right,” said the man— Avery— who was starting to look a bit uncomfortable. “I figured. Um, hey, just a note: you’re wrinkling my shirt.”

He was literally at the hands of a golden-armored knight, and his main concern was getting wrinkles in his Aloha shirt. D3rlord3 had to bite back the urge to scoff.

Following a dumbfounded pause, D3rlord3 eventually let go of Avery’s shirt collar and dropped him back on the doorstep. He watched as he smoothed out the front of his shirt with his palm. “Way to manhandle a guy you just met. Anyway, now that that’s over,” he said, straightening, then extending a hand. “it’s nice to meet you, mister…?”

He trailed off, stupidly expecting D3rlord3 to offer up his name. He did not.

D3rlord3 stared down at his hand as if he were being offered a dead animal. “I’m not one for making acquaintances.”

Avery shrugged and retracted his hand. “Okay, I can roll with that. Well, my name is—”

“—Avery,” D3rlord3 said in his stead, snatching the name from his mind easily. “I know.”

Avery snapped his mouth shut. And though his voice seemed to lose some of it's ease, D3rlord3 could see that spark of curiosity in Avery’s eyes only grow. “Huh. Okay. Uh, not gonna lie, that’s… um, a little creepy. How’d you know that?”

D3rlord3 wouldn’t dare humor this guy with a reply.

“Not much for talking, I see. Okay. Sure. You had a lot to say in this ol’ book, though. I’m a little curious about it, mystery man,” he said, then peered over D3rlord3’s shoulder to better glimpse the interior of his house. “Maybe we could talk inside? I gotta say, nice crib. Real vintage. Can I come in?”

He did not quit that shit-eating grin. D3rlord3 was considering if it would be a moral dilemma to strangle this guy.

When D3rlord3 didn’t reply— too busy wondering where this guy got the nerve— Avery tilted his head. “Okay, I’ll take that as a no.”

“What do you want?” D3rlord3 spat.

Avery raised his hands in an I-surrender gesture. “I just had some questions. Your book wasn’t exactly very detailed. Like, for example, where even is this crossroad?”

“Be grateful that you’re ignorant enough to even ask that question.”

Awe dawned on his face. “Gosh, you even talk like a knight, too. Did you really find the crossroads yourself? And that big, weird forest with the lake?”

“Listen to me very, very carefully,” D3rlord3 said, stepping closer, lowering his voice as he aimed to intimidate. “Whatever questions you have, whatever curiosity you’re holding, whatever naive little dreams of exploration you have--” He planted his palms firmly on Avery’s shoulders. “End it now. Do not go looking for anything you should not lay eyes on.”

Avery was staring very pointedly at the two, armor-clad hands on his shoulders, looking a little distracted. “Gosh, you’re strong.” He then looked up at his helmed face again, trying and failing to find his eyes. “So, you’re not gonna tell me what’s down the left side of the crossroads?”

From behind the helmet, D3rlord3 set his jaw. “You shouldn’t ask questions you’re not prepared to receive answers to.”

Avery shrugged his hands off of his shoulders. “Well, how do I know if I won’t like the answer if I don’t know what the answer even is? C’mon,” he coaxed, much like an impatient toddler. “Just tell me, and I’ll be on my way.”

“No. Leave this place,” D3rlord3 said, and began to shut the door when Avery stuck out a foot to keep it from closing completely.

He sighed as Avery pushed the door open again with his foot, a lopsided smile tugging at his lips. D3rlord3 sighed, but didn’t push the door closed again. His hand lingered on the doorknob for a long moment before he dropped it to his side.

At that moment, it dawned on D3rlord3 that this was the first real conversation he’d had with another human being in a very, very long time. A pity it had to be such an annoying one.

Avery went on, “Oh, come on. You can’t just write something like that and not expect me to be curious. You wrote it, like, a billion times in a row. Look,” Avery said, and flipped open the book. “‘At the crossroads don’t ‘durn’ left’!”

He didn’t quite have the energy to put any real bite behind his words. “I was on the brink of madness. Do not make fun of my spelling mistakes.”

Avery’s eyes lit up, and he snapped the book shut. “Madness, you say?”

D3rlord3 shut his eyes. He’d said too much.

“So, what was down there?” Avery questioned on. “What did you see when you turned left? It made you go mad?”

“I meant that warning with my life,” D3rlord3 insisted. “You do not want to know.”

“I know you meant it. I’m following it, promise, and I won’t go looking for it.”

“Do you promise?”

“I swear! I just want you to tell me what’s down there.” He bounced on his tiptoes excitedly. “At least tell me how you knew my name!” When he still didn’t reply, Avery resorted to pleading, “Please, Mr. Knight? Tell me, tell me, tell me, tell me, tell m—”

D3rlord3 shut the door in his face, cutting him off.

He had been ready to end that conversation about five minutes ago, in all honesty. D3rlord3 sighed, trying to grapple with that entire encounter. In fairness, his routine had never, ever gone unbroken before today. No one had ever showed up on his doorstep and gotten on his nerves. He wasn’t sure whether to thank or throttle the man for it.

Then he heard Avery’s voice again, muffled behind shut door. “Okay, well, I’ll be back tomorrow! I promise! So, you’d better be home! ‘Kay, bye now!”

D3rlord3 sighed for the umpteenth time. He had a feeling he wasn’t lying about that.

Chapter Text

As promised, Avery had showed up at his doorstep again.

D3rlord3 was, unfortunately, home. Some small, foolish part of him had been hoping that Avery would neglect to show up or forget the directions to the village altogether.

It seemed he was not that lucky.

As soon as he heard that incessant knocking, he just stared at the front door and sighed, as if mentally preparing himself for an incoming headache. Instead of going to answer it right away, he stayed put and hoped he’d leave.

But as soon as Avery would finish knocking out some cheery tune, he’d wait for barely a second before repeating. And then again. And again.

Then it stopped, and just when it seemed that Avery had given up on knocking, he instead peeked through one of the old window panes, waving excitedly once he spotted the mildly disgruntled knight inside. There went his idea of pretending he wasn’t home.

It looked like there was no avoiding this. D3rlord3 crossed to the door and swung it open just as his irritating visitor had his fist raised to repeat his knock. Avery’s expression lit up as soon as he saw him, and D3rlord3 was grateful he had his helmet on.

“I was starting to worry you’d never open the door!” he greeted. “Hi. I’m back, like I said I would be.”

D3rlord3 stared down at him. He was wearing much the same, ridiculous outfit, though this time without the book.

“Leave. I have nothing more to say to you.”

Avery sucked in a breath, rocking on the heels of his feet. “See, you say that, but I actually have some more questions for you.”

“I have no answers,” D3rlord3 replied flatly.

“Wait, wait, just hear me out,” Avery said hurriedly, probably sensing that D3rlord3 was a second away from shutting the door in his face. “I know you’re still doing that whole quiet-and-broody thing, so here’s my simple, pain-free deal: Just tell me what’s down the left side of the crossroads, and I’ll be satisfied. You’ll never, ever see me again.”

D3rlord3 clenched his jaw, and he was genuine when he asked him, “Just what is your deal? Why do you want to know so badly?”

Avery scoffed. “Hello-o-o?” he drew out sarcastically, then began listing on his fingers: “One, it’s a mysterious pathway that supposedly drove you-- how did you say it?-- to the brink of madness. Two, and most obviously: I’m curious. Not to mention, you knew my name. That’s reason three. Ain’t that enough?”

Not to D3rlord3, no. Unfortunately, this man’s curiosity was infectious. It vaguely reminded D3rlord3 of a younger version of himself, an inexperienced explorer just following paths and picking apart puzzles without any regard for the dangers. And before it all went so regrettably wrong.

Truthfully, it would probably be in his best interest to tell Avery what he so eagerly wanted to hear. Maybe it would scare him out of stepping foot in the caves ever again, which would guarantee D3rlord3 two things: no more unwanted visits, and peace of mind that nobody else would find the crossroads. That was a good, logical reason, and D3rlord3 always appreciated logic.

And so, after much mental debate, D3rlord3 gave in. “Your curiosity will be your downfall.”

Avery shrugged. “I know. Bite me. But,” he said, and his whole posture seemed to perk up. “is that a yes? Will you tell me?”

“If I do, will you stop showing up on my doorstep?”

Avery tapped a finger against his chin. “Mmmaybe?”

D3rlord3 shot him a glare he hoped was visible even through his helmet.

“Okay, fine,” he surrendered, dropping his hands to his sides. “I swear I’ll stop showing up if you tell me.”

D3rlord3 should not have been doing this. He should’ve thrown this kid out, sent him on his way. Sealed off the mine entrance so nobody else could bother him.

But he knew this was a losing battle ever since he answered that first knock at the door.

Meanwhile, Avery was only smiling wider by the second as he awaited his answer.

Reluctantly, and after much internal debate, D3rlord3 stepped aside from where he was standing in the doorway. It took Avery a second to realize he was being invited inside.

“Yes!” he whooped, pumping his fist in glee and bouncing excitedly in place before entering.

He honest-to-god skipped inside of the place, throwing his gaze every which way as D3rlord3 shut the front door behind him.

“Woah, okay, this place is actually kind of cool,” he noted, stopping in the center of the main room, which was decorated (in the most loose sense of the word) with the same furniture that D3rlord3 first found in the house: a few wooden stools, a threadbare rug, bookshelves and old pottery at every empty spot. D3rlord3 had long ago cleared all the cobwebs and the dust, making the place something akin to homey.

In any case, it got the job done: which was to provide D3rlord3 a bed to sleep in and a door to keep people out. Though, that second bit was becoming more useless.

Avery went on, “Huh, cool. It looks kinda shitty from the outside, but you’ve actually got a nice setup here. Is that where you cook? Where’s your room? Does this place even have running water? Do—”

“Sit down.”

He did. On a stool that was way too low for him. D3rlord3 noticed but didn’t particularly care, sliding over another (normal-sized) stool a step away from Avery and taking his own seat.

“I tell you this, and you never come back,” reiterated D3rlord3. “That was your deal.”

Avery crossed his heart with his finger. “I swear it, dude,” he said, having settled the best he could onto his stupidly tiny stool.

It was a weird sight-- sitting across from this bright-eyed guy who was excitedly awaiting the story of the single worst day in D3rlord3’s mortal life.

And here he thought that his book would be enough— the pages of warnings seemed pretty straightforward. Any sane person would heed the warning, haul ass out of that mine, and smother any remaining curiosity.

Avery was stubbornly different.

D3rlord3 sighed. If he truly wanted to hear the warning right from his mouth, he’d tell it.

He began by asking Avery, “Have you ever seen something you wish you could unsee?”

“Yeah, sure, like the time—”

“Wrong,” D3rlord3 cut him off, and sat in silence for a beat before continuing. “Many months ago, I was like you.”

Avery straightened in his sad excuse for a stool.

“Stupid. That’s what I was— Stupid and curious, and I had stumbled across these caves, much like you. Except I had the foolishness to go much farther than I had any right to. I found the crossroads. I went left.”

Avery scooted forward slightly in anticipation. “Oh?”

“And I saw it. If I had the wits to run, I would’ve. Because in the few seconds that I stared at it, I was infested with every thought, idea, and concept that could ever exist. Everything. I have glimpsed corners of history that shouldn’t be missed, instantly understood generations’ worth of memories. All that knowledge, rotting in my mind. A pit of untold understanding.”

This time, D3rlord3 was the one to lean forward. “It feels like dying from the inside out. I knew that I was never meant to know any of this. But there was nothing I could do to take it away. I have seen everything. I know the context of everything. And I have to live with it for the rest of my life. This,” he said with finality, “is my burden.”

Avery blinked, posture slumping slightly. “I don’t get it.”

“I know everything that ever is, or was.”

“Yeah, but… what did you see?”

D3rlord3’s hands briefly clenched. Any effort to think back on the details of the golden gates themselves also sent a dizzying feeling down his spine. “I… can’t explain it. It’s difficult to even picture.”

He didn’t seem entirely satisfied with that explanation. “Okay, but was it like—”

“Avery.”

At the sharpness in his tone, he quieted down. “Sorry,” he said quietly, and his voice sounded genuine. Apparently, even he could tell when he’d overstepped. “I get it. You saw… something. Something indescribable.”

D3rlord3 nodded. He was yet again grateful that the bulkiness of his armor was hiding the weariness in his posture. He avoided thinking about that day, let alone attempt to put it into words. “The point is,” he said, “I became burdened with the knowledge of everything that ever is or was. That’s how I knew your name.”

Avery thought that over, nodding a little. If the awestruck expression were any tell, it was truly starting to dawn on him. “You know everything,” he repeated.

“Yes.”

“Like, everything, everything?”

“Yes.”

Avery’s tone then shifted to one of wonder when he asked: “Do chipmunks have dreams?”

Honestly, all D3rlord3 could do was blink in shock. He was starting to lose track of how many times he was regretting this whole encounter.

“I— I don’t think you understand the gravity of this. It’s not all fun and games and… chipmunks.”

“Maybe just a little bit,” Avery pointed out.

D3rlord3 drew in a long breath. He could feel a headache coming on.

Avery rubbed at his brow, as he said aloud, “Alright, fine. But I’ll be real, this is nuts. I won’t lie, when I first met you, it was a little cool that you knew my name. Like, I remember thinking, ‘dang, either this dude’s a wizard, or maybe I did tell him my name but just forgot when.’ But, now it’s even cooler. Can you do it again?”

D3rlord3 stilled. “What?”

“I mean, say something cool. Show off your knowledge.” Avery raised his eyebrows. “If you know everything about anything, then this should be easy.”

“This…” D3rlord3 scoffed. “This is not some sort of magic trick for your amusement. In fact, I’m starting to think you’ve overstayed your welcome.”

Avery put his hands up in mock surrender. “If you can’t do it, man, just say so. I understand,” he said innocently, mouth curving into a smile. He knew exactly what he was doing. “But you did just tell me all about what a cosmic brainiac you are, no?”

It only took two meetings for Avery to know exactly how to push his buttons. It was honestly impressive.

D3lord sighed. Promising himself this would be the first and last time he’d do something like this, he flatly began to list just a sliver of what he knew about Avery:

“You haven’t eaten fish since you were eight. You can’t whistle. You’re left-handed, and your favorite color is green, the same color as your bedsheets. You lie about your height when people ask. Eight months ago you gave yourself a bad haircut and wore hats out everywhere. You’ve always had a phobia of needles, you’re bad at math, and you’re prone to motion sickness. You always thought you were a good singer, and that scar on the back of your elbow is from a gardening accident. Your favorite animal is a possum, you need a nightlight to sleep--” He stopped, tilting his head. “And you have a thing for helmets.”

Avery’s jaw went slack, his face flushing impossibly more with every reveal. “Um,” was all he could say, dotted by a dry laugh. “Oh. Okay, uh, I honestly didn’t think you’d be able to… do that…”

“I told you. I know everything.”

“I mean, I believed that, but I didn’t think…” Avery mumbled, more taken aback than D3rlord3 had ever seen him. He scrambled to add, “That last part’s not why I keep coming back, for the record. Um. Not that it’s even true.”

D3rlord3 deadpanned, “You literally can’t lie to me.”

Avery was looking elsewhere as he rubbed the back of his neck. “Okay, you know what? Whatever,” he said, clearly itching to change the subject. “Back to the matter at hand: let me make sure I got this straight: you turned left, saw something, and basically became the world's biggest nerd?”

“Minus the insensitive wording, yes.”

“And since you know everything, do you know when I’m gonna die?”

“No,” D3rlord3 admitted. “I don’t know about the future. I only knew about the world as it was revealed to me at that moment.”

Truth be told, he was grateful for the caveat.

“Huh,” Avery said, mulling over all the reveals.

At the very least, he couldn’t complain that he didn’t get a decent answer; D3rlord3 told him a lot more than he was ever planning to. He still wasn’t entirely sure why he was humoring all these questions; something about Avery just made him want to keep talking.

“If you don’t know the future,” said Avery, an idea clearly brewing, “Then you don’t know I’m about to do this—”

Before the words even left his mouth, Avery’s fist was already in motion, swinging for his shoulder. Before it could make any contact, D3rlord3’s palm closed around Avery’s knuckles with ease.

Avery froze, and spluttered out, “I— hey! I thought you didn’t know the future!”

“I don’t,” he said, lowering his fist. “What I do know is the type of person you are. Took an educated guess. Might I add, landing a punch on a solid metal piece of armor would hurt pretty bad.”

Avery crossed his arms and huffed. “Fine, okay, whatever, you know-it-all. Can you guess what I’m gonna say next?”

D3rlord3 tilted his head, still not releasing him. “Probably something stupid and wrong.”

“I’ve never said anything stupid and wrong.” He paused. “Oh.”

“I told you.”

A beat. “Crap, you’re good. But did you know,” Avery said, voice quieter now, “you’re still holding my hand?”

D3rlord3 blinked, glanced down, and dropped his fist a little too quickly.

Avery played it off with a thin laugh before moving on. “Hell, I have to say, this is pretty cool. You could probably win every game of trivia, or any sport, since you know how to play them all, or— or karaoke, since you know all the lyrics of every song!”

D3rlord3 stared at him and said flatly, “You can’t win at karaoke.”

“You’re missing the point. What are you brooding around all day underground for? This is kinda awesome.”

“It’s kinda not,” said D3rlord3, getting marginally ticked off that he was this naive.

“If you say so,” Avery said, tapping a finger against his thigh. “But I’m telling you, man, hit up some karaoke bars sometime, yeah?”

D3rlord3 said nothing to that. The mental image of him at a karaoke bar was something not even he could imagine.

Avery, by some gracious act, seemed to get the hint that his patience was thinning. He glanced around the room for a nonexistent clock, and snapped his fingers. “Well, look at the time! I’ll let you get back to… Whatever it is that you do, I guess. Thanks for this.” He got up from his ridiculously tiny stool, following D3rlord3 as he stood and crossed to the front door in silence.

At least this whole encounter was over, as promised, and any memory of Avery could be shelved away in some distant corner of D3rlord3's mind. He held the door open as his overstayed visitor made his way out. Without warning, though, Avery stopped in his tracks as if he just remembered something. He turned around to face the knight one last time, tipping his head to the side.

D3rlord3’s hand tightened on the doorknob. “What,” he prompted, hating that he could read that look on his face.

“Do they, though?” Avery asked him.

“What?”

“Have dreams? Chipmunks?”

D3rlord3 shouldn’t have answered. He should have ignored the question, shut the door in his face, sent him on his way. He was above answering questions about rodents, thank you very much.

But it was the look on Avery’s face, the slowly-building smile, awaiting the answer as if it were the single most burning question in his heart. He could see his eyes still visibly failing to find D3rlord3’s from behind the helmet.

D3rlord3 stared up at the ceiling and wondered how he ever got himself into this position.

Eventually, he sighed out, “Yes,” and Avery’s smile brightened that much more.

“I knew it,” he mumbled under his breath. Then, louder: “Thanks, know-it-all. Bye.” Before D3rlord3 could say anything more, Avery spun around on his heel and stepped off his doorstep, making his way back into the cluster of village houses.

D3rlord3 watched him for a moment longer before shutting the door.

All things considered, he wasn’t exactly the worst company.

Chapter Text

Avery was a liar. And a pretty convincing one, at that.

For a couple of days, D3rlord3 genuinely believed he wouldn’t come back. In fact, he’d almost successfully pushed the man from his memory entirely until he heard that sigh-inducing noise again one afternoon:

A knock at the door.

There was no need to wonder who it was. D3rlord3 had to stare at the ceiling and mentally note that Avery’s promise only lasted a whopping three days.

He swung open the door and began to seethe out, “You promised…”

Avery was standing there, a wary smile tugging at his mouth. “I lied!”

D3rlord3’s hand tightened on the edge of the door. “Please tell me you have a decent reason to be here. Again.”

“As a matter of fact, I do, okay? I’m here for a really good reason.” His smile widened when he said: “I want to apologize.”

Any frustration in D3rlord3’s mind was promptly replaced with confusion.

“See,” said Avery, “I was thinking about you, and your whole deal with… knowing all the conceivable knowledge in the universe.” He sucked in a breath before continuing. “I admit it. It sucks. Your curse isn’t cool, or awesome, and I felt bad. I shouldn’t have been acting as dumb as I did. You got the short end of the stick, I have to say.”

D3rlord3 said dully, “Is this all you came here to do? Pity me?”

“No,” he said, rocking on his feet slightly. “No, not that. I just remembered you said something about going crazy, right? I mean, being alone can’t be good for you.” He lifted up a mid-sized, paper package in his other hand, which D3rlord3 hadn’t noticed until that very moment. “I brought food.”

Admittedly, there were very, very few moments in D3rlord3’s life in which he was left totally speechless. Funny how those moments seemed to always coincide with Avery’s visits.

What was not funny was D3rlord3’s increasing tolerance when it came to Avery. His single, stubborn visitor that would not leave him be.

With these mildly troublesome revelations in mind, D3rlord3 could only stare at him blankly. “What is this?” he said, struggling to understand his intentions here.

“It’s smoked salmon. Thought you’d like it.”

“No,” D3rlord3 said, exasperated. “I mean, what are you doing? What is this?”

Avery dropped his hand back to his side. “Oh. I guess you don’t get out much.” He gestured between the two of them with a thumb. “This-- what I’m doing right here? It’s called sympathy.”

D3rlord3 shifted his focus to the paper-wrapped package in Avery’s hand. The little shit knew what he was doing; it would be rude to kick Avery out when he’d showed up with a gift in hand. Especially when considering that the route to the village included navigating a handful of passages, a literal maze, and a cave system.

(Avery either had a killer sense of direction or was too stubborn to let something like geography stop him. Once again, D3rlord3 found himself reluctantly admiring him.)

Though, maybe that was all just him scraping for excuses.

“This is the last time,” D3rlord3 said, not entirely sure if he meant it. Both Avery’s smile and his eyes brightened.

“So, can I come in?” he asked excitedly, with a look on his face reminiscent of a dog awaiting scraps.

He silently stepped aside, eyes tracking Avery as he happily sauntered in.

“Hell yes!” he whooped as the front door shut behind him. “I hope you like salmon. You seem like the type of guy.”

D3rlord3, who was wondering if it was too late to kick him out again, sighed. “Sure.”

“Yup, that’s what I thought,” he said, pleased with his rather dry answer. He’d crossed to one of the tables in the common room and got to work unwrapping the package. D3rlord3 watched from behind as he picked apart layers of brown paper, revealing a tidy stack of smoked salmon. The smoky aroma wafted through the air.

Avery was talking as he unwrapped. “‘Cause I was thinking to myself, well, smarty-pants lives underground with no lakes and no water. So, salmon’s probably like a delicacy to him. Am I right?”

It was a stupidly considerate line of thinking. D3rlord3 didn’t say so out loud.

Avery stared up at him, nodding to the helmet. “Do you ever take it off?”

A hmph from D3rlord3.

He leaned against the table and noted, “Must be uncomfortable to sleep in.”

“I don’t sleep in it,” corrected D3rlord3.

“Jus’ saying, since I’ve never seen you without it.”

He was baiting him for something, again. D3rlord3 didn’t have the energy to figure out his game, and pointedly ignored it. Instead, he pointed to the smoked salmon on the table. “You made this? I thought you didn’t eat fish.”

It seemed like Avery was about to give a genuine reply before something dawned on him, and he set a hand over his heart in mock affection. “Aw, you remembered? Gosh, you really know how to make a guy feel special.”

“That…” D3rlord3 trailed off, not seeing the fuss in all of this. He shook his head. “No, I remember everything.”

“Ah-ah,” Avery said, wagging his finger. “You know everything. You don’t remember something unless you want to.”

“Fine, alright, I remembered. So what?”

Avery smiled and said nothing. Somehow, his silence was more irritating than any joke he could’ve cracked.

“What?” D3rlord3 asked again incredulously.

“Nothing. I didn’t say anything.”

“You look like you want to say something.”

“Nah. Go on, try the salmon.”

D3rlord3 tilted his head down, staring at the smoked fish. All at once, he realized that trying it would mean taking off his helmet. For whatever reason, the thought of showing his face around Avery felt… intimate and weird.

He looked up. Maybe it was the way Avery was smiling, all bright-eyed and fidgety, like he knew exactly what he was doing.

The little shit had planned this.

“Oh. Not peckish?” Avery eventually asked, just a twinge of disappointment creeping into his voice. He shrugged. “That’s cool. I’ll leave it here; it’s all yours.”

“Avery…” D3rlord3 said to him.

“I’m not offended, I swear.”

“No, not that,” D3rlord3 hesitated, choosing his next words carefully. “You really don’t need to keep coming back down here.”

Avery nodded. “No, I know.”

“So, why are you?”

“I just…” his words trailed off, and he cleared his throat. “I don’t know. I think you’re cool. And, yeah, I guess I could leave, but I'd probably always be thinking, I wonder what know-it-all’s doing right now. You know what I mean?”

That was, admittedly, an interesting reply. D3rlord3 would leave that to mull over later.

In reply, he tilted his head and admitted, “I don’t think you understand just how difficult it is to confuse a man who knows everything.”

Avery grinned. “Is that a compliment?”

“I’m… really not sure.”

Avery drummed his fingers against the table as he sat with that, looking up at D3rlord3. He was getting pretty damn good at guessing where his eyes were from behind the helmet.

He then glanced down to the salmon still on the table, as if just remembering it. “You should probably put this away,” Avery said, pointing to it. “Don’t want it going bad.”

He was inclined to agree. D3rlord3 stepped over to the table. He felt Avery’s eyes on him, perhaps more specifically his gloves, as they got to work on sealing the fish back up in its paper packaging.

“What do you eat, anyway?” Avery asked, watching as D3rlord3 walked over to a storage chest. “I didn’t see any livestock around here. Though, now that I’m thinking about it, that might be for the better. A cow living in a cave would probably get depressed real fast.”

“I have a crop farm out front,” D3rlord3 explained, once again not sure why he was humoring his questions. With the fish stored away, he shut the chest and turned around, only to find Avery picking through a nearby shelf. The old books that were stored in it came with the house, though D3rlord3 never even looked at the titles. Not like he had any need to.

Avery still hadn’t noticed that D3rlord3 was watching him.

“Stop snooping,” he scolded.

Avery jumped and spun around to face him with a huff. “I am not,” he defended, which was a brazen lie. “You just never gave me a house tour.”

D3rlord3 crossed his arms. “Probably because that would imply you’d be a recurring guest.”

“Pfft. Okay. For the record, you’re a pretty rotten host,” Avery mused. Then he snapped and pointed at him. “Hey, actually, I was thinking-- About the crossroads, and stuff.”

D3rlord3 stiffened at the very mention. Avery glanced down at his steeled fists before assuring him, “Calm down, I didn’t go out looking for it.”

“Don’t ever.”

“I’m not. Anyway, it made me think. I have a question about you and the crossroads.”

“If I say no, will you still ask?”

“Yup,” said Avery, popping the ‘p’. “Here it is: why did you turn left?”

D3rlord3 went still. “What?”

He gave a casual shrug. “I mean, I know that it was this big, horrible mistake-- you’ve made that much clear-- but I kinda wanna know why you were down in these caves to begin with.”

D3rlord3 contemplated that. With all this talk of what was down the crossroads, not once did it occur to him that Avery might have been wondering why he went down there in the first place.

Clearly, D3rlord3 had gone silent for longer than he thought, because Avery added on, “I mean, you’re evidently an expert on me. So, I don’t see why I can’t get to know you.”

D3rlord3 fought the urge to scoff at the words. Get to know him.

“I don’t know what you’re playing at, but I am not some sort of lost kitten to tame,” he chided, pointing a finger at Avery. “So you can quit your game.”

“Sure, alright,” Avery conceded with a smirk, and it was obvious he was toying with him. “Just remember, you’re the one who called himself a kitten first.”

“Didn’t you come here to apologize?” D3rlord3 asked tiredly. “You owe me another one for that.”

“I didn’t call you a kitten! That was all you!” Avery shook his head, waving away the topic. “Okay, we’re getting away from the point. I asked you a question. And, no, I’m not playing at anything. I just wanna know.”

D3rlord3 unfortunately believed him, and so, he thought back. What had compelled him to turn left, to inadvertently make the worst mistake of his life? More importantly, why was he telling Avery this?

Well, he didn’t know the answer to that second part. Something about him just loosened his tongue.

“I don’t really know,” D3rlord3 answered. “I was meddling with things I shouldn’t have. I thought I was so clever, and I felt like I needed to prove it, for some damned reason.” He turned to face Avery again, a newfound strain in his voice. “That’s why I wrote that book. I don’t need anybody else making that same mistake.”

Avery had been nodding along quietly the entire time. “Listen, you sure as hell have me convinced. I’m not touching those crossroads with a ten-foot pole,” he said. Then, with a tad more gravity: “And, I meant my apology, earlier. I really did. Last time, you were trying to tell me about your… situation, and I didn’t take it seriously. All I did was make some jokes and talk about chipmunks.”

He sighed. “I’ve dealt with worse.”

Avery hummed, seemingly deep in thought. “I bet.”

A short moment of silence stretched between them. D3rlord3 saw Avery throw a glance at the front door.

He pushed away from the table he was leaning against, musing aloud, “Well, I know you’re far too nice to kick me out, so I think I’ll be on my way.” He put his hands behind his back. “And this time, I promise I won’t ever come back. Like, I swear.”

D3rlord3 asked flatly, “Are your fingers crossed behind your back?”

“...no?” he lied. Badly.

A sigh. It wasn’t an annoyed one, exactly, but instead one of resignation.

“Alright, look, if I’m annoying you, just say the word.”

“You annoy me,” deadpanned D3rlord3. “Severely.”

Avery beamed. “Noted. I’ll be seeing you, know-it-all!”

With that, he waved good-bye and showed himself out the front door, leaving D3rlord3 once again with a million questions and very few answers.

----

If there were any upside to Avery’s visits, it was an increased gratefulness for silence.

In the blessed solitude of his house, and more specifically his room, D3rlord3 slipped off his helmet. In the shiny metal, he caught a glimpse of his bare, tired face. Months of no sleep did that to you. The rest of the armor pieces came off and were set away on a shelf, leaving D3rlord3 just in his fabric underclothes. He pinched out the candle, plunging the room into its usual darkroom.

It wasn’t long until he was lying in bed. That was usually the time for a billion different thoughts to wander his mind and deny him sleep. It vaguely occurred to him that he had forgotten to eat dinner.

Now, simple human things like hunger or sleep barely meant anything to D3rlord3 anymore. He ate when he remembered to, slept whenever sleep took him. He certainly never gave any thought to eating good food anymore. Understandably, knowing the most horrific truths of the universe tends to make you lose your appetite.

Yet here he was thinking about smoked salmon.

Tired and feeling a rare hunger, D3rlord3 got up, stretching the creak in his knees, before making his way to the common room. Down here in the caves, there was no visual difference between night and day, just the same dull cave light casting its soft glow across the village.

D3rlord3 fumbled with one of the room’s candles until it was lit, then looked around for the chest he stowed the salmon away in. He set it out on a table, unwrapped it, and just stared at it.

It went without saying that D3rlord3 knew a lot. Everything, in fact.

But Avery was a frustrating anomaly, carving out his own hole in the fabric of D3rlord3’s vast knowledge. He didn’t know why Avery did the things he did. He didn’t know why he had to confuse him so.

After a very contemplative but admittedly good meal, D3rlord3 got himself back to bed, telling himself that it was only natural that he found it hard to forget the only visitor he ever had.

Chapter Text

It was always very quiet underground.

D3rlord3 had never paid much attention to it before. Down here, there was no wind, no birds, no people.

The only real noise that greeted him when he opened his eyes one morning-- like any other-- was the distant rush of water from the village fountain.

Before the usual flood of existential thoughts could take their grip on him, he dragged himself out of bed and began the usual mundane routine.

And as he put on his armor, he kept tossing glances at the door— not that D3rlord3 was expecting anyone, thank you very much— before slipping on his helmet and deciding to check on his crops outside.

It was a small, meager patch of soil, fenced off, tilled as best he could, seeded with whatever he had, and watered daily. Despite his best efforts, things were not exactly coming along well; plants always started off promising before wilting.

He mentally thumbed through his knowledge of agriculture (which was a lot, admittedly,) and was only able to confidently conclude that he was not doing a very good job.

Knowledge did not exactly equate experience. It was a frustrating feeling, to know exactly what you were doing wrong but messing up in every attempt to fix it.

D3rlord3 stared at his lackluster progress, a hand propped on his hip as he nudged the misbehaving soil with the toe of his boot. That was when he heard footsteps approaching.

“What’cha doing?” came a voice.

D3rlord3 looked up to find Avery leaning against the fence, wearing his usual lopsided smile.

“You’re back,” said D3lord3, which was as close as he was ever going to get to actually greeting Avery. “Again.”

“Hello to you, too.”

“No food today?”

Avery looked up at him. “What? Oh. No. I sort of meant that as a one-time bribe,” he explained. “Not that I can’t bring more.”

D3rlord3 said nothing to affirm or decline that. He went back to picking at his shriveled plants.

Avery took his silence as an answer and clicked his tongue knowingly. “Okay. Noted. Now, seriously, what are you doing?”

“What’s it look like?”

“A piss-poor attempt at farming.” Avery jerked a thumb down at the tilled soil. “Is that supposed to be a potato plant?”

D3rlord3 stared down at the plant. He actually had to think about it. “Yes.”

“Tilling looks like crap,” Avery said bluntly, shaking his head. “It’ll never grow. Doesn’t your big curse also include knowing all the secrets of farming?”

D3rlord3 held back the urge to flash him the middle finger.

“I didn’t exactly ask for your advice,” he said flatly. He knelt, grabbed a metal bucket, and tossed it at Avery, who scrambled to catch it.

“Whah--?”

“Crops need to be watered,” D3rlord3 explained, picking up two more buckets. “We’ll fill up from the village fountain.”

Avery looked between him and the bucket, unimpressed. “So, now I’m doing chores with you?”

“If you’re going to show up and bug me, the least you can do is make yourself useful.”

Avery crinkled his nose, accepting it. “Fine. Whatever. You got me.”

----

With their buckets in hand, they started toward the village, which was a short distance away. From beside D3rlord3, Avery swung his bucket as he walked and talked.

“Is this part of your grand plan to keep me away?” Avery asked, peering up at him. “Make me do manual labor?”

“You’re carrying a single bucket. That hardly counts as manual labor.”

Avery huffed a dramatic sigh.

The walk to the village fountain was relatively short, though D3rlord3 was sure Avery could make a trip of any distance entertaining, considering his unearthly talent of never running out of things to say.

Not that he was admitting to finding Avery’s company anywhere near entertaining. This guy was a nuisance at best.

Speaking of which--

“Hey, look,” said Avery, his voice sounding more tinny than usual. “I’m like you.”

D3rlord3 looked over to find Avery wearing the bucket on his head.

He sighed and flicked the side of the makeshift helmet. “Quit it.”

They reached the village, following the stone path that led to the fountain at the center. Avery would veer off whenever they passed a house, going over to peek through the cracked windowpanes.

He fell into step beside D3rlord3 again and asked, “Do you know what happened to the people in these houses?”

Of course he did, but he decided not to answer that question. “They were already abandoned when I got here.”

Avery hummed thoughtfully as he looked over each of the old houses, with their broken windows and sagging foundation.

D3rlord3 glanced at him but didn’t answer. He continued walking.

It occurred to him that Avery knew nothing about the King. He quietly resigned to keep it that way. The less he knew, the better, especially considering that D3rlord3 already ran his mouth about his predicament more than was wise.

“Kinda depressing,” noted Avery as they passed another ruined house. “Don’t you ever get bored down here?”

“I keep myself busy.”

Avery raised his eyebrows. “That’s not really an answer.”

“Do you?”

Avery looked at him. “What do you mean?”

“Considering you have time to haul yourself down here so often.”

Avery waved his hand in a vague gesture. “I guess. But anyone else would be doing the same. You know, finding your book was the most interesting thing that’s ever happened to me.”

“Maybe you need a hobby.”

Avery let out a half-laugh. “Funny. This is coming from the guy living underground?”

He supposed he had him there.

“Speaking of your book,” continued Avery. “On the last page, there was a jumble of numbers. What was that all about?"

D3rlord3 tilted his head at him. “I wasn’t exactly thinking straight when I wrote that.”

“Alright, but what’s it say?”

“It’s… not important now.”

Avery didn’t let up. “But it used to be?”

D3rlord3 weighed his options here. In fairness, Avery did seem properly deterred from exploring the crossroads. If anything, he seemed more interested in annoying D3rlord3 than turning left.

In his defense, the caves seemed safe enough these days. The whispers were gone, the caverns silent. Maybe the gates were content with just one victim. Maybe.

“Look,” D3rlord3 said to him, “If I think you need to know, I’ll tell you.”

Avery’s expression didn’t fully fade, but he seemed mostly satisfied with that answer.

They’d reached the fountain.

It sat in the center of the village, carved from a single piece of large, weathered marble. A regal statue was perched atop as water cascaded down and collected in the wide basin.

Avery let out a low whistle as he studied it. “Sick.”

They got to work filling their buckets, angling the containers under the flow of water. D3rlord3 filled his two easily, though the same couldn’t be said for Avery, who struggled to get a good handle on it.

D3rlord3 watched him struggle with an incredulous look.

“No need, I got it!” Avery said, hauling the bucket up with two hands.

“I wasn’t offering my help.”

“You were thinking about it.”

“Not… really.”

Once their buckets were finally filled, they started the walk back to D3rlord3’s house. Most of the conversation consisted of Avery complaining, stopping to take unnecessary breaks, and then complaining some more.

“Why did you have to pick the house farthest from the dang fountain?” he protested, struggling to heft his bucket up.

“You don’t have to come down here at all, you know.”

“Ha! I know your game, and I’m not falling for it,” Avery said, a newfound determination in his tone.

Soon enough, they were out of the village and back on the path, D3rlord3’s house visible.

“Can I ask you something?” Avery asked suddenly, and in typical Avery fashion, didn’t wait for a reply before continuing on. “What if, like, an ant turned left?”

“An ant,” D3rlord3 repeated flatly.

“Yeah. What if an ant, who lives down in this cave, just happened to turn left, and saw… whatever it is that you saw. Would that ant know everything? Like you?”

D3rlord3 stared down at him. “You ask interesting questions.”

A smile from Avery. “Well, you always have interesting answers.”

D3rlord3 sighed, once again not sure why he was humoring him. He readjusted his grip on the bucket handles as he thought about it.

“I think it’s more…” He paused, searching for the right word. Even with a near-infinite vocabulary, when it came to explaining the gates, he hesitated. “Intentional than that.”

“‘It’?”

“It… down the left side of the crossroads. Chooses who sees it. I think.” D3rlord3 blinked hard, once.

It was one of the many bewildering questions that kept D3rlord3 awake late at night. He was led, he was tempted. But why him?

And to think that a question about an ant reminded him of this.

“Remember how I said some things were hard to think about?” D3rlord3 said, voice thicker. “This is one of those times.”

From the corner of his vision, he could see Avery looking him over curiously, clearly withholding a dam’s worth of questions.

“Right. Okay. I get it,” he said quietly.

D3rlord3 stopped; they had made it to the house on the outskirts. They set their buckets down beside the fence, Avery dropped his down with a huge sigh of relief.

D3rlord3, meanwhile, picked up one bucket and got to work watering his patch of soil.

Avery watched, flexing out the cramp in his hand. “So, is this how you spend your days? Watering potatoes and throwing strangers against your doorframe?

“I’ve only done that once,” he corrected with a huff, emptying out the last of the water.

Avery shrugged. “I’m just trying to picture you before you went all underground-hermit.”

“Thanks for that,” he mumbled sarcastically, reaching for the next bucket as he thought about his answer. “I was doing a bit of everything, I guess. I mined. Hunted. Explored.”

Avery perked up, eyes alight. “Huh, a real proper knight,” he remarked, looking up and down D3rlord3’s armor. “I guess the getup isn’t just for show. You know, I’m pretty good with a sword, myself.”

D3rlord3 looked sideways at him. “I do know.”

“Oh. Yeah. I guess you do.” Avery then stared up at nothing in particular, a smile appearing on his face. “But… you know what? You haven’t experienced my skill in action.”

D3rlord3 gave him a sideways look. “What are you getting at?”

Avery ignored the question completely. “I wonder,” he said, with the look of an idea brewing, “In a fight between me and you, who’d win? You’re the smarty-pants, sure, but I’ve got all my experience.”

D3rlord3 paused. “You want to… spar?”

Avery stood up straighter and snapped his fingers. “Hey, you said it, not me!”

“I’m not indulging whatever this is.”

“Why not? Friendly duel. Cathartic violence. Bonding.”

“We are not bonding.”

“Well, we could be,” Avery shot back. “C’mon, why not? Get all your farming-related anger out.”

D3rlord3 was, unfortunately, starting to consider it. Avery must have realized he was getting through to him, since he jumped the fence and leaned into his line of sight, smiling up at him.

“Aren’t you curious, at least a little?” he crooned out.

D3rlord3 thought about all his unused weapons, gathering dust. It wasn’t a terrible idea…

“If you’re scared of getting wiped out by me, just say so.”

“Am not,” D3rlord3 snapped back, annoyed that Avery could piss him off so well. “Fine. You win.”

Avery visibly brightened.

----

They set up some distance away from the house, since D3rlord3 didn’t want them trampling his crops.

(“Honestly,” Avery had mused, “trampling them would be doing them a favor.”

“Shut up.”)

As soon as D3rlord3 appeared outside again with an armful of weapons-- spears and swords-- Avery practically lit up.

“Ground rules,” began D3rlord3, watching as Avery picked through his small variety of weapons. “No maiming. No hits above the head. Winner is whoever disarms the other first.”

Avery had settled on a sword and was testing the weight of it in his hand. “Best out of three rounds,” he added.

“Fine, best out of three rounds.”

D3rlord3 picked out his usual sword and took his place across from Avery, a handful of steps away. Weapons in hand, they assumed their own fighting stances.

It was a little odd to see Avery’s smile harden into one of focus, feet planted firmly on the ground as he awaited the mark.

“Ready?” asked D3rlord3.

“Ready.”

“Start,” he said, and Avery moved at the same time D3rlord3 did.

Their distance was closed in an instant, blades crashing together with a clang. Avery pulled back, taking a swing at D3rlord3’s side but getting blocked immediately.

Avery was good, but D3rlord3’s eyes knew exactly what to look for. He knew him, after all, and the information slotted into place effortlessly. It was like watching a movie he’d already memorized.

D3rlord3 waited until Avery attempted a hit to his side-- which he knew he’d try-- and then captured his blade with his own. He twisted until Avery lost his grip and was forced to drop his weapon.

The blade of D3rlord3’s sword stopped just short of Avery’s nose.

Avery could only stare down at it in stunned silence, as if trying to understand how it got there.

“Woah,” he mumbled out, breathing hard.

“There. I win,” said D3rlord3 simply, pulling away his blade.

"Huh. Okay.” Avery knelt to pick up his own sword, face flushed from exertion. “Not quite, though. Best of three, remember?"

D3rlord3 scoffed. “I'll humor you.”

They reset their positions, and on D3rlord3’s mark, fired into their next round. It went much like their first, though this time Avery was able to hold off his hits for slightly longer.

After a flurry of strikes, Avery pulled back and blocked another blow with wide, puzzled eyes.

“I… don’t get it,” said Avery. “It’s like you know what I’m going to do ten steps before I do it.”

D3rlord3 tilted his head at him as if to say, Duh.

Avery moved first, but D3rlord3 already knew what he was aiming for-- Their blades locked into an X before they ripped apart and retreated, keeping a distance as they circled one another again.

“I told you,” said D3rlord3, readjusting his grip on the sword. “I know exactly how you fight.”

Avery shook his head. “I think I get it now,” he said, with a newfound determination in his voice and eyes. “You know how I fight, sure. But you can’t know what I’ve never done, right?”

D3lord3 couldn’t even parse a reply in time-- Avery rushed forward, and it was as if he’d become a different fighter entirely.

His hits became random, sporadic, and where D3rlord3’s strikes were mindful and precise, Avery’s swings were all over the place. This time around, it took all of D3rlord3’s focus just to keep him at bay.

As soon as D3rlord3’s guard was drained-- which didn’t take very long-- Avery slammed forward on the offensive, landing a risky hit near the base of D3rlord3’s sword; it landed and sent it clattering to the floor.

The tip of Avery’s sword was hovering an inch away from D3rlord3’s neck, unprotected from any armor.

Avery looked very pleased with himself. “I win.”

D3rlord3 was thoroughly impressed. He couldn’t quite stop staring and didn’t know why.

“We’re still one for one,” he pointed out once he’d found his voice, scooping his sword up from off the ground. “Again.”

They launched into another round, metal scraping against metal as their swords met and then blocked the other.

Avery was truly holding his own now, having found a balance between defense and striking into D3rlord3’s guard.

Nevertheless, D3rlord3 had recovered from his earlier fluke. One clean, well-timed strike knocked Avery’s sword from his hands.

“Got you,” said D3rlord3, his sword a hairs-breadth away from the center of his ribcage.

Avery scowled, his breaths coming quicker, and his hair tousled lightly from the exercise. “Again.”

Their rounds blurred together; swords were knocked out of hands and then slammed against each other. They sunk into a rhythm, moving like clockwork and reading each other’s movements easily.

Avery was putting up more of a fight than D3rlord3 truly expected, and it was fascinating.

They’d learned each other’s mindsets by now, switching up their styles and adapting to their opponent just as easily. They forgot about rounds. They were simply… fighting.

They backed away from one another again after a particular clashing of swords, and D3rlord3 suddenly became aware of the burn in his arms.

Avery circled him. “You do realize you’ve got the advantage, right? Got a whole suit of armor on.”

“You honestly think it’s helping me?" he said back. “If anything, it’s slowing me down.”

Avery gave a lighthearted scoff. “Oh, sure.”

“Fine,” he conceded, prompting a puzzled look from Avery.

D3rlord3 reached up with his free hand, removed his helmet, and tossed it aside. It hit the grass with a dull thud.

Avery froze.

His jaw went slack, gaze locked on the discarded helmet before snapping up to meet D3rlord3’s bare eyes.

“Again,” D3rlord3 said, and lunged forward.

Avery scrambled to raise his sword in time, just barely blocking the hit. Every incoming hit had him stepping further backwards, eyes still blown wide. He kept flicking his gaze upward; his focus was split, defense slipping.

“Your guard is down,” warned D3rlord3 as he swung again.

“I’m… a little distracted,” Avery admitted, voice squeaky.

D3rlord3 pressed on, Avery retreated; their swords collided and crashed as their hits blurred together.

Avery seemed to recover somewhat, his blade rushing to land a handful of hits against D3rlord3’s. Their hits were both getting bolder with their strikes but sloppier, clearly sharing in their exhaustion.

It came to a head when their swords slammed together and locked into place, their faces inches apart and breathless.

Their first real eye contact. And if Avery’s smirk was any hint, he was enjoying it.

He was also the one to break the silence first, still catching his breath. “I think… that was way more than three rounds.”

It took D3rlord3 much too long to find his words again. “...yeah.”

After a moment longer, they broke apart. Avery would not quit staring into his eyes.

“I have to say, that’s one good tactic,” he admitted, gesturing vaguely at him. “The old face reveal.”

“Lucky you.”

Any exercise-induced flush on Avery’s face really should have faded by now.

D3rlord3 crossed over to pick up his helmet, dusting it off as Avery spoke from somewhere behind him.

“Damn, it’s way later than I thought. Guess time flies when you’re fighting a brainiac knight.”

At his ever-classy way with words, D3rlord3 shot him a sideways look.

Avery averted his eyes warily. “Jeez, have you… always been glaring at me like that?”

“When you deserve it, yes.”

After they’d properly caught their breaths, and D3rlord3’s helmet was back on, Avery admitted it was time for him to be on his way.

He handed the borrowed sword back to D3rlord3. “You’re welcome for helping you with your crappy farm. It was nice seeing you,” said Avery, not able to hide the smile at his own double-joke. “Get it? ‘Cause you--?”

“--I get it,” sighed out D3rlord3, one hand on the doorknob and ready to go inside. “Bye.”

With a final wave goodbye from Avery, D3rlord3 entered the house and shut the weathered door with a click. It sounded louder than it ever did. With that, D3rlord3 was left with a silent house and a whole lot to think about.

The only thing he could be certain about was that Avery was one weird man if he could burrow a place in his mind like this.

Chapter Text

It wasn’t long before Avery showed up for another visit.

On this particular day, the first thing he had asked when he breezed inside was, “Have you eaten breakfast yet?”

“…No,” answered D3rlord3, shutting the front door behind him. “You’re early.”

Usually, before Avery arrived, D3rlord3 could get in a few hours of picking at his farm and zoning out in self-pity. Today was not the case. His early visitor had made a bee-line to the ever-empty dining table and set down a bundle of food he had brought, talking as he unwrapped it.

“Well, the early bird catches the worm, right?” Avery paused, looked up. “Wait, does it? You’d know the answer to that.”

D3rlord3 had to think about it. “Generally, yeah.”

“I knew it.”

D3rlord3 watched from beside him as he opened up the paper-wrapped package. Today’s food was chicken, grilled and stacked neatly along with some bread. D3rlord3 wouldn’t lie and say he wasn’t looking forward to food that didn’t come from his crummy farm.

Avery continued talking, glancing over at D3rlord3 intermittently.

“Have I ever told you about what a pain in the ass it is to get here? I mean, I gotta go through all these passages, and then through the village, too. Like, even if I did want to go left at the crossroads-- and you can stop glaring at me, I won’t-- I doubt I would ever find the dang place to begin with. Seriously, it’s a workout to get here. Sometimes I wonder how the heck you manage it. Well, I guess you are pretty fit. Like, really fit. Not that I notice, duh, but--”

D3rlord3 was only half-listening, mostly focused on watching Avery portion out two servings and setting them in front of two seats.

He cut in, confused, to ask, “What are you doing?”

Avery stilled. “Well, aren’t you hungry? ‘Cause, dude, I’m starving.”

He smiled up at him, and when no reply came, he took a seat at the table anyway.

D3rlord3 could honestly appreciate Avery’s never-ending attempts at testing his patience. He really should have insisted against it-- After all, that was what the old D3rlord3 would have done.

But unfortunately for the old D3rlord3, right now he was hungry.

And so, he found himself sitting across from Avery, sharing a breakfast of chicken and bread. Stranger things had happened to him, he supposed. All things considered, it felt oddly comforting to actually sit and share a meal, making use of the dining table that had otherwise sat untouched since D3rlord3 moved in.

What was not comforting was Avery, staring at D3rlord3’s bare face and doing a bad job at pretending that he wasn’t.

“It’s getting cold,” D3rlord3 pointed out.

Avery snapped to attention. “Huh?”

“Your food.”

He blinked, stared down. “Oh. Hah. Yeah.”

Rather hurriedly, he resumed picking at his food.

“You’ve never asked me for my name,” D3rlord3 said between bites, making an attempt at being social.

“Your name?” Avery repeated, confused, before grasping the question. “Oh. Yeah. No, I guess I haven’t. Why?”

“No reason.”

Avery glanced up and asked, “Would you tell me if I asked?”

No reply.

“Yeah. I figured.” Avery shrugged. “But it’s cool. You never had a choice when it came to your big curse of knowledge, right? So, maybe it’s nice that you can decide what I know or don’t know about… you.”

And then he went back to eating.

D3rlord3, meanwhile, had to remind himself that his helmet was off and he had to make an actual effort to hide his shocked look. He had a feeling those words were going to stick with him for a long while.

The rest of Avery’s visit went by in a blur.

---

D3rlord3 was no stranger to bad dreams.

It was no surprise that the thoughts he tried hardest to smother during the day somehow managed to leak into his sleeping subconscious. With a near-infinite amount of knowledge crammed into D3rlord3’s mortal mind, his psyche understandably coped with it the only way it could.

He was lying in bed and struggling to fall asleep (which was typical) while thinking about Avery’s earlier visit (which was not typical), when he blinked and found himself dumped in one of the many cave passages.

Even in the muzzy detail of a dream, the dark place seemed familiar.

Then he turned around, and before him stood the monstrous golden gates.

He could not rip his eyes off of them. He didn’t think to move. Couldn’t. He knew that this was just a dream, but his throat went dry as tinder all the same. Their yellow glow reflected against D3rlord3’s armor pieces.

The gates shouldn’t have been here. He hardly ever dreamed about them in such detail.

“What?” D3rlord3 asked shakily, voice sounding strangled. “What do you want?”

No reply. The gates stared back at him, silent and towering.

The scene remained unchanged, but something in the air shifted. D3rlord3 only felt it with absolute certainty-- something bloodcurdling sweeping through the cave.

The hair on the back of his neck rose because he knew exactly who was here. Frantically, he patted his belt for his sword, but found it wasn’t there.

There was really only one word to describe the King in Yellow. Inordinate.

“Leave me alone,” D3rlord3 said to the empty air, panic seeping into his voice. “You’ve done enough to me.”

Something infinitely close to a voice answered:

Not quite. Not yet.

Then the dream tore itself apart, and D3rlord3 jolted awake to the sound of a door slamming shut.

He was on his feet in an instant, sword in hand as he bolted to his front door.

He moved more on instinct than anything, stumbling out onto the front steps. His eyes skimmed the periphery as he blinked away exhaustion.

“What do you mean, ‘not quite’?” he croaked out at the empty air, swinging his sword in a wide arc. “Just-- Just leave me alone!”

Only his own voice echoed back at him. Nothing was out here. The hand that was holding up the sword was trembling.

D3rlord3 slowly lowered the blade, his thoughts racing far, far more than usual. He truly didn’t know what any of this meant.

The King was toying with him again.

The last thing D3rlord3 needed was someone innocent wandering down here and getting caught in that sort of mess.

As he struggled to reason with his thoughts, he stared at the unchanging sight of the village, the fountain, the moss creeping along the walls of the cave.

It was still night, he knew, even though there was no telling from down here.

D3rlord3 knew it was the paranoia seeping in, but he felt like a glass on the very precipice of a table, about to tip over. He needed to do something. Glancing over to the main entrance into the cave, the details of an unpolished plan began to take shape in his mind.

He was already dreading the idea of explaining this to Avery.

----

D3rlord3 had missed the sky.

It was the first thing he noticed when he ducked out of the mine and onto the surface, squinting as the sunlight hit him. It was dusk, the clouds tinted grey.

The location of the mine was the same as he remembered: dug into the base of a cliffside, nestled among a small forest of trees and fields.

D3rlord3 had to take a moment to just stand and stare at the sight; he’d spent so much time underground that anything other than stone seemed foreign to him. To think that such a vile thing like the golden gates could be creeping just underground, out of sight.

With one last glimpse back at the mine entrance, D3rlord3 started on his way-- he knew exactly where he needed to go.

As he walked, the morning sun reflected across his armor and warmed the threads in his cloak. D3rlord3 was vaguely reminded of the similar, sickly yellow glow of the golden gates, though he pushed the thought away as quickly as it came.

As he walked, he noticed that the clouds above had darkened and were hanging lower. Anyone could tell that it was going to rain soon.

It first came as a drop on D3rlord3’s shoulder, then another on his boot. A sprinkle turned into a downpour. Soon enough, the last of the sun was blotted out by rainclouds as rain came down in thick sheets.

Regardless, D3rlord3 pressed on, the weather being no obstacle to a mind that knew exactly which steps to take. Rainwater had soaked into his cloak and left it hanging uncomfortably; all he could do was hurry on and keep his face tilted low to avoid the rain from collecting in his helmet.

One thing he did not miss about the surface was the terrible weather.

Eventually, a path appeared through the grass, leading to a small, humble base snuck into the treeline. D3rlord3 sighed in relief as he wiped the rain from his helmet and kept moving.

Even from a distance, the place was unmistakably Avery’s-- wood types switched abruptly mid-wall, unkempt vines crept across the stone foundation. Through the muggy rain, soft light was visible through the windowpanes. Avery was home, thankfully.

D3rlord3 stopped in front of the door and gave it a firm knock. He waited, grimacing internally at all the rainwater pooling in between his armor. The rainstorm was not giving any signs of letting up.

The door opened, sending warm light from inside reflecting onto D3rlord’s rain-slick armor.

In the doorway stood Avery, eyes wide as circles as he looked D3rlord3 up and down exaggeratedly.

“Woah. You. Here. At my house. Uh, how did…? What-?” Avery choked out a dry laugh. “Not that I mind, duh, but, this is… um. Did you walk all the way over here?”

D3rlord3 was still very obviously standing in the pouring rain.

“Can I come in?” he asked flatly.

“What? Oh. Yeah, sorry.”

Avery scrambled aside, eyes glued to him as he stepped in, dripping water just about everywhere.

“How did you even find me? No, wait, you’re… you. But,” Avery trailed off as he watched D3rlord3 wring out the water from his rain-soaked cloak. “Um, why are you here, exactly?”

“I need a favor.”

“Oh! Then you’ve got it,” Avery said, clapping his hands together. “One hundred percent, I’m in.”

D3rlord3 frowned. “You haven’t even heard what it is.”

“Doesn’t matter. I’m yours-- in the most heterosexual sense of the phrase.”

D3rlord3 ignored that. “I need four metric tons of cobblestone.”

Avery’s hands dropped back down to his sides. “What.”

“I’m sealing up the entrance to the underground.”

Avery blinked once, twice. “Oh. Okay, that’s… ambitious.” Then his expression brightened. “You’re moving out of your sad little cave, then? Good, because, honestly, I was starting to get worried about your vitamin D levels--”

“--No, I’m staying in the village.”

Avery opened his mouth, then shut it, the pieces falling into place.

“Wait, what?” he said, clearly struggling to understand. “That-- Wait, so you’re locking yourself away?”

“Yes.”

“Are you serious? You’re kidding, right?”

D3rlord3 gave a firm shake of the head. “I can’t risk anyone else finding the crossroads,” he said thickly. “Nobody else can turn left.”

“News flash,” Avery drawled out sarcastically, “I think we’re the only two people to have ever even found the damn place, okay?”

“Still.”

Avery tilted his head, confused. “Still what? I-- I promised I’ll never turn left. I swear it, okay? I swear on my life.”

His confusion was inching toward anger, and D3rlord3 felt helpless to stop it. He didn’t know why he was so against this; in the grand scheme of things, D3rlord3 was practically a nobody to him.

So he turned away, eyeing the rainfall outside the window. “I… I know that,” he said, words faltering for the first time. That never happened. “But for anyone else, I can’t say the same.”

“You can write another warning,” Avery said, scraping for options. “Like how you did for me.”

D3rlord3’s shoulders stiffened slightly. “It’s not enough. I just can’t risk it, alright? I need to be absolutely sure.”

“And what makes this your responsibility? Why you?”

D3rlord3 could only balk at all this protesting. Avery was asking so many questions, voice raising with every syllable.

D3rlord3’s next words were slow, confused, saying the words as they came to him: “I… don’t think we’re on the same page here.”

Avery crossed his arms. “Yeah, I agree. Because you cannot be serious,” he said, at a loss for words. “I mean, what about food?”

“My farm.”

Avery scoffed at that. “Water?”

“Fountain.”

“What if something goes wrong?”

“It won’t.”

D3rlord3 waited for Avery to bring up his own visits. He did not.

From behind the helmet, D3rlord3 was frowning. “I don’t get it. Just a minute ago, you were on board.”

Avery huffed, “That was before I knew what you meant! Locking yourself away underground is-- it’s crazy, don’t you see that?”

Silence cut between them.

For the first time, Avery looked frustrated. The usual spark in his eyes was gone, now narrowed in something like hurt.

“Avery,” D3rlord3 said quietly, feeling an inexplicable urge to fix his unhappy expression, “Listen--”

“--No, you listen,” Avery cut him off, stepping closer, “You keep talking as if you’re all alone in this-- some moody, tortured martyr. If you want to keep some secrets, fine, but, I mean… I thought…”

His words broke off.

“I don’t show up just to bother you, as hard as that is to believe. No way am I helping you with this.”

D3rlord3 said nothing. He was trying to figure out when he’d started letting Avery matter so much.

Now, D3rlord3 was so used to thinking in grand, cosmic absolutes. People’s lives were blips in time and nothing more. He knew that. And yet here he was, realizing that he cared just a bit too much about what Avery thought of him; especially with that crestfallen expression looking up at him.

He didn’t want to ever be the reason why Avery looked like that.

Thunder struck outside, so loud that it barely sounded muffled at all.

This whole plan of his seemed stupid now.

Maybe this was what the King wanted-- to spook him, to frighten him into doing something uncharacteristically nonsensical. D3rlord3 wouldn’t put it past Him.

D3rlord3 still hadn’t said anything in reply; he didn’t exactly trust his voice. His eyes were stuck on the windowpane, watching and listening as the rainstorm battered against the glass. Avery was the one to puncture the silence.

“Sorry,” he said quietly, wringing his hands. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s down there, so maybe I shouldn’t be arguing. And if you’d rather I stay away, then… okay. But don’t shut yourself away.”

D3rlord3 swallowed thickly.

“If it weren’t for you, I’d have already done it,” he admitted, staring up at the ceiling.

From the corner of his vision, he could see Avery’s eyes soften infinitesimally.

Ugh. Okay. This was enough touchy-feely stuff for one night, D3rlord3 decided.

“I should head out,” he murmured before anything else more sappy could tumble from his mouth. Over to the front door he crossed, one hand on the handle.

He heard Avery’s footsteps trace behind him. “So, um, is that whole locking-yourself-away idea still on the table?”

He hesitated. “No,” he said in earnest, not sure how the idea ever burrowed its way into his mind in the first place. “You’re right. I just wasn’t thinking straight.”

With that, he pushed the front door open and squinted through the sheets of rain.

From behind him, he heard Avery speak up again. “You’re gonna walk? In a rainstorm?”

To be very honest, he wasn’t looking forward to it, especially after having dried off in the warmth of Avery’s home.

But D3rlord3 just mumbled, “I’ll make it.”

He had taken exactly one step outside when he felt a tug on his cloak made him stop-- Avery’s hand. D3rlord3 turned to face him.

“Are you sure?” he asked, glancing warily between D3rlord3 and the rain.

He sighed, yanked his cloak free. “Yes. I’ll live.”

“Because…” said Avery, stopping D3rlord3 in his tracks yet again, “I do have room here.”

At that, D3rlord3 wrinkled up his nose. “I am not sharing a bed with you.”

Avery rolled his eyes. “Wow, okay, that is not what I was suggesting. Funny how your mind goes there, though. Anyway-- I meant that I have a spare room.”

D3rlord3 thumbed through his memory. “Uh, no, you don’t.”

Avery gave a half-shrug. “Then maybe you just don’t know everything. Because I do have one, smarty-pants. And, anyway, I think I owe you for, um, totally chewing you out before.”

“And calling me a moody teenager,” D3rlord3 reminded him.

“Those weren’t my exact words,” he pointed out, then sighed. “But, yeah. I guess.”

Thunder boomed in the distance as D3rlord3 thought it over. The thought of trudging through all that rain was not very appealing.

It wasn’t like there was anything waiting for him back down underground, anyway.

A smile had returned to Avery’s face as he looked at him expectantly. He must have figured out D3rlord3 was coming around, because he cupped a hand to his ear and mused, “Yes? Do I hear a yes?”

“Fine,” sighed out D3rlord3.

“Smart choice. Now, get in here before you rust or something.”

D3rlord3 was about to butt in and say that actually, gold doesn’t rust, when Avery stepped around him to shut the front door.

“C’mon,” he said, “I’ll show you to the room.”

----

D3rlord3’s eyes wandered over the interior of the house as Avery led him to the, quote, spare room.

Avery’s house was charmingly messy; furniture was mostly handmade and the carpets were mismatched, haphazardly laid out across the floor to cut the cold drafts. Candles sat in busy shelves, all filled with compasses, papers, and trinkets of every kind. D3rlord3 spotted his own book lying there among them.

Avery stopped in front of a door and smiled up at D3rlord3. “Here you are,” he said, opening the door.

D3rlord3 peered in, and something tugged at his mind.

“This is your room,” he said, the realization trickling in all at once. “You’re giving me your bedroom?”

Avery put his hands up. “Oh, come on, what was I supposed to do? I’m a good host!”

D3rlord3 stared down at him. “I am not sleeping in here,” he said decidedly, turning to leave--

--But Avery was in the way, casually leaning against the doorframe.

“You’re a real stubborn knight, you know that?”

There was nothing D3rlord3 could really say to argue against that.

“It’s just one night, okay?” Avery reassured him. “You’ll survive.”

D3rlord3 deflated. To be fair, the day's events were starting to catch up to him-- and sleep sounded like a very welcome reprieve. He gave a once-over to the bedroom interior, not sure why he was considering this.

For how weird Avery was, his room was normal, maybe even nice. It was definitely tidier than the rest of the house, with a bed neatly made with a quilt; and shelves by a window with just as many knickknacks as the rest of the house. It was all arranged in a way that suggested Avery had a spot for everything.

With a sigh in resignation, D3rlord3 turned and asked him, “Well, but, where are you sleeping?”

“I’ve got options,” he said vaguely. A lopsided smile spread across his face upon catching sight of D3rlord3’s unconvinced look. “Oh, I’ll be fine, really. No need to be so chivalrous.”

D3rlord3 sighed. “Right.”

Avery’s smile didn’t fade. He casually tapped a hand against the wood of the doorframe. “Okay, well. I guess I’ll leave you to it. ‘Night.”

With that, he was on his way out and had pulled the door halfway shut when D3rlord3 said, “Wait.”

Avery went still and looked up at him expectantly. The room seemed to go quieter.

“Look, Avery,” he began to say, feeling close to choking on his own sentimentality, “I don’t… I really don’t mind your visits. I think they’re keeping me sane.”

He didn’t say anything in reply; just smiled. They both let that hang in the air for a second longer before Avery shut the door.

Chapter Text

For the first time in a long time, D3rlord3 didn’t wake up to the sound of silence. This time, it was rain, tapping against the windowpane.

For a single, odd second, the room seemed unfamiliar to him. He mentally combed through the trickling realization: he was in Avery’s house, in his room, and more specifically, his bed. It sounded like the start of a bad romcom movie.

D3rlord3 tilted his head to look out the bedroom window-- some pale sunlight had managed to punch through the gray rainclouds, casting a muggy glow across everything. D3rlord3’s armor was arranged on a chair across the room; he remembered picking it off last night and then falling asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow.

He didn’t get up immediately, taking solace in the rare silence in his mind. He closed his eyes and listened to the gentle sound of rain falling against the roof.

He considered the chain of events that led him here and concluded that the universe was playing a weird joke on him. Not so long ago, he’d gag at the idea of spending any more time than needed around Avery. Now he was in his room, sleeping on his pillow, and under his quilted blanket.

It even smelled like Avery.

Hm. Right, that was enough of that-- D3rlord3 quickly threw that train of thought from his mind and yanked the covers off of himself. He got to work donning his armor pieces and slipping on his helmet, all of which had dried overnight from the rain.

Once he was dressed, he pushed open the door with a tad bit more force (it was broken and had been for years, he knew that) and made his way down the hall.

He knew his way around weirdly easily, still not used to the feeling of knowing the floorplan of a house he’d never been in before.

Upon entering the living area, D3rlord3 stopped and sighed at the perfectly ridiculous sight that greeted him:

Avery, fast asleep on a bench under a window, with a way-too-small blanket thrown atop him. His limbs were sprawled out awkwardly as he snored. It seemed he fell asleep in his day clothes in the only spot he could find.

D3rlord3 just stopped and stared down at him, feeling an overwhelming pity that he thought could only ever be extended to baby puppies and unlikely animal friendships.

He really didn’t have any reason to wake him. After all, it was still raining. So, D3rlord3 left him be.

That gave him time to wander around the house. He didn’t think twice of it— Avery would have done the same in his position.

His house was the polar opposite of D3rlord3’s-- while he lived with the bare minimum, Avery took pride in filling his living space with anything mildly interesting.

D3rlord3 wandered past the mismatched furniture and over to a shelf by a window. The rain was coming down in showers; still guaranteeing an uncomfortable walk back to the mine. There was a bucket arranged to catch rainwater dripping from the roof-- the leak had been a problem for years; he knew that.

Something on a table caught his eye, and upon closer inspection, D3rlord3 saw his own book lying among the clutter. Its spine was cracked; it had clearly been flipped open often. With his thumb, D3rlord3 turned to the first page. His own messy, panicked handwriting stared back at him:

Whatever you do at the crossroads, don’t turn left.

Don’t be fooled. It’s listening.

He was lost in the memory of that day when a voice startled him from his thoughts:

“Snoop.”

He turned around and saw Avery standing there, freshly awake and rubbing at his eyes.

D3rlord3 snapped the book shut. “You’re finally up.”

“Well, good morning to you, too,” Avery said, voice groggy and sleep-tinged. “How long have you been up? It’s so early.”

“A while.” D3rlord3 threw a glance over at the empty bench. “I… thought you said you had somewhere else to sleep.”

It took Avery a second to understand what he was referring to. “Are you still on that? Quit your worrying. It was just one night,” he said, stretching out his back.

D3rlord3 frowned at the implication that he was worrying over Avery, but otherwise said nothing. He had crossed over and was peering through the windowpane, eyebrows raised.

“Still raining,” Avery noted, a small smile on his lips. “Guess you’re still stuck here ‘til it clears up.”

“Don’t remind me.”

“Hey,” he pointed out, nudging D3rlord3’s shoulder pauldron. “You said you liked my company.”

“I said I didn’t mind your visits.”

“Same thing,” Avery said, even though it was not, in fact, the same thing. “How’d you sleep?”

D3rlord3 was already trying to repress any memory of having ever slept in Avery’s bedroom. He didn’t appreciate the reminder. “Fine.”

“Good. That’s good.” Avery rocked on his heels as the conversation tapered out. “You’re… hungry, right? Oh, what am I saying? Of course you’re hungry.”

Leaving no room to reply, Avery set off for the kitchen, just a few steps away. It wasn’t long before they were both seated at a table, D3rlord3 sitting across from Avery, two servings of breakfast in front of them.

He really needed to stop letting these grossly domestic mealtime moments happen.

Aside from Avery dropping his fork when D3rlord3 first removed his helmet, it was a normal breakfast. Being bare-faced around Avery didn’t feel quite as awkward as it used to, though his slack-jawed looks did not always help.

They ate in silence for a few minutes until D3rlord3 finally spoke up.

“You want to ask me something.”

Avery shrugged his shoulders, feigning aloofness. “Nah. What? Who said that? I didn’t say anything.”

“I can see it on your face,” he pointed out. “Just say it.”

He puffed out a breath, giving in. “Okay, fine,” he said, and set down his fork. “Something freaked you out enough to show up here last night. What was it?”

Ah. D3rlord3 hadn’t been expecting that question. He thought he’d ask about his helmet or chipmunks again.

Now, unfortunately, D3rlord3 was not used to having to conceal his facial expressions. The nice thing about always wearing a helmet was that D3rlord3 could roll his eyes, or zone out, or scowl or whatever without anyone noticing. And by anyone, he meant Avery. When it was off, that all went out the window.

He had to choose his words carefully here. He could feel Avery staring at him.

Avery seemed to read his wary expression enough. “If you don’t wanna say—”

“--I wasn’t thinking clearly,” said D3rlord3 suddenly. “Last night, I had a…” He shook his head, started over. “It’s like you said. We’re the only two people who know about the mine, so I thought if I sealed off the entrance, I’d never have to worry about you going left.”

Avery put a hand over his heart and fawned, “Awwh, you worry about little old me?”

D3rlord3 wrinkled his nose. “You know what I mean. So nobody else will have to see the--” He stopped himself. “So nobody else turns left. But I overreacted.”

Avery slowly nodded. “You were scared,” he said, and D3rlord3 could only narrow his eyes at him.

“I’m never scared.”

Avery just stared back curiously, tilting his head as if to say, Yeah, right. They looked at one another for a moment longer; not talking, not eating, just reading in between the lines.

Avery was the one to break the silence, with his typical half-smile. “Has anyone ever told you that you make very intense eye contact?”

D3rlord3 cleared his throat and returned his attention back to his plate.

“Honestly,” said Avery around a mouthful of food. “What I still don’t get is why you decided to haul yourself up here.”

D3rlord3 honestly didn’t have an answer to that. Not one that he wanted to voice aloud, anyway.

His silence seemed to be enough of a reply to Avery, who just nodded slowly. “I see.” He gestured at him with his fork. “You’ve got a lot of secrets, you know.”

“It’s for your own good.”

“So you say. I don’t keep secrets from you, though.”

“Because I already know them all.”

Avery blinked down at his plate. “Hm. Right. I forget that. I’ll be real, that’s always a little hard for me to wrap my head around.”

D3rlord3 was about to leave it at that before deciding to make this breakfast a little more entertaining. For himself more than anything.

“Three months ago,” D3rlord3 recalled, pulling the story from his gate-gifted memory, “A raccoon started chasing you while you were working outside.”

Avery shot him a murderous look mid-bite. “I didn’t exactly ask for an example.”

Unfortunately for him, D3rlord3 was rather enjoying this. “You ran. Tripped over the doorway trying to get away from it, hoping it wouldn’t chase you inside the house.”

There was a rising color in Avery’s cheeks. “Yeah, I think I’m done with this conversation--”

“--it did, by the way. Chase you inside.”

“Well-- Well,” Avery cut him off, clearly itching to change the topic, “Right, that’s enough. You know what? New ground rule. No picking at my brain, or… or bringing out my secrets.”

“Sure,” said D3rlord3. And then, because he wasn’t quite done with this game of tease: “Why did you try hitting it with a broom?”

Avery rolled his eyes. “You’re an ass.”

----

After a few more mentions of raccoons and one too many questions about armor-polishing technique, they finished their meal.

It took some nudging from Avery, but D3rlord3 reluctantly agreed that it was a good meal. In full honesty, anything that wasn’t a baked potato tasted terrific to him.

Avery was happily collecting their plates, saying, “Honestly, dude, I assumed you’d be vegan. Given that you personally know every animal ever.”

D3rlord3 could only blink at him. “You have a very active imagination.”

“Thanks,” he beamed, choosing to take that as a compliment. He went off to tidy away the dishes.

D3rlord3 stood and picked up his helmet, turning it over in his hands. From the corner of his eye, he saw Avery pause, quietly studying him.

Then D3rlord3 slipped the helmet back on, and Avery’s shoulders sank in something almost like disappointment.

“It’s still raining,” D3rlord3 noted, looking out the window.

Avery followed his gaze and nodded. “Yeah. We’ll wait it out. In the meantime, I’m taking a nap.”

D3rlord3 leaned back from his seat at the table and huffed in disbelief as Avery dragged a blanket over to the bench. “Didn’t you… just wake up?”

“Yes. So?” Avery flopped into a reclined position, hands folded over his chest. He shut his eyes and said, “Wake me when the rain’s stopped. Or don’t, and just leave. Up to you.”

D3rlord3 rested his head in his palm and just sighed, head angled to absentmindedly watch his ever-annoying and always-stubborn… Well, whatever Avery was. He didn’t exactly have a term for him. And D3rlord3 would rather turn left than ever call him a friend.

D3rlord3 knew Avery could fall asleep anywhere. One arm hung off the couch as his breathing began to steady out. Only someone who’d never seen the things D3rlord3 had seen could sleep like that.

Something warm stirred in his gut. He realized that this was why he panic-wrote his book, this was why he considered a crazy idea of sealing away the mine. So that Avery could keep being his annoying self. And so that at least one of them could sleep without all of the universe’s knowledge clawing at their minds.

Lost in his thoughts, D3rlord3 didn’t realize that Avery wasn’t fully asleep.

His eyes stayed closed, but a slow smile tugged at his mouth. “Are you done staring?”

D3rlord3 averted his eyes, heat prickling at the back of his neck. “...Asshole.”

----

With Avery conked out on the bench and the rain still not stopping, D3rlord3 was once again left alone to pass the time. It mostly consisted of wandering around the house and silently staring out of windows like a repressed Victorian gentleman.

And he knew Avery was really sleeping when he flashed him the middle finger two inches from his face and he didn’t stir. A simple test, but it worked.

Convinced, D3rlord3 had slumped back down into a seat at the table and watched rain trickle down the windowpane. He knew how every drop had formed, where it had been, why it slid down the glass in that exact way.

He had been absently counting the drops when he heard it:

Silence. The rain had stopped.

D3rlord3 pushed out his chair with a creak, cracking open the front door to confirm that the rainfall had, indeed, passed. He stepped outside and onto the beaten path, looking up at the sky. After a moment’s thought, he slipped off the helmet and held it in the crook of his arm.

The rainclouds were retreating, the sun punching through the gray and scattering its light across the rain-wet grass. It’d been a while since he’d felt sunlight on his face.

From behind him, he heard the front door creak open. Avery appeared at his side, blinking slowly, his hair tousled from sleep. D3rlord3 had to smother that baby-animal pity feeling again.

Avery yawned. “Huh. The rain’s let up. I bet you’re totally heartbroken that you can leave now,” he teased, nudging D3rlord3 with an elbow.

D3rlord3 hmph’d but otherwise said nothing in reply to that. “Your hair’s a mess,” he pointed out instead.

Avery was quick to run a hand through the strands to smooth them out. While he did that, D3rlord3’s eyes stayed stuck on the spot where the sunlight-dappled trees hit the sky. He was still toying with his hair when D3rlord3 said aloud, “I haven’t seen the sun in a long while.”

“Huh?” said Avery, dropping his hands back to his sides. He followed his eyes, gaze settling on the horizon. “Oh. Yeah. ‘S nice.”

There they stood, shoulder to shoulder and watching the last handful of rainclouds dissipate. D3rlord3 really needed to stop getting himself into these mushy situations with Avery.

He threw the occasional peek over to D3rlord3. “I gotta say, the cave lighting was not doing your mug any favors.”

D3rlord3 blinked, looked down at him. “What does that mean?”

“Um.” Avery wrung his hands, as if just realizing what he’d said. “Nothing.”

D3rlord3 spared him one last suspicious look before he slipped his helmet back over his head, preparing to go. “I’m off,” he said to Avery.

Avery straightened. “Oh. Alright, yeah. Though before you go, I wanted to say… uh, look,” he said, picking through the right words, “I know I seemed a little freaked when you showed up, but that doesn’t mean you’re not welcome up here.”

From under the helmet, D3rlord3 scoffed. “On the surface?”

“At my house,” Avery corrected.

They stared at each other. If D3rlord3 didn’t know any better, he’d say it was becoming a habit.

“Just saying. Offer’s open,” Avery said, a tiny smirk on his face. “Just in case you get bored of the cave.”

“And make you sleep on a bench?”

“Dude,” he said, exasperated, with his smile growing. “I walk half a marathon down to your sad, dark village just to see you. Sleeping on a wood plank is nothing.”

D3rlord3 sighed at his ever-elementary way of phrasing. It was a nice gesture.

Avery leaned into his field of vision, teasing, “Are you smiling under there?”

D3rlord3’s reply was instant. “No.”

“Are too,” Avery shot back, tilting his head knowingly at him. “Gosh, did I make the walking encyclopedia smile?”

Unfortunately, the answer was a sure yes, although D3rlord3 would never dare admit it out loud. He looked at Avery, and even with every language’s vocabulary at his fingertips, he still struggled to put a name to the feeling suddenly wrenching his stomach. Or maybe it was in his chest. God forbid his heart.

Avery was the one to look away first, clapping his hands together as he drew in a deep breath. “Well! If you’re gonna dip, I won’t hold you back. I’m sure you’ve got potato plants to watch die and stuff.”

D3rlord3 ignored the jab at his farm (although it was, indeed, a bad farm), nodding as he readjusting his cloak. He had taken one step out onto the beaten path when Avery piped up from behind him.

“Wait.”

And when D3rlord3 turned around, Avery asked it almost sheepishly, his usual snark gone: “Can I walk with you?”

D3rlord3 looked out at the path, then to Avery, then back to the path. He sighed and nodded once. The smile that followed from Avery could beat out the sun.

----

Avery took it upon himself to keep the short trip entertaining, mostly through asking burning questions such as “Where does wind come from?” and “Do birds know they’re birds?”.

Meanwhile, the sun was dipping under the horizon, with the first stars peeking through the sky. It dawned on D3rlord3 that he’d spent the majority of the day up on the surface.

Eventually, they stopped and came face to face with the entrance of the mine, looking the same as ever. D3rlord3 felt a tad bit uneasy for leaving it unattended for so long.

D3rlord3 was about to huff out a goodbye when he turned and saw Avery’s neck craned up to look at the sky above. The stars were brighter, scattered across the inky black expanse.

“What’s that one?” Avery asked, pointing a finger to a constellation up above. “Constellation, I mean. I was never good at spotting them.”

D3rlord3 opened his mouth to dismiss it before realizing he wasn’t in a hurry, anyway. He could humor him. He looked up to the early night sky. “That’s Ursa Major,” he answered, the knowledge coming to him easily.

Avery pointed to another. “That one?”

“Perseus.”

“What about that one over there, with the big star in the middle?”

“That one’s your favorite. Capricorn.”

“I don’t have a favorite constellation.” He paused, scratching his chin. “Oh. I do?”

After a few moments watching the sky darken, D3rlord3 pointed up to another cluster of lights. “That one is Orion. The hunter.”

Avery followed his hand and tried to spot it. “Where?”

“Right there,” he said. “The three brightest stars, all in a row.”

Avery’s eyes were darting all across the sky, trying to spot it. He frowned; though he wasn’t even looking in the right direction. “Meh. I can’t find it.”

With a sigh, D3lord3 stepped over and hooked a finger under Avery’s chin, tilting it up until he was facing the right direction. With his free hand, he pointed again to the constellation dotting the inky sky.

“There. The arrow, with the belt?”

“Uh-huh,” Avery mumbled against his palm, not very convincingly.

They stayed like that a moment longer, though D3rlord3 honestly wasn’t even sure Avery was looking for the constellation anymore. And maybe it was only the dusky light that gave the illusion of a flush creeping onto Avery’s face.

D3rlord3 couldn’t help it-- he almost took pleasure in being the one to finally shut him up for once. And all it took was a simple hand under his jaw.

He slowly withdrew his hand but didn’t step back. Neither did Avery.

“Well. I’m guessing I’ll see you again soon,” D3rlord3 said quietly.

Avery seemed to have found his tongue again, because he mused back, “Yup. You don’t have a choice.”

D3rlord3 assumed as much. With that, he ducked under the mine entrance and prepared himself for the second leg of his trip, this time back to the village. He looked back once, just long enough to spot Avery giving him an awkward wave goodbye.

Chapter Text

Sparring had become one of their mutually preferred pastimes.

To be honest, D3rlord3 really didn’t mind; it felt good to use his weapons and his knowledge. It also gave him an excuse to try and beat up Avery (within the limits of their ground rules.)

Today, they took up their usual swords and set up in the village square, where the lighting was better and there was no risk of trampling the crops. (And also so that Avery could intermittently dunk his head in the fountain to cool off between rounds. D3rlord3 would watch from afar and slowly shake his head.)

“You’re getting better,” D3rlord3 had noted, sidestepping a particular blow during one of their rounds.

Avery countered with a handful more. His blade whizzed past D3rlord3’s helmet. “Maybe you’re just getting worse?”

“Not possible.”

“Sounds a bit like denial.”

With every visit, Avery was only getting snappier, and D3rlord3 couldn’t understand why he didn’t find it irritating.

Their blades crashed together, and Avery faltered in his stance. D3rlord3 spotted an opening immediately, pushing forward with more force than he meant. The flat edge of his sword slipped and hit against Avery’s bicep, sending him stumbling backwards.

“Ow,” Avery mumbled, reaching to rub at his hit arm.

Alarm was quick to flare in D3rlord3’s chest. “My fault,” he said. “Are you—?”

Avery was quick to wave it off, eager to get back to the fight. “—Fine!” He scooped his sword back up, this time favoring his other hand. “This is supposed to be a fair fight, anyway, right? No holding back.”

D3rlord3 frowned, eyes stuck on his arm. “Avery—”

“Again!”

Avery leapt forward, sword swinging for D3rlord3’s chestplate. He blocked it easily. With a huff, Avery aimed and swung again, but D3rlord3 was still faster. In one, well-timed twist of his blade, Avery lost his grip and the sword fell to the ground.

While catching his breath, Avery blinked up at him in mild shock. “How did you…”

He didn’t finish the sentence, as D3rlord3 had closed the distance between them and stopped in front of Avery, who hadn’t gotten up from the ground yet.

“Let me see it.”

“What?”

D3rlord3 pointed to his arm.

Avery groaned. “Oh, I’m fine. Seriously, you didn’t even—”

He was cut off with a yelp as D3rlord3 grabbed him by the non-injured hand and easily pulled him to his feet. Gloved fingers pulled up Avery’s shirtsleeve, inspecting the area that had gotten hit.

Avery let out a half-choked laugh, very obviously avoiding eye contact. “Jeez. I told you. I’m fine, you didn’t even draw blood.”

As he said, there was no bleeding, though it was obvious where the blunt of the blade had hit him. It was going to be a nasty bruise, but he’d be fine.

Avery had, unsurprisingly, gone silent at the touch, but managed to find his voice after a while. “See? I’m fine.”

D3rlord3 turned his arm over, looking it over again. “I didn’t exactly believe you.”

“So you do worry about me?”

D3rlord3 paused, looked up at Avery— who was smirking knowingly— and then dropped his arm.

“That’s enough for today.”

“As in— sparring?” Avery protested, stepping after him. “Aww, no, come on! You saw it, I’m fine! One more!”

“No.”

Avery huffed a disappointed sigh, but a small smile crept in anyway. He picked up his sword as he mused out loud.

“You, turning down a fight?” Avery gestured up and down D3rlord3’s armor. “Come on, I thought manhandling me was how you showed affection.”

D3rlord3 almost rolled his eyes. “Don’t say that word around me. I’ll throw up.”

“What word? Affection?” he dragged out, purposefully mocking. “Affection, affection, affection, affection, af--”

D3rlord3 tightened his grip on the sword, and one swing shut Avery up and launched them into another round. Blades crashed into one another, slid past, and met again in the same breath.

Annoyingness aside, D3rlord3 could at the very least admit that Avery was a good fighter. He wasn’t convinced that just anyone could keep D3rlord3’s hits at bay while spitting the occasional smartass comment. Avery excelled at both.

About a minute in, D3rlord3 spotted a gap in his defense— one blow to his lower hilt and the sword would be knocked out of Avery’s hand. It was a no-brainer of a move.

So, D3rlord3 swung. His hit was halfway to making contact when his mind rushed ahead to fill in the blanks. He realized that his strike was surely going to send Avery falling onto his hurt arm— without thinking twice, D3rlord3 pulled back at the last second.

Meanwhile, Avery jumped at the opportunity and advanced, slamming his sword against his. The knight lost his footing along with his balance; he fell backwards onto the packed dirt. When he looked up, the end of Avery’s blade was an inch from his helmet.

“Ha! Got you,” he said, reveling in the victory for a moment before pulling back his blade. “Lucky hit, huh?”

“Maybe.”

He got back on his feet just in time to see Avery spinning his sword hilt in his hand, bouncing from foot to foot excitedly.

“One more round. I’m on a streak or something, I swear, man!”

“Nope,” D3rlord3 said curtly, and plucked the sword from Avery’s hand as he walked past. “That’s enough.”

Avery gave a usual dramatic sigh, but otherwise didn’t protest. Without having to be told, he trailed behind the knight and helped tidy away the weapons in a stack near a house. D3rlord3 tossed him a cup he’d brought from the house and went over to the fountain. He didn’t have to look behind him to know that Avery was following.

----

They both dunked cups into the fountain and sat back on the doorstep of some nearby house, catching their breaths. D3rlord3 flexed his hand and felt the burn in his limbs; sparring always did leave him sore.

Avery, meanwhile, was looking the cup over in his hand. “Are these from your place?”

“If you’re going to make some joke about the two of us sharing dishes, just get it out of your system already.”

“Well, now I won’t.” Avery took a long drink of water and mused aloud, “Though, I wonder if the people who used to drink from these cups are dead now.”

“Oh, they are.”

Avery pulled the cup away from his mouth and stared at it silently.

While he did that, D3rlord3 slipped off his helmet and wiped the sweat from his brow, then took a long drink of water.

He knew that Avery was watching him. One glance to his side confirmed it: Avery had his cup tilted up to his mouth but definitely wasn’t drinking.

“You have a staring problem,” D3rlord3 said to him plainly.

Avery looked away a second too late. “I wasn’t staring.”

“The tips of your ears go red when you lie.”

Avery turned his whole body away in an attempt to hide his rising blush. “Yeah, okay, keep this up and I’ll never come back again.”

D3rlord3 hummed amusedly. “That’s not the threat you think it is.”

“Oh, admit it,” Avery said, turning around to face him again. “What would you do without me? Really. Stare out windows? Spend all day polishing your armor?”

Avery leaned over and put his face an inch away from D3rlord3’s shoulder pauldron, staring at his own reflection. “I mean, how much shinier can it get?”

With his index finger, D3rlord3 pushed Avery out of his personal bubble. “Right, that’s enough.”

“You know, since you know every embarrassing thing about me, I should really learn at least one thing about you.”

A good point. D3rlord3 thought about it. “No.”

“Oh, come on,” he said, scootching even closer. “Literally anything.”

“Here’s one: I let you win that last spar.”

Avery cocked his head to the side. “Guess what? I knew.”

From behind his cup, D3rlord3 minutely shook his head. “What would you even want to know?” he asked, once again not sure why he was humoring him.

“Uh… I don’t know. Like I said. Anything.” He lightly knocked his knee against D3rlord3’s. “Like… Why do you live down here?"

He glanced sideways at him. “What do you mean?”

“Down here in the village,” Avery explained. “In your sad house. You could be on the surface.”

It certainly was a blunt way of putting it, though D3rlord3 ignored his wording. “You know why,” he said, keeping his eyes on his cup. “To keep people away from the mines.”

Avery looked around innocently. “Well, I’m here.”

“That’s… different.”

“Different how?”

“I know you only show up to pester me.”

Avery grinned. “Spot on. And, well, as your designated pest, I want to say— and tell me if this is out of line— but, um, you don’t have to live like this. Nobody is forcing you to… play the guard.”

D3rlord3 just stared at him.

Avery caught his confused expression and explained, “You should just live your life.”

“And… what sort of life do you expect someone like me to live?” D3rlord3 asked sarcastically.

“That’s the beauty of it! You don’t know the future— nobody does. Do what you want!”

If there was anything that D3rlord3 could count on, it was Avery’s constant, naive hopefulness. He almost envied it, with his bright eyes and his hands gesturing wide.

Avery continued on some more. “You’re a pessimist, that’s your problem. But, listen, you just can’t spend your life worrying. I’m serious.”

D3rlord3 sighed heavily. “Do you see the irony in giving advice to a man who’s literally heard it all before?”

Avery tilted his head from side to side, as if considering how to reply to that. “Okay, yes, a little,” he said with some hesitance. “But… come on.”

“I have to make sure nobody else finds the crossroads,” D3rlord3 doubled down.

“But why you?”

“If not me, who else?”

Avery shrugged. “Write another book.”

“It wouldn’t be enough.”

“How do you know?”

D3lord3 pinched the bridge of his nose. All this back and forth was going to give him a headache. “Avery,” he mumbled, exasperated.

Avery slinked back as if he’d broken something. “Okay, sorry, sorry. Prying, I know.”

Silence took over, and they just sat and listened to the fountain nearby. This was the most use that the village had gotten in a very long time.

D3rlord3 hated that he knew that.

He glanced over to Avery, who was quietly running a finger over the rim of his cup. Yet again, he hated how much that unhappy expression bothered him. It was quite an accomplishment to earn pity from someone like D3rlord3.

He decided to be the one to shatter the silence.

“I don’t know what else to live for,” D3rlord3 admitted, prompting Avery to look up.

This whole moment was dripping with vulnerability— his face was bare, their faces still flushed from the sparring, talking about all this. Worse yet, D3rlord3 was one movement away from touching shoulders with Avery.

“You once asked me what I liked to do, before the crossroads,” D3rlord3 continued, trying to articulate his thoughts. “Before everything. But I can’t remember what I was like.”

Avery was graciously quiet for once.

“I’m still the same, but every thought is different. I see things differently. I remember things differently. You forget the little things about yourself.” He set his jaw. “It’s why I’m so uptight about you not turning left.”

Avery looked away and instead fixed his gaze into his cup, as if the right reply was hidden in there somewhere.

“Aw. Don’t stress yourself about that,” Avery said. “I’m not turning left. ‘Cause if you’re so serious about it, then so am I.”

D3rlord3’s fingers tapped against the wood of the steps, inches from Avery’s hand. After a second, he nodded quietly in something like thanks.

Avery puffed out a breath. “And I have to admit, it sucks that you have this burden. Of knowing everything. I think about that a lot, and what it must feel like.”

There was a rare seriousness in his tone. D3rlord3 flicked his gaze down at Avery’s hands, which were wringing nervously.

“And, um, I don’t know if I’m supposed to say this out loud, but I do think of you as-- you know-- a friend.”

That word was what made D3rlord3 go still. Avery continued on.

“And it sucks that I can’t help you.”

Even with a brain full of knowledge on human expression, D3rlord3 couldn’t figure out what to say to that. It wasn’t a bad sort of speechlessness that D3rlord3 was currently feeling. Maybe it was good.

This was truly the only other human being who knew about D3rlord3’s mistake, who knew what plagued his mind, at least a little. And he wasn’t unsettled. In fact, he sought him out despite it. That was weird to think about.

Thankfully, before D3rlord3 could voice any of the sappy stuff bubbling in his chest, Avery broke the silence with a nervous laugh.

“Jeez, look what you’ve done to me,” he mused, nudging D3rlord3 with his elbow. “We better change the topic before one of us starts tearing up or something. I didn’t think I could ever be so melodramatic.”

D3rlord3 exhaled a small laugh— much to Avery’s delight— and silently agreed. He picked out a comforting memory at random and voiced it:

“You… tripped a lot as a toddler.”

Avery sighed, slumped in his posture. But anyone would have caught the smile in his eyes. “Not this again.”

“Real fussy,” D3rlord3 plowed on, reminiscing as if he were there. “Threw tantrums over cookies.”

“Hmph. I don’t remember that.”

“Nope, but I do.”

“I thought I said no bringing up my embarrassing memories,” Avery said, resting his chin in his palm.

D3rlord3 was starting to lose track of how many times he’d been tempted to smile today. “I know you don’t mind.”

“Ugh,” groaned out Avery, and he put his head in his hands. “I don’t think it’s possible to keep a single secret from you.”

“It’d be very difficult.”

He lifted his head. “What counts as a secret, anyway? When is it a secret and just something you don’t know?”

D3rlord3 pulled a definition from his mind easily. “A secret is defined as an intended disconnect in the understanding of information.”

“Go figure,” he teased good-naturedly. “I ask a know-it-all a question, and I get a know-it-all answer.”

Never giving Avery his name seemed to come with its upsides, like getting to hear all the nicknames he’d managed to come up with.

D3rlord3 tiled his head, amused. “You literally asked.”

“Sure, right. You see, this is why I can’t leave you alone,” Avery said, smiling. “You really would go nuts. With just a fountain and your brain and an empty village, and… what else?”

“My farm,” D3rlord3 provided.

“Right. Your farm. Oh, and the whispering, too.”

D3rlord3’s stomach sank, and the lightheartedness of their previous conversation seemed a lightyear away. “What?”

Avery said casually, “You know. The whispering down here in the caves.”

D3rlord3’s mouth was dry, and he turned to face Avery. “You… hear whispering?”

“Yeah, sometimes,” he said, and it was obvious he had no idea what this spelled out for him. “At least, I definitely heard it today. Why? Don’t you?”

“What… what does this whispering sound like?”

“You don’t know what whispering sounds like? I don’t know. A mumbling kind of sound.” Avery’s smile was slowly melting into an uneasy one. “Why? You hear it too, right?”

Once. When he first came here. Little whispers leading up to his ultimate mistake. D3rlord3 had to fight to keep the dread from showing on his face.

“Uh?” Avery dragged out when he had still received no answer. “Is… is that bad?”

D3rlord3 caught the look on Avery’s face, equal parts confusion and concern. He forced himself to fight past the lump in his throat and respond.

“No. Nope,” he answered quickly, and even more suddenly, he offered: “How about I walk you back up to the surface today?”

“Wha-- Huh?” Avery spluttered, clearly not convinced of his attempt to change the conversation. D3rlord3 dully realized that he needed to take drastic measures. “Is this just you changing the topic, or…?”

“Isn’t that what friends do?” asked D3rlord3 innocently.

He knew exactly what he was doing when he’d worded that sentence. Just as he’d predicted, Avery froze, blinking, having forgotten all about the whisper-talk.

“Friends?” he repeated, face blanching. “I mean. Right. Friends. Um. Uh. Well, I didn’t say no…”

D3rlord3 kept his eyes fixed on him, silent.

Avery sucked in a breath. “Wow, you can really be an asshole,” he mumbled out. “Fine, fine. We’ll walk together. And can I just say, it’s not fair that you do your whole puppy-eyes thing when your helmet’s off.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said D3rlord3, who knew exactly what he was talking about.

Avery crossed his arms, eyes narrowed, face still tinged with red. “Sure you don’t.”

----

Some time later, Avery hinted that it was time for him to go. D3rlord3 stood, slipped on his helmet, and the two of them started the walk back to the main cave entrance. No whispers interrupted, much to D3rlord3’s relief.

A few minutes into the walk, and during a lull in the conversation, D3rlord3 hesitantly brought up Avery’s earlier mention about what he’d heard in the caves.

“Why didn’t you tell me about the whispering sooner?” he asked, tilting his helmet down to read his expression.

Avery thought about it. “Um. I guess it just didn’t seem important. Weirder things are in this cave. You, for example.”

D3rlord3 didn’t want to admit that he was not the only thing down in these caves. He also didn’t want to lie. He also, suddenly, could not shake the memory of his last nightmare.

“I feel like there’s something you’re not telling me.”

“No. Just be careful.” He glanced down at Avery’s arm. “And put something cold on that when you get home.”

“That’s, like, the third time you’ve brought it up already.”

“Don’t really feel like finding your corpse in the tunnels.”

“What did I say about pessimism?” Avery recalled with a smirk.

D3rlord3 stared up at the cave ceiling and huffed a sigh.

——

They emptied into the main mine soon enough, and Avery only made a wrong turn twice. D3rlord3 marveled at how he ever found his own way around.

He watched as Avery bid him goodnight and ducked out of the mine, disappearing above-ground. Not without turning around a few times and waving goodbye to the knight, of course.

D3rlord3 began the walk back home alone, a million more thoughts on his mind than usual.

Even with Avery properly dropped off, he was not exactly put at ease. However much he didn’t want to admit it, he was worried. Avery’s revelation brought with it a particularly nagging feeling into D3rlord3’s gut.

Home again. And it was in his room that he realized he was pacing. He didn’t pace very often.

But… Whispering? This was not a good sign.

Much later at night, D3rlord3 was lying in bed when the idea came to him. He groaned internally, hating that someone managed to burrow into his life enough for him to even consider doing this.

----

A sleepless night came and went, and then it was morning. Not that the caves gave any indication of the change in time.

D3rlord3 had no stomach for breakfast. Not even the food that Avery had dropped off for him the day prior seemed appetizing considering his plan.

D3rlord3 hated the fact that there was an entrance to the crossroads right under his house, so he took the long way. Call it pettiness, call it denial that it even existed. He knew that he could use a walk to clear his head, anyway.

D3rlord3 stepped out of the house and into the tunnel that led out of the cave. He was lost in his thoughts enough that the trip flew by.

The route that he took gave him a weird sense of deja vu, right up until he found himself in a horrifically familiar corridor. Two directions were ahead of him. From behind his armored chestplate, D3rlord3’s heart felt like it was going to jump out of its chest.

He went left.

It got dark, darker, and just when he could hardly make out any detail, something bright cut through the void.

D3rlord3 stared up at the golden gates for the second time in his life.

He didn’t dare step any closer than he had to. Cold fear trickled in his chest, he wasn’t afraid to admit it anymore. He was disgusted at his distant urge to peek inside again.

D3rlord3 had to ball up his hands into fists in order to keep his voice steady.

“I know you’re here,” he said, voice echoing.

No answer. Nothing in the gates changed.

D3rlord3 remembered to breathe. “I didn’t know if that dream meant something, but I… I’m not stupid. I know how you latch onto people, how you tempt them. Like you did to me.”

Nothing answered.

“Leave him alone,” D3rlord3 said, much louder but also much more shakily.

D3rlord3 knew how pathetic he must have looked, standing with shaky legs in front of the golden gates, pleading on behalf of his… on behalf of Avery.

He couldn’t exactly articulate why or when he started to care so much.

He whispered out a final word, voice barely carrying:

“Please.”

Nothing answered.

D3rlord3 stared emptily at the shape of the enormous gates, adorned in different textures of gold and yellow. Regally mocking. But this was not a place of honor or of service.

Now, D3rlord3 knew all about the human tendency to see faces in inanimate objects. Pareidolia, it was called. It was why people saw shapes in clouds, or faces on the moon. It was natural. It was human. Looking for patterns that weren’t there.

And as D3rlord3 looked over the gates, he couldn’t help but trace out the shape of a gaping smile.

Chapter Text

Avery was over again, though D3rlord3 couldn’t recall when he’d turned up or what his excuse was this time. More often than not, these days he didn’t have one. They’d settled into a habit of Avery sitting around the house and talking while D3rlord3 puttered about and did odd chores.

Today was no different. They sat across from one another at the dining table, D3rlord3 with his helmet in his hands, polishing it with a rag and listening as Avery told him about something that had happened up on the surface.

And even though D3rlord3 knew this story with better detail than Avery himself, he didn’t dare interrupt.

“—And I thought to myself, yeah, I’m never catching this fish,” Avery went on, his hands flat on the table. “But you'll never, ever guess what happened next.”

You reeled in the biggest carp you’d ever seen, thought D3rlord3, while smoothing away a scuff in the metal of his helmet.

“—I reeled in the biggest carp I’d ever seen!” Avery said, hands up in the air. “I mean, it almost knocked me off my feet. It was nuts.”

D3rlord3 nodded thoughtfully. Avery beamed at his reaction and continued on with the story.

His daily gift of food sat off to the side-- today it was soup, packaged up and pressed into D3rlord3’s hands the moment that Avery had breezed inside. When he admitted that he wasn’t hungry, Avery’s face had crumpled (along with something unplaceable in D3rlord3’s chest.)

A visit to the golden gates never did much for his appetite. But Avery didn’t know that.

It was not too long ago that D3rlord3 was staring in front of them, those gilded doors burned into the blackness of the tunnel. It stuck in his memory worse than anything, and no pile of infinite information could ever bury it.

And Avery had no idea.

Coincidentally, it was also Avery’s voice that startled him from his train of thought.

“...You good?” he asked, eyebrows furrowed in concern.

D3rlord3 cleared his throat, hopefully along with any shakiness in his voice. “What? Yes.”

Avery quietly pointed down to his hand.

D3rlord3 glanced down and found that it was shaking. He tightened his hand, willing it to go still. “What were you saying?”

Avery gave him a skeptical look but continued on.

“What was I saying? Something about… Oh, yeah-- so, I was like, who knows the difference between possums and opossums anyway, right?”

D3rlord3 looked up mid-polishing. “Me.”

Avery waved him off. “Other than you and all the nerds,” he said, before continuing on with his story.

And D3rlord3 swore he was paying attention at first, glancing up intermittently and nodding at the right parts, but at some point his focus drifted.

It was these little things about Avery that were catching D3rlord3’s attention. And for a man burdened to know everything, it was odd to start noticing things that, seemingly, were always there before. Like how Avery gestured dramatically while telling stories, or the small crease near his mouth when he tried not to laugh at his own jokes, or the hum when he forgot a word mid-sentence.

And D3rlord3 wondered, not for the first time, how much of Avery would change with just one look at the King. How much of his infectious optimism would survive. Or that blockheadedness that was so severe that it went off the charts and became charming again. Though he was smart in his own way, of course, and…

…Avery was staring at him. D3rlord3 registered a second too late that he had just asked him something.

“What?” he asked, clueless.

Avery tilted his head. “Did you hear anything I just said?”

No, not at all, and D3rlord3’s silence proved as much.

“You’re off today,” said Avery, pointing a finger at him. “First you’re not hungry, then you freeze up randomly, and now you space out.”

“Just… a lot on my mind.”

Avery drummed his fingers on the table. “I’m all ears. Is it something to do with the you-know-what?” With his finger, he traced the letter L in the air.

D3rlord3 shut his eyes. The last thing he wanted to talk about was the gates. “Avery,” he said tiredly.

“Don’t ‘Avery’ me! I want to know what’s up with you.”

D3rlord3 set down his polishing rag, and his eyes met Avery’s. He could admit that there were times when he felt the urge to tell him about the King, about his dreams, about any number of the thoughts rattling in his head. But he just bit his tongue instead.

“It’s nothing you should worry about.”

“You worry about me,” Avery retorted.

D3rlord3 didn’t exactly enjoy that he noticed that so easily. “That’s different.”

“Different how?”

“This is one of those things that is hard to explain,” he said carefully. “To understand.”

Avery didn’t nudge for him to elaborate more. He studied him for a moment, then squinted at him and said plainly, “You’re doing it again.”

“Doing what?”

“This whole sad-martyr act. I thought we--” He sighed, then started over. “Well. You can trust me, you know?”

D3rlord3 was quick to answer. “I do trust you.”

Avery just stared at him.

“I do,” D3rlord3 repeated.

Avery still said nothing. He sat there, looking at his bare face, and for once D3rlord3 couldn’t tell what was on his mind.

Of all the mess in his mind, D3rlord3 kept two concepts very, very separate. The King and Avery. There was a firm line dividing them, sorted away in their respective mental corners. The good and the bad. The welcome, the wretched. Avery knowing anything about the gates or the King was an uncomfortable thought for D3rlord3. But he wasn’t sure just how much longer he could keep that balance.

In the midst of these thoughts, their eye contact was becoming unbearable. D3rlord3 picked up his helmet and slipped it over his head.

“Alright,” Avery huffed out in defeat, leaning back in his chair. “Alright. But just because you won’t tell me what’s up doesn’t mean I’m not gonna try and cheer you up.”

D3rlord3 scoffed. “I don’t need--”

“--We can spar.”

He sighed, shaking his head. “Not today.”

From under the table, Avery nudged his shoe against D3rlord3’s. “But you like sparring.”

“I’m not in the mood.”

Avery propped his head up with his hand. “Wow, I guess you really are out of it,” he mumbled. His eyes roamed around the room, thinking. “Hm. You know what’s not helping? The drabness of your house.”

D3rlord3 joined him in glancing around, trying to figure out where he was going with this. “What.”

“I know you agree. Come on-- decorate this place! Add a plant, some color.” He nodded, as if he was picturing it. “It’d really liven up the space.”

D3rlord3 knew Avery was a dire optimist, but trying to liven up an abandoned house in a semi-haunted cave seemed like a tall order.

Still, Avery went on. “I’m sure there’d be some leftover stuff in the village we can take, right? It’s not like anyone’s using it.” He stood from his chair, arms out as he offered, “Let’s take a walk.”

D3rlord3 crossed his arms. “This is a really clumsy ploy to get me out of the house.”

Avery crossed around to D3rlord3, who was still seated. “Oh, come on, it’ll do you some good. Don’t make me drag you,” he said, tugging him lightly by the arm. Then, as if pulling out his last defense: “I don’t like seeing you all sad and mopey.”

Something warmed in D3rlord3’s gut, and he blamed it on that when he finally sighed out a quiet, “Fine.”

----

Into the village they walked-- or, at least, D3rlord3 walked while Avery skipped-- and passed over the cobbled path that led to each abandoned house. Avery kept up a steady conversation, as always.

Really, D3rlord3 didn’t know why it was so hard for him to admit Avery was good company. It was nice to hear a voice other than his own, which was always rattling around his head. Avery, meanwhile, never ran out of things to talk about. It was a good balance.

“If you’re in a bad mood,” Avery said at one point, as they passed the main fountain, “I would have expected you to kick me out already.”

D3rlord3 shrugged, not giving an answer.

“Or… did you just not want to be alone?”

Yet again, he didn’t reply to that. But Avery took his silence as an answer.

“Aww,” he cooed out sarcastically, hands clasped together. “Well, I’m just honored that you think of me this way.”

D3rlord3 glanced over and mused, “Or maybe I just wanted more food.”

Avery stuck his tongue out at him. They continued walking.

D3rlord3 really hadn’t stepped foot in any of the village houses since he first came down here. He didn’t see any point, anyway, since there was nothing new he could learn from them. But something prodded at the back of his mind: maybe he couldn’t let anyone take that away from him-- a sense of curiosity, of exploration. He used to cherish that.

Hm. D3rlord3 couldn’t remember when, exactly, he started revolving so much of his mindset around Avery’s infectiously positive one.

From beside him, Avery was happily walking along with him. His kept looking between both the village houses and D3rlord3.

And when he caught his eyes one time, D3rlord3 said it: “Thank you.”

Avery blinked up at him. “For what?”

“Always bringing me food. You don’t have to do that.”

“Oh,” said Avery quietly. He stared down at his feet, though his smile was very much audible in his voice. “Yeah. You’re welcome.” He bumped shoulders with D3rlord3. “Even if it can be a drag to bring stuff down here, sometimes.”

“I can imagine.”

“No, actually, you’ve got no idea. I almost trip on some stupid rock every time. And I did, actually. Once. Dropped the smoked salmon a good five feet. I’m surprised you didn’t notice, since it’s your favorite and all.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Yes, I do,” Avery shot back, grinning up at him. “I notice these things.”

D3rlord3 mulled that over. He knew Avery’s favorite everything, but it uneased him to think that another person had snuck into his mind in a similar way.

“You said you don’t know much about yourself, right?” Avery said. “But it’s a good thing you’ve got me, ‘cause I can tell you plenty.”

Avery took his skeptical look as a challenge. He began to list, counting them off on his fingers:

“Well, first off, you’re pretty stubborn. Stern, but not mean. Opposite of mean, in fact. Your handwriting sucks. You’ve got a dry sense of humor. You think I can’t see whenever you roll your eyes, but I do. And your eyes, of course, are brown. Oh, and even though you don’t do it a lot, you have smile lines.”

An odd feeling snuck into D3rlord3’s gut. He never thought Avery would notice half of those things. Then again, all that staring must have amounted to something.

“See?” Avery said in his continued silence. “I can read you like a book, too.”

He didn’t say anything to that.

----

Some time into their walk, Avery singled out a house at random and made a bee-line inside of it, with D3rlord3 following behind. He’d chosen a house right off the main path, as damaged as any other. The roof split open in an odd spot and most of the furniture was turned over in some scuffle.

Avery was lifting open chests at random, peeking inside and huffing a sigh when he found nothing in them.

“They’re all empty,” said D3rlord3, who was leaning against the doorframe with his arms crossed.

“Hmph. Yeah. I can see that. I won’t even ask what happened to the people in this village. You’ll probably be all like—” His voice went deeper— “Avery, you shouldn’t ask questions you can’t know the answers to, and Avery, stop asking me all this stuff and just don’t turn left.”

“I do not sound like that.”

Avery stuck his head inside another chest. “Yes, you do,” he said. Then: “Jeez, why’s everything in these houses yellow?”

D3rlord3 swallowed dryly and did not answer. He watched Avery explore around the house some more, before he eventually concluded that they should move on.

Onto the next house they went, and the next. D3rlord3 would hover near the door and keep his eyes on Avery as he snooped around the rooms, occasionally showing off something he’d found.

It was during one walk to the next house when D3rlord3 asked him, “What are you even looking for, specifically?”

“I don’t know. Something.” Avery kicked at a pebble while keeping in step with D3rlord3. “Maybe I just want to explore. Isn’t that something you used to do?”

“And look what it got me.”

Avery beamed. “Exactly: me.”

D3rlord3 stared straight ahead. He hadn’t thought of that. Maybe he really was a pessimist. He turned to make some dry remark--

--and Avery wasn’t beside him.

“Avery?” he asked, looking around. And when he couldn’t spot him, he called even louder, “Avery?”

Worry-- a ridiculous worry, he knew-- flared in his chest and did not leave. He kept looking around but did not spot him.

“Avery?”

A million worst-case scenarios began stubbornly flitting through his mind. Surely this was the King at work, finally getting some twisted revenge, finally playing his game.

Then he heard footsteps behind him.

He turned and Avery was standing there, an empty flower pot cradled in his hands.

“Look what I found!” he said, and then must have noted D3rlord3’s tense posture. “Uh… Are you good?”

On instinct, he reached for Avery’s shoulder but pulled back at the last second, flexing his fingers at his side. It took him a moment to find his voice. “...Yes.”

Avery took a tiny, cautious step closer to D3rlord3 before continuing. “Um. Okay. As I was saying,” he said, and lifted up the clay pot. “Look! Something to liven up your drab little house.”

D3rlord3 stared at it. “It’s empty.”

“I know that, genius,” he said sarcastically. “But I’ll bring you a flower next time. Er, no, that needs sunlight. Maybe, like… a mushroom.” He nodded, pleased with that idea. “Yup. Next time, I’ll bring you a mushroom.”

“A fungus,” D3rlord3 repeated.

Avery shook his head. “You’re so negative.”

With that, Avery held out the pot and D3rlord3 took it. Their fingers brushed, though he was pretty sure Avery orchestrated that on purpose.

“Thank you,” he said, turning it over in his hands.

Avery smiled. “I’d say that was a successful walk.”

With that, they headed back to the house, flowerpot carefully tucked in D3rlord3’s hands. Avery walked a little closer than before, and neither of them commented on it.

Back home, D3rlord3 set the clay pot on the counter, and he and Avery stared at it shoulder-to-shoulder.

“Don’t throw it out or anything while I’m gone,” said Avery, and pointed at it.

“I wouldn’t.”

“Good.” He set a hand on his hip. “Okay, well, don’t act too sad, but I should be heading back now.”

D3rlord3 straightened, eyes glancing to the door. “Do you want me to walk you?”

“Nah. Hang home. Stare out a window.”

D3rlord3 huffed, but Avery stepped closer anyway. It was a given that D3rlord3 was always the taller one, so Avery had to go on his tiptoes to tap his pointer finger against the bottom of his helmet.

“You know,” Avery said, half-teasing, “you wear this thing way too much.”

He scoffed. “I take it off all the time.”

“Not nearly enough,” he said, eyes tilted up and trying to search past his visor. “I can never tell what you’re thinking.”

“I didn’t think you cared.”

Avery gave a tiny smile. “Way, way more than you know.”

D3rlord3 could feel his heartbeat. Or maybe it was Avery’s-- he was standing so close. He wondered vaguely when he got so bold.

It was when neither of them stepped away that D3rlord3 suddenly found himself feeling very grateful for the helmet, because he had never before in his life considered the possibility of Avery being able to fluster him.

And so, D3rlord3 was the one to break the silence with something that had been on his mind for a while:

“Do… you still hear that whispering in the caves?”

Avery gave a half-frown. “Oh, you are really bad at conversation.”

“Do you?” he asked, trying to get him back on topic.

“Yes. I guess,” he said, and stepped backwards a bit, weighing his words. “Sometimes.”

“You really should have told me sooner.”

Avery shook his head through a smirk. “And what would you have done, huh? Whisper back?”

D3rlord3 tilted his head at him. Something in Avery’s expression softened; he read his tone and backtracked on his sarcasm.

“Okay, okay, fine,” he said quietly, toying with the hem of his own sleeve. “I’ll try and be careful. But, seriously, it’s just some echoes. That’s all I ever hear.”

D3rlord3 nodded, even though his chest tightened. “Are you sure you don’t need me to walk with you?”

Avery let out a laugh. “Gosh, aren’t you clingy today?”

He stared up at the ceiling, avoiding his smirk. “I’m just--”

Avery cut him off, waving a hand dismissively. “--It’s fine. Really. Stay and take it easy, okay?”

He spun on his heel and crossed to the front door, one hand on the frame as he turned around one last time and said, “Be back soon. Buh-bye.”

With one more smile, he was out the door. D3rlord3 watched as he trailed into the village and disappeared out of sight.

He knew he was in trouble when he shut the front door and immediately felt a pit in his stomach.

To tell the truth, he wanted Avery far, far away-- that was for his own good. But he also wanted him right by his side. He wanted him smiling and bringing him food…

And…

Hmm.

D3rlord3 knew every word in every single language, dead or alive, and none described with total clarity just what sort of space Avery occupied in his life. He wasn’t sure if that was good or bad.

He was staring at the flowerpot and still mulling over those very unwelcome thoughts when there was a knock at the door. D3rlord3 straightened and recognized it as Avery’s at once.

He’d probably forgotten something. Or was halfway to the surface when he’d suddenly thought of a burning question to ask. That would be pretty typical of him.

D3rlord3 had some dry joke at the ready as he crossed over, hand turning the doorknob open. It died on his tongue as soon as he saw who-- or what-- it was.

Looking at the King for the first time had been painful, on the brink of impossible. Just D3rlord3’s short look had exploded his senses.

This time, it was like looking at the sun at midday. Nothing new flooded his mind, but it was like pouring water into a glass that was long past full.

The King stood in his doorway, indescribable in color and in posture. He looked like everything and nothing.

D3rlord3 backed away, averted his eyes from the wretched sight on his doorstep, keeping them firmly on the floor. He said nothing, and couldn’t tell if he had the guts to speak at all. He had to remind himself to breathe. For a split second, he thought he was seeing things.

The King’s voice, though, was like a body hitting the floor:

“I heard you beg.”

D3rlord3 managed to scrape together some reply to the wretched thing that imitated his friend’s knock precisely. “Leave me alone.”

From the corner of his vision, he saw the King step closer, robes wrinkling and falling in places that didn’t make sense.

“And only you?” he asked, something amused creeping into his tone.

D3rlord3 stumbled backwards and swallowed. It was idiotic to pretend otherwise; this thing knew everything.

“You despise my gift, and yet you still kneel and beg for more answers. I have the mind to call you greedy.”

“Gift,” repeated D3rlord3 dully, as if it were a bad joke that didn’t land.

“Yes. Our gift,” the King said slowly, bending closer to D3rlord3. It was getting harder to avert his gaze. “I offer it very sparingly. Consider yourself lucky.”

D3rlord3 wanted to be brave, but his hands shook horribly and his voice even more so. He felt pathetically at the King’s mercy. “I want nothing to do with you.”

“Yet not a single other thing knows you as well as I do, Lord.”

That much was true, and it would always be. He felt something uneasy creep into his gut and rot there.

“Why are you here?” he repeated.

The King ignored the question. A finger slipped from beneath his robe and reached for D3rlord3’s helmet, almost tenderly.

“Still that same, wide-eyed look on your face,” he murmured. “I hoped you would be accustomed to me by now.”

D3rlord3 stumbled backwards, breath catching. “Don’t.”

“You shouldn’t worry. I never, ever break my toys.”

His mind went to someone immediately. He looked up at the King for the first time, and the plea tumbled from D3rlord3’s mouth like ash: “Don’t touch him.”

The King’s expression brightened instantly, delighted.

“So you do acknowledge him.”

D3rlord3 regretted his words instantly.

“Get out.”

“Why do you never tell him about me? I’m sure he would be plenty curious.”

A new feeling took root-- anger, red-hot and sending his hands balling into fists. He despised that he was throwing mentions of Avery around so freely, so sacrilegiously.

“Get out,” he said, voice growing firmer.

The King’s voice softened as if he were scolding a child. “No need for your impatience. I assure you, he is not on his way.”

He faltered, and his stomach twisted at the implication. “What does that mean?”

The King remained silent. D3rlord3 forced himself to tread closer, as much as it felt like stepping toward the barrel of a gun.

“What,” he asked, throat going dry, “did you do?”

A vile feeling of panic clawed its way up his spine. Still, there came no answer. Just the King’s mouth-- or something close to it-- twisting its way into a smile.

D3rlord3’s mind was already racing with the worst that could have happened. He bolted out of the house and did not look back.

Chapter Text

“Avery?”

D3rlord3 rushed through the tunnels, voice already half-hoarse from all the yelling.

It was a terrible feeling to not be able to control the panic that was creeping in. He didn’t hear Avery. He didn’t see him. There was no sign of him, no matter which way he ran in these wretched caves.

He’d run, turn around, call out his name, and hear nothing in return. With every passing moment, the panic gripping his chest tightened. Whether the King was fooling with him or not, when it came to Avery, D3rlord3 did not want to take a single chance.

His legs were starting to ache, but he didn’t slow. One of the cave tunnels emptied off into that underground forest; he saw crowds of silent trees but no Avery.

He ran, with his thoughts abnormally minimalist and laser-focused on one thing.

“Avery?” he called, again. His own voice echoed back at him.

Some distance later, he saw the huge, wooden arch that emptied into one of the dimly lit corridors. D3rlord3 got a very unsettling feeling— he remembered this place, with the torches and the huge ceilings, from the first time he came down here.

I’m not scared of torches turning off.

I don’t know what kind of practical joke this is, but I already heard you in the cave.

With all that still on his mind, D3rlord3 turned a corner, and his stomach wrenched at the sight:

It was Avery, standing with his back to the wall, eyes wide and breathing far too quickly. He straightened when he caught sight of D3rlord3, slapping a smile onto his face. It did nothing to fool him.

“Oh,” Avery mumbled, some mix of awe and relief on his face. “You. It’s-- you?”

Avery, usually so smiley and so alight with humor, looked completely rattled. His hands were shaking, tucked around his elbows in a sloppy attempt to hide it.

D3rlord3 was standing in front of him in an instant, a hand hovering near his shoulder, afraid to spook him.

“Avery,” he said, voice low. “Talk to me.”

“I’m fine!” Avery shot back quickly, fighting to keep the empty smile plastered on his face. “Really. Just spooked myself, I think. You know. Weird cave. Hah.”

D3rlord3 frantically looked him over as he spoke; Avery had never come close to looking like this before: eyes wide and red-rimmed, fingers trembling, breath coming unevenly.

“Tell me what happened,” he asked again. “Are you hurt?”

Avery stared up at D3rlord3, slowly picking up on the alarm in his voice.

“Hurt? What? No, no. It’s just…” He faltered, then went on. “If you have to know, I was walking, you know, and then I thought I heard… something. The lights went out.”

D3rlord3 took a step closer. “And?”

Avery swallowed. “Then, um. The whispering that I told you about, I heard.” His eyes broke away from D3rlord3.

“Was something here?”

“No, nothing. But— you know that feeling, when you think you’re being watched, but you’re actually… all alone?”

It didn’t sound like a question. Avery’s eyes were stuck on the far side of the corridor, staring at nothing at all. His voice sounded small, distant.

“Avery,” D3rlord3 said firmly, trying to ground him. “Look at me.”

It was as if Avery hadn’t heard him at all. He took in a shaky breath. And before D3rlord3 could stop him, he slid down against the wall to sit on the stone floor. His eyes were shiny.

“Yeah, I know,” Avery muttered. “I know it sounds stupid. Sorry.”

D3rlord3 stared down at him, and something in his chest cracked. He wasn’t showing even a hint of the gentleness that the situation begged for. He knelt down, with infinite memories of equal comfort and horror behind his fingertips that reached out and chose to settle on Avery’s shoulder.

D3rlord3 knew that in the face of infinite knowledge, gentleness was a laughable concept. The universe was so big. It went on forever. The universe did not soften just because someone was scared, and D3rlord3 knew that.

Avery’s eyes, still sharp with fear, stared at the contact and then looked up at D3rlord3.

He whispered, “I’m scared.”

The quaver in his voice was what did it. D3rlord3’s grip tightened before he drew Avery close to his chest; his arms closed around him without hesitation.

Avery froze for half a second before he melted into his hold. His own shaky hands snaked around D3rlord3’s center, clutching at his cape, his face turned into the cool metal of his chestplate. D3rlord3 could feel his breathing, still coming quick and panicky.

“Avery, you’re fine,” he said quietly. “It’s okay.”

“It’s listening to me,” Avery mumbled, voice barely above a whisper. D3rlord3 could feel the rumble of his words as he spoke. “It’s watching me. It isn’t from this world.”

A distinct kind of dread rooted in D3rlord3’s gut at the sound of his own words repeated back to him. “There’s nobody here,” he coaxed nonetheless. “Just us.”

Avery’s fingertips buried themselves in the gaps between his armor plates. To think that D3rlord3 could’ve lived his entire life with only the idea of it and never the actual memory. Call it selfishness.

It was definitely weird to know everything about someone’s life, and yet wait so long to know what it felt like to hold them. He was surprised at the gentle instincts that were tugging at him— a hand coming up to cradle the back of his neck, or slowing his own breathing so that Avery could subconsciously follow suit.

Beneath his gentle hold and the patience in his hands, something hot and angry churned inside of D3rlord3, blurring his logic. He knew this was the King toying with Avery, and only just a little. A hint. A taste.

He tightened his jaw. The King never deserved that noble of a title. He’d love to drive a sword through its wretched smile, to wreck the gates, to shut it up forever. D3rlord3 rubbed absentminded circles on the back of Avery’s neck as he thought about it.

Once he felt that his breathing had calmed down somewhat, D3rlord3 pulled back, still keeping his hands on Avery’s shoulders.

Avery’s eyes had softened somewhat, still slightly wet with tears. D3rlord3 smothered the instinct to reach up and wipe them away.

Instead, he asked, “Are you okay?”

Avery nodded with a tiny, wary smile. “Yeah. Yeah, never better. Um. Can we get out of here?”

D3rlord3 blinked, realizing he couldn’t spend forever in this corridor just fussing over Avery. He nodded.

When he got to his feet, he found that Avery was still clutching at his cape. D3rlord3 pried his fingers out of the fabric and took his hand in his own, leaving Avery to just stare silently at the contact.

There was definitely something odd about holding hands, D3rlord3 decided. Abandoning the use of one hand completely just for the sake of holding someone else’s. He almost didn’t hate it. It felt right.

“Back to the surface,” D3rlord3 said to him, though Avery was still mostly focused on staring at their intertwined fingers. “Getting you out of here.”

He waited until Avery nodded to start walking.

Through the corridors they went, past the torches and further into the tunnels. Silently and side-by-side. D3rlord3 easily retraced the steps that would lead back up to the surface. There was something off about the moment, though he struggled to identify it. He chalked it up to the general uneasiness of the situation.

He kept glancing over to Avery, scanning his posture, noting the rare sight of his wary face.

“You know what that was,” Avery said when he caught D3rlord3’s eyes one particular time, “Right?”

“It’s…” D3rlord3 began to explain, but as he grasped for the right words, his mind caught up to his eyes. He stopped in his tracks, and so did Avery. “Wait.”

“What?”

He turned to glance down the tunnel they just came from. “I swear we already passed this.”

Avery looked around, seeming somewhat confused. “Uh. Not possible. We didn’t turn around once.”

They exchanged a puzzled look and silently decided to just keep moving.

And keep moving they did, only gaining both distance and confusion. Avery forgot about his question— though, because this was Avery, D3rlord3 didn’t expect him to let it go forever. For now, they could both tell something was off about the underground.

The more D3rlord3 walked, the more sure he was— the corridors were different in minuscule ways. Some tunnels went on just a bit too long, or the dimness in the caves felt wrong, or there would be an extra turn he didn’t remember being there before.

It was when they turned and found a completely new tunnel that D3rlord3 stopped again. So did Avery.

“This isn’t right,” D3rlord3 said aloud, not letting the concern creep into his voice. He turned and looked in the direction from which they had just come. “Shouldn’t that tunnel have led us out by now?”

Avery looked at him. “You’re asking me?”

The unwelcome truth slowly settled onto D3rlord3— Reality was being meddled with, little nudges to the physical world. For what reason, he couldn’t understand. Maybe just aiming to frighten.

“Bastard,” D3rlord3 mumbled under his breath, and hoped that it heard it.

Avery looked at him. “What?”

“Not you. I… Let’s keep moving.”

Avery opened his mouth to say something, and then shut it. In any case, they kept moving, still holding hands, maybe a bit tighter than before.

They kept moving, making turns that only felt half-correct. Halfway down a wooden corridor, lined with torches, D3rlord3 got an odd feeling. With every step, details slotted into place and called to mind an uneasy memory.

Down the far side of the hall, he saw that the corridor split into two paths, equally cloaked in darkness.

Before D3rlord3’s mind even fully recognized what they had stumbled across, he came to a complete stop. His breath caught in his throat, and a hand was out to stop Avery from taking another step.

“We need to turn back,” he said, eyes stuck ahead.

Avery looked at him, then down the corridor. “What? Why? What if it’s the way out?”

“It’s not,” he said, a bit more insistence in his voice as he tried to tug Avery away—

—But he didn’t budge, instead slipping his hand from D3rlord3’s to better stare between the two path options. D3rlord3 watched, frozen, ready to flinch.

“Wait,” Avery said, something dawning on him. “Wait. Left or right. This is… this is it, isn’t it? The crossroads?”

D3rlord3 flexed his hand, the one that was holding Avery’s just a second ago. He nodded.

The two things he kept most distinct in his mind, now blurring and crashing together like a mess. Avery and the King. They’d been dumped out here as some twisted joke, and D3rlord3 was having none of it.

Avery tore his eyes from the left-hand tunnel, stumbling back slightly. “Okay, this, uh… just, what? What the hell does this mean? How did we even get here?”

“I don’t know. But it means—” D3rlord3 said, taking Avery’s hand into his own again— “That we need to go.”

Avery held on, but wasn’t finished with his questions. “Why don’t we just go right?”

D3rlord3 shook his head firmly. “It could change again. No. We’re staying far, far away. We’re not playing his stupid game.”

“Who’s?” Avery asked, and his voice held more concern than curiosity. “You know what’s happening, don’t you?”

D3rlord3, naively, just kept walking. It was Avery who squeezed his hand and craned his head, trying to read his helmeted expression.

“You’re scaring me.”

D3rlord3 stopped.

He always did love to run from the truth, to deflect and distract using the vaguest words possible.

He knew Avery’s life. He knew it was not a mercy to spare him from information, however much D3rlord3 tried— that just wasn’t how Avery worked.

D3rlord3 shut his eyes and sighed at himself. “You’re right. I’m sorry, and you really, truly deserve the truth. Better than just a few pages in a book.”

“The book,” Avery repeated quietly, mostly to himself.

“I will explain it to you,” he promised, “Just not out here. We should keep moving.”

Avery looked unconvinced, but nodded anyway. They continued navigating through the tunnels.

——

D3rlord3 and Avery stared at the sight that somehow greeted them: The fountain, the scattering of houses, the path. They had ended up in the village.

They exchanged another puzzled look.

Avery was the first to speak up. “I don’t understand. We should be on the surface. Are we being pranked? Because being bowled around a scary underground tunnel system is not that funny.”

“In a way,” D3rlord3 said bitterly. He looked over at Avery. “Glad to see you’re in better spirits.”

“Not particularly.”

“You’ll stay here in the village until I figure this out,” D3rlord3 said to him.

“Okay. Yeah.” Avery glanced down at their still-intertwined hands, then up at D3rlord3 with a slight smile. “Does this mean we stop doing this?”

It was at that moment that D3rlord3 realized he'd never let go of his hand. He did, retreating his hand back to his side and saying nothing.

“Drat,” Avery said at the loss in touch, and D3rlord3 couldn’t tell if he was being serious. “I was starting to like it.”

“You…” D3rlord3 began to say, and then he sighed, abandoning the sentence.

Avery was quick to notice the hesitation. “What? What is it?”

“You can stay as close as you need. Just say so. I won’t say no to you.”

Avery just stared at him, expression blank, which was pretty understandable. D3rlord3 had no idea that he was even capable of that level of mushiness.

D3rlord3 added on, "Listen, I just know what it’s like to be scared down here.”

Avery tried to steel his expression, determinedly saying, “I’m not scared.”

It was not very convincing. D3rlord3’s helmet tilt said as much.

Avery huffed, then reached over and took D3rlord3’s gloved hand into his own once more. D3rlord3 glanced down, decided to bite his tongue at the number of quips he could make, and just started making his way to the outermost village house, with Avery at his side.

——-

As expected, Avery hadn’t forgotten his promise. Once inside, he had launched into a pace along the weathered wooden floor of the house, hands behind his back.

“Okay. Okay,” Avery began, “Where do I even start? Or, more accurately, where should you start? You said you knew what that thing in the tunnels was.”

D3rlord3 shut the front door with a click. “The King.”

“King?” he repeated, confused. “What…”

“That’s what people call him.”

“People?”

D3rlord3 pointed a thumb in the direction of the window, to the scattered, abandoned houses in the distance. “People,” he repeated.

The confusion didn’t leave Avery’s expression. “But I don’t understand. I thought you were the only one down here.”

“Look,” D3rlord3 said, voice purposefully low, “This is a lot to explain, and I think it can wait. You should rest.”

“No way,” Avery said, crossing his arms. “You said you were going to talk. So, talk.”

D3rlord3 really should have known better than to try to convince the most stubborn person otherwise. He looked Avery over and sighed, not looking forward to this.

“I never did tell you what’s down the left turn of the crossroads. It’s something close to alive.”

“The… King?”

Hearing Avery say that the wicked thing's name put a bitter feeling in his mouth. “Yes,” D3rlord3 said thickly.

“So, what? It’s just some dude in a crown?”

“No,” he said, stepping over to him. “It’s not a person, or a thing— It's not exactly alive, though it’s always… existed.”

D3rlord3 struggled to close in on the right words, which was a rarity. He could all but imagine the King smiling amusedly at D3rlord3’s struggle to describe him.

“It’s hard to explain. It exists between meanings. It has no body. It hurts to look near it. I... But it’s what I saw when I went left, right before I wrote my message to you.”

And now it’s after you, he didn’t say.

Avery’s shoulders went slack, eyes flitting around the floor as he tried to sort through all the details. “Then, that’s what you saw? To make you know everything?”

D3rlord3 nodded.

“With just one look, it did all that?”

“Yes.”

Avery took in a steadying breath. “Okay, well, we have to go out and find it,” he said resolutely. “Whatever it was.”

D3rlord3 was quite sure that was one of the worst ideas in the history of mankind. And he was definitely one to judge. “Uh. No.”

Avery put his hands out, confused. “No? What do you mean, no?”

“We’re not tracking down anything. You, most of all.”

“But this thing ruined your life! It’s what your book was about— this King— and now he’s going to get me. We have to stop it.”

“That’s not how he works. He gets into your head, tempts you, yes. Scares you. But he doesn’t actually hurt.”

Avery was still staring blankly out of the window. “He’s trying to get me.”

Upon hearing the tinge of anxiety in Avery’s voice, D3rlord3 stepped close to him, feeling that urge to take his hand again.

“No. No, Avery, I would never let it happen.”

He didn’t reply, just stared out of the windowpane in silence. They could hear the rush of the fountain water in the distance.

“I’m sorry,” said D3rlord3, breaking through the quiet. “I’m worrying you.”

Avery’s eyes snapped up at him, and he was quick to dismiss the notion. “Aw, no, come on. That’s not it. Really, I’d only be worried if I didn’t have you at all.”

D3rlord3 scoffed, but he couldn’t ignore the warm feeling embracing his insides. Suddenly, Avery’s eyes were very hard to meet. Thank goodness for the helmet.

“Oh, what? It’s true!“ Avery said, jabbing a finger into his chest plate. The smooth metal reflected Avery’s still-shaken expression. “I had no reason to think you’d come, but you did. You saw how I was acting— I seriously thought that I was going to, jeez, I don’t know…”

His words went quieter until they broke off completely. D3rlord3 knew that expression well— the distant look that came with getting lost in the worst-case scenarios flitting around the mind. He eyed Avery’s trembling hands and, without another word, set a hand on his elbow.

“Sit,” he said gently, steering him toward the bench. “Breathe.”

Avery dutifully sat down with a tired huff, the wooden slats creaking beneath him. D3rlord3 suddenly wished that he had padded the bench with some sort of blanket.

“I hate this,” Avery sulked. “Seriously, I hate feeling like this. I keep thinking something’s watching me.”

“You’re just shaken up.”

Avery leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. “Yeah, well, it sucks.”

His sympathy for Avery was becoming unbearable. D3rlord3 watched him for a moment before instinct took over, and he crossed to the kitchen to fetch a cup of water, not really sure how else to soothe him. Avery’s eyes followed him the whole way. When D3rlord3 sat down beside him and offered the cup, Avery looked at him with a half-smirk before accepting.

“Well, you’re just a proper little nurse, aren’t you?”

D3rlord3 swallowed and said nothing to that. Avery raised his eyebrows knowingly and, between sips, asked, “So, what do we do?”

D3rlord3 didn’t have an immediate answer, and that alarmed him. He settled on admitting the truth. “I don’t know.”

Avery set down the cup. “You don’t know?” he repeated.

“I’ll figure this out, I promise. We’ll find a way out of here tomorrow.” His eyes flicked up and down Avery’s increasingly spent posture. “You should rest.”

“No way,” he said, standing up from the bench. “I want to help.”

With a hand on his shoulder, D3rlord3 lightly pushed him back down into a seated position. “You look dead on your feet.”

Avery didn’t protest that. He sighed, shoulders slumped as he rested his chin in his palm. They looked at each other.

He wondered if either of them would ever bring up their moment in the tunnel. How Avery clung to him, and D3rlord3 let him. How he whispered gentle words he wouldn’t be caught dead repeating.

He wondered, if in the short amount of time since it had happened, Avery thought about it as many times as D3rlord3 did.

Because he didn’t know what else to say, he finally just asked, “Are you hungry?”

Avery did a double-take. “—Huh? Hungry?” He waved an impatient hand at the offer. “No, no, come on, how are you so calm about all this? There’s—“

“—Avery,” he said firmly, interrupting his sentence and prompting him into silence. “No more questions for tonight. Please.”

It would be a favor to both of them. D3rlord3 could read Avery’s expressions well, but it seemed the other way was true at this point, too, because Avery seemed to realize that this was not one of those times that D3rlord3’s stance could be changed with a smile or a quip.

Avery gave an exasperated look, relenting, if only to make D3rlord3 happy. “Fine, fine. I guess I could eat.”

“Good answer,” D3rlord3 said, and rose, starting toward the kitchen.

Soup was, really, the only food option he had— he was gifted it earlier that day from Avery’s visit. He cracked open the container and found it thoroughly cold, as expected.

There was an old cookstove in the house, which he sparsely used. He stoked a small fire underneath, hovering a hand over the range to test the temperature. As he shuffled around for a pot, he heard the old metal pop and creak under the heat.

He felt Avery’s eyes watching him the entire time, and soon he appeared at his side, hands behind his back as he quietly watched D3rlord3 work.

Avery gestured to the stovetop. “Do you even know how to work this thing?”

D3rlord3 shot a sideways glance at him. “Yes.”

Some time passed. They watched the stovetop patiently, flames heating the metal range until it had a slight red tinge.

“You could put it on the heat now,” Avery pointed out.

D3rlord3 shook his head. “No. Hasn’t hit optimal temperature yet.”

Avery looked between him and the stove, unconvinced. He then picked up the pot and set it down on the range.

“It’ll heat up either way,” he said amusedly, nudging D3rlord3’s elbow. “You’re such a stickler.”

Maybe that was true, but D3rlord3 was not entirely eager to admit that his infinite knowledge, embarrassingly enough, did not equate to daily experience.

In any event, soon the broth was properly heated, doled out into bowls, and set out on the table.

Avery chose the seat furthest from the window, D3rlord3 noticed. It felt a bit odd to try to return to normal conversation as they ate. There was a tension in the air after having had such new, omnipresent names thrown around. Kings. Crossroads.

They mostly ate in silence, with Avery glancing between his soup, D3rlord3, or his discarded helmet. He had brightened somewhat when D3rlord3 first slipped it off to eat. He knew that he probably looked tired and worn from the day, but increasingly more often, he didn’t mind if Avery saw him that way.

Avery, meanwhile, did not seem very hungry. With a similar tiredness in his shoulders, he swirled the broth with his spoon, staring down at the bowl quietly.

Over from the stovetop, the fire crackled. Avery flinched.

D3rlord3 set his spoon down. “You should sleep.”

Avery tilted his head to the side, eyes still on his bowl. “Maybe.”

D3rlord3 began to reach for his helmet when Avery spoke up again.

“Don’t,” Avery said. “Keep it off.”

D3rlord3’s hands stilled, and he looked up. Avery, as if realizing what he just said, took a long sip of broth and purposefully avoided D3rlord3’s eyes. “I mean, if you want. Hah.”

“Fine. Then you do me a favor, too, and get some rest.”

Avery deflated and leaned back in his chair, though the tiredness creeping into his voice was unmistakable. “Meh. All right.”

——

It took some time for D3rlord3 to convince Avery that no, he didn’t have to sleep on a wooden bench tonight. But after that, he led him to the only room in the house with a bed. Which was his own room. Though, he didn’t mention that last part to Avery, since he knew he’d go up in arms about it if he found out.

The interior was simple enough to be mistaken for a spare room: Bed, old carpet, a chair by the window. The only thing that somewhat illuminated the dim room was the cave light filtering through the glass pane, and a wax candle.

Avery didn’t seem to think twice before he collapsed onto the bed, face-first into the pillow. “I could fall asleep right now.”

D3rlord3 hovered in the doorway. “I don’t blame you.”

Avery sat up. “Where are you gonna sleep?” he asked, still not entirely catching on.

“I’ll figure it out. Probably won’t sleep for a while, anyway.”

“But—”

“Goodnight.”

That seemed to put an end to Avery’s argument, and though D3rlord3 turned to leave, he still didn’t go just yet. It was very obvious that Avery was debating on saying something more, with the way he was fiddling with the hem of his shirt. Or maybe it was just obvious to D3rlord3. He waited, eyes on him.

“Just a thought,” said Avery, feigning coolness, “Um, do you remember that thing you said, where— you know, I don’t remember it totally— but you said you would stay as close as I, um, wanted. Not that I want it, obviously, hah, but—”

He was rambling. D3rlord3 put a hand up. “—You want me to stay?”

Avery shrugged innocently. “Well, I didn’t say that exactly…”

The idea of D3rlord3 serving as some sort of comfort to Avery prompted an oddly warm feeling to wrap around his gut. He nodded once.

“Okay,” Avery breathed out, looking a bit more at ease. “Thanks.”

So as Avery kicked off his boots, D3rlord3 pulled the chair away from the window and set it beside the bed. He noted the way that Avery kept glancing to the doorway, to the window, to the corners of the room. There was a real, frightened reason behind his plea for him to stay.

Eventually, Avery carefully climbed under the covers. D3rlord3 sat down and waited until he got settled before he reached to extinguish the candle. The room went much darker.

Finding his chair, D3rlord3 sat back, arms crossed, perfectly fine with spending the night keeping watch. He doubted he’d be able to fall asleep anyway. At least this gave him a goal, a purpose, something for his mind to focus on. He could hear Avery’s breathing as he lay just a few steps away from him.

Avery was eventually the one to speak up through the darkness. “It’s so quiet down here. I don’t know how you stand it.”

D3rlord3 turned his head to look at him, tracing out the outline of his face in the darkness.

“Does it normally take you this long to fall asleep?” he said, half-amused.

Avery scoffed. “You would know that.”

“Yes, actually. On average, it takes you 14 and a half minutes to enter REM stage three.”

“You know too much about me.”

“I literally can’t help it.”

He didn’t reply to that, so D3rlord3 was pretty sure Avery was sticking his tongue out at him through the darkness. He didn’t comment on it.

In any case, they both tapered into silence. Some rustling of the covers could be heard as Avery tossed around for a while. Then there was quiet. He must have fallen asleep.

D3rlord3’s eyes had long adjusted to the darkness. His thoughts quieted as he turned his head and stared at the sleeping figure of Avery.

And it wasn’t like the crossroad gates, where he desperately wanted to rip his eyes off but couldn’t. Nothing was forcing him. He just wanted to watch Avery. It felt selfish.

Moreover, it felt like he could never notice enough about Avery— the way his breathing steadied out, the way one hand was curled under the pillow. D3rlord3’s pillow.

He was jostled from his thoughts when Avery, with his eyes still closed, smiled. “Staring again.”

D3rlord3 glanced away quickly, though he didn’t even try to deny it.

“You’re supposed to be asleep,” he mumbled.

“Meh.”

Before he could talk himself out of it, D3rlord3 stood up, crossed over to the bed.

“Move over.”

There was a shuffle as Avery happily obliged, scooting over and leaving enough room on one half of the mattress. D3rlord3 lay down atop the covers, keeping an acceptable distance between them, his hands folded across his chest.

D3rlord3 could lie and say he was doing this to better keep watch over Avery. He glanced over, and even in the dark he knew there was a hint of a smile on Avery’s lips.

“You sleep in your armor?” he asked him.

D3rlord3 faltered at the implication that he was planning on falling asleep, here, beside Avery. He stared up at the ceiling. “I-- No. I’m not going to fall asleep. I’m keeping watch.”

Avery hummed at that. “Oh. Duh. Of course.”

They fell into silence. D3rlord3 was almost convinced that Avery had fallen asleep when he spoke up. Again.

“Do you sleep in your armor, though?”

“Too many questions.”

Avery flipped onto his back, huffing a sigh. “Fine, fine.”

Then, because he was finding it increasingly difficult to deny Avery, D3rlord3 answered. “No. It would be uncomfortable.”

“Oh.”

He tilted his head over to Avery. “Why, did you seriously think I slept in all this?”

Avery went quiet, so D3rlord3 knew he was picturing it in his head. “Maybe a little.”

D3rlord3 snorted.

“What? Are you laughing?”

“No.”

“You are.”

“Go to sleep,” he said, though the smile was audible in his voice.

Honestly, considering that Avery had a run-in with an eldritch horror not too long ago, D3rlord3 couldn’t be upset that he was in better spirits now. It was a welcome change from how he found him in the tunnel.

Avery asked, “Do you know how badly I want to ask you about the King right now?”

“I have some sort of idea.”

“Tomorrow,” Avery said. “As soon as you wake up. Expect it.”

“I won’t fall asleep.”

He turned onto his side, facing D3rlord3 as he spoke. “What, so you’re just not gonna sleep at all?”

“I’m keeping watch. Like I said I would.”

He looked skeptical. “You think the King is gonna show up and— what? Punch me, or something? I thought you said he didn’t work like that.”

D3rlord3 knew what he was doing when he musingly said, “Here I thought you wanted me to stay close.”

Avery was silent at that.

D3rlord3 said in his stead, “It’s fine. I don’t sleep very well, anyway.”

“Insomnia?”

“Something like it.”

“What have you tried?”

“What?” D3rlord3 asked.

“To fall asleep,” Avery said, still facing him. “You know. Counting sheep, or reading a book before bed, or… something.”

He sighed. “Nothing really works. Too many thoughts.”

“But you slept fine at my place.”

“That’s…” he said, trailing off as he made the unfortunate connection. “Whatever.”

“All-knowing knight saying whatever,” Avery said sarcastically, and let out a tiny laugh. “Sure, yeah, that’s convincing.”

D3rlord3 abandoned the idea of prodding Avery to go to sleep. If he was being honest, he did enjoy conversation with him.

“I still can’t believe you live here all alone,” Avery went on after some silence had passed. “You like talking. Sparring. Really, it’s only human.”

D3rlord3 considered that. He certainly didn’t feel human most of the time. Human beings didn’t have all of history roaming their minds. Human beings weren’t tormented with the near infinite past. But somehow, now, he felt otherwise.

Maybe it was the way he had become hyper-aware of how close Avery was lying near him, how D3rlord3 was getting the urge to fidget with his gloves, how his vision was finally undisturbed by the visor of his helmet. He could see the light reflected in the white of Avery’s eyes as he stared up at D3rlord3.

“Do you ever think about what it’d be like if we never, ever met?” Avery asked him, pretty much out of the blue.

D3rlord3 debated whether or not to admit that he didn’t like to think about it.

“You’d be better off,” he replied instead, and believed it. He couldn’t forget how he found Avery earlier today— scared, rambling. It never would have happened if he never had a reason to be down in the caves in the first place.

Avery shot back, “No. Hey, you’re doing it again. Pessimist.”

“But it might just be true.”

“Nah-ah.”

Then, D3rlord3 felt Avery shuffle minutely closer and rest his forehead against D3rlord3’s shoulder, eyes closed. As if testing how close he could get before being shooed off. D3rlord3 did not. Honestly, at the touch, his stomach wrenched, and if he wasn't already lying down, he surely would’ve fallen over.

Didn’t he do so much for Avery? Upend his daily life, step out of his comfort zone every day? Every story he shared, every visit he welcomed, every page scribbled with warnings? Every innocuous question humored?

This was probably not a good sign. He stared down at his friend, so close, slowly falling asleep at his side.

“I like coming down here,” Avery said, with no need to raise his voice given their new proximity. “And even if I never met you, I think I would miss it. You. Somehow.”

It was not often that D3rlord3’s mind halted and focused on a single detail, or a single person. But in that moment, what he wanted to do most was slip off his gloves and take Avery’s hand again, or cup the back of his neck, but he knew that was selfish of him. And so, he willed his hands to stay firmly folded over his chest, static. It almost hurt.

“Go to sleep,” is what he allowed himself to say in reply.

Avery gave a tiny, knowing smile. “Hard to relax when all I can hear is your heartbeat going crazy.”

D3rlord3 mumbled out, not seriously, “Oh, enough.”

Nobody could have blamed him, given how close Avery was, or how D3rlord3 could feel his every breath against his arm.

Avery yawned. “But, like… don’t you find it a little funny how there’s a king in the caves, with his knight? Honestly, this is all sounding like some poetic, medieval bullcrap.”

D3rlord3 scowled. “I’m not his knight.”

“No. Duh,” Avery mumbled sleepily, and corrected himself. “My knight.”

That seemed to put him at ease, and D3rlord3 could mark the exact moment Avery fell asleep after that. His breathing evened out, and he slumped further into his shoulder.

D3rlord3 just stared up at the ceiling, not daring to move and risk disturbing the solace of his sleeping friend.

Chapter Text

D3rlord3 woke up, which was a surprise, considering he had never expected to fall asleep in the first place.

He blinked up at his bedroom ceiling and felt some rare level of refreshedness. That was the first surprise.

The second surprise was that there was a weight pressing at his side. D3rlord3 tilted sleepy eyes down and felt his breath hitch when he saw Avery, who had abandoned his side of the bed to curl into D3rlord3’s side, one arm slung around his armored chest. He was warm with sleep and snoring slightly.

The third and final surprise was that D3rlord3 didn’t really mind any of this. He looked at Avery in silent reverence, wearing yesterday's rumpled clothes, face totally peaceful. It was a wonder how the armor didn’t seem to serve as any obstacle to his ability to get snug.

D3rlord3 still had his hands folded over his chest, just an inch from Avery’s fingertips.

Emotion never dictated D3rlord3’s choices, but right now, nothing else could explain why he wanted to cradle Avery closer, or take his hand, or why he felt compelled to memorize this sight before him. D3rlord3 got the idea that if he stood up right now, Avery would still be clinging to him. He felt something very rare. He felt lucky.

It was at that moment that Avery stirred.

“M’awake,” he murmured.

D3rlord3 couldn’t find his voice soon enough to reply.

Avery cracked an eye open. “Oh,” he mumbled blearily. “But s’ still dark?”

“We’re in a cave.”

“Oh,” Avery said after a second. "Oh, yeah. D’ we have to get up?”

“No,” D3rlord3 answered quietly, not eager to end the peaceful moment.

Avery mumbled a quiet “Yay,” before turning his face further into D3rlord3’s shoulder, with his eyes shut, smile faint. The arm around his center gently tightened its hold. D3rlord3 swore his heart stopped for a moment.

And even though his eyes were getting heavy with the rare promise of sleep, he watched Avery. He was getting a compelling urge to reciprocate some of the touch— after all, Avery wasn’t hesitating to be so clingy.

Without really thinking, D3rlord3 slipped off his glove and set his bare palm over Avery’s hand. He would allow himself this one moment.

He gently ran his fingertips over Avery’s knuckles, and thought vaguely that the way this was all making his chest ache was probably a bad sign. Or a good one. These sort of things always got blurry when it came to Avery.

Millennia of human poetry and prose on all sorts of mushy topics-- vague lines about summer’s days and names of roses, once unceremoniously crammed into D3rlord3’s mind-- now started to make some sense. It was puzzling to think that Avery, of all people, was the sole prompt for such thoughts.

——

D3rlord3 drifted asleep again at some point. When he blinked awake a second time, he instinctively looked down to where Avery was last, but found that he wasn’t there. The warmth at his side was gone, and his hand was not atop Avery's.

D3rlord3 startled, panic replacing his thoughts as he hurried to sit up.

The blanket had been tucked around him (he didn’t stop to dwell on it,) and D3rlord3 yanked it off and quickly got to his feet, still only half-awake. Stumbling out into the main room, he came to a relieved standstill when he saw Avery.

He hadn’t seemed to have noticed D3rlord3 hovering in the doorway yet. Avery was sitting at the dining table, his chin propped in his palm, staring at D3rlord3’s discarded helmet from yesterday. He ran his fingers through the red plumes of the helmet, a tiny smile on his lips.

D3rlord3 took one step further into the room, sending the floorboards squeaking.

Avery startled and turned to face him, but any shock melted as soon as he met D3rlord3’s eyes.

“Oh. Hi,” he said with a warm smile.

D3rlord3 greeted him with a nod, then looked between him and the helmet.

“What… uh, are you doing?”

Avery, a bit shyly, pushed the helmet away from him with his finger. “Nothing. Nothing at all. How’d you sleep?” he deflected, rising from his chair.

D3rlord3 swallowed, and really did not have the guts to admit the truth. He'd long abandoned any hope of ever having a good night’s sleep again, but he’d have never guessed that Avery would be the remedy to that insomnia.

He brushed past those thoughts. “You really should have woken me.”

Avery scoffed through a smile. “You kidding? It looked like you needed it.”

D3rlord3 made some vague motion with his hand before opting to sit down beside Avery. He rubbed his eyes, and, as a favor to Avery more than anything, didn’t move to put his helmet back on.

Sleeping in his armor had left a dull ache in his joints; the metal hadn’t served as any comfort while he slept. He really had no idea how Avery cuddled up to him so easily.

But that was always the thing with Avery; other than his occasional teases about the helmet coming off, he never treated D3rlord3’s armor as an obstacle or a hindrance. He learned to read his posture well, as well as his expressions through the visor. And D3rlord3 was grateful for that.

While in the midst of these thoughts, D3rlord3 realized Avery was looking at him, something unplaceable in his eyes as he toyed with his fingers. Like he wanted to say something but didn’t know where to start.

It was a look D3rlord3 knew well.

“What is it?” he prompted.

Avery did not drop that knowing smile. “Oh. Nothing. It’s just that I kinda remember you saying that you weren’t going to fall asleep.”

“I thought I wouldn’t,” he admitted, averting his eyes. “So much for keeping watch.”

“Oh, don’t beat yourself up about it. I’m fine, aren’t I?”

D3rlord3 gave a tiny nod in agreement. “How did you sleep?” he asked, carefully tip-toeing around the memories that he knew were on both their minds.

Avery glanced off to the side. “Fine,” he said, his face flushing a bit. “Good.”

With that, they sunk into silence. Neither of them brought up their proximity earlier this morning. Neither of them brought up the way that Avery tucked himself close, or the way D3rlord3 let him. And he certainly did not bring up the admission that he liked sleeping with someone beside him.

D3rlord3 flexed his hand and realized dully that he forgot his gloves in the bedroom.

Avery spoke up, clearing his throat. “Uh, remember how you promised you were gonna tell me about the…?” He tilted his head to the side. “Well, you know what.”

Thoughts of the King and the crossroad invaded the precious silence: D3rlord3, though, kept his promise and dipped his head into a nod. “I remember. Let’s just eat something first.”

Avery perked up. “Right. Of course.”

——

As always, D3rlord3 did not have much of an appetite, but he’d pretend otherwise so that Avery would be encouraged to eat.

They hobbled together some sort of breakfast and sat at the dining table. As they ate, they shared some casual conversation, mostly led by Avery. He pointedly avoided any mention of the King.

Another new development: Avery stuck close to D3rlord3, scooting his chair closer, dotting his conversation with unafraid little touches to D3rlord3’s hands, bumps against the knee. He numbly stared down at the contact every time, feeling something in his heart turn over.

It was when they had finished eating and had cleaned away their dishes that D3rlord3 sat them back down, and began to talk, to explain the nature of the King and the cave.

Even with millennia’s worth of rhetoric technique engrained into his mind, there were times where D3rlord3 still faltered at how to explain all of it. Avery sat facing him, eyes expectant and patient.

——

“So. The King in Yellow,” Avery slowly repeated, after a sit-down conversation which was more than a bit overdue.

“Yes.”

“…is in your basement.”

“The crossroads are,” D3rlord3 corrected.

“Right. And you went left, and you looked at him.”

“Unfortunately.”

“And now you know everything.”

“Also unfortunately.”

Avery’s eyes were pointed down at the ground, as if he could see right through the floorboards.

“Huh.”

D3rlord3 clasped his hands together in his lap, trying to read Avery’s expression. “You see why I didn’t want to tell you.”

“Yeah. Yeah, maybe a little.”

Avery thoughtfully drummed his fingers against his mouth, the same hand that D3rlord3 was holding this morning. He didn’t know why noticing it made his stomach twist.

“This is a lot,” Avery said. He turned his head to look out the window. “I didn’t know a King did your curse. I always assumed it was sort of… I don’t know. But that sucks. You must hate him.”

D3rlord3 balked at the idea that Avery was focused on him right now.

“I… This isn’t about me,” he said, trying to recenter the conversation.

“But, you were the first? Right?”

In lieu of an answer, D3rlord3 went over to the shelf and easily found what he was looking for. After dusting it off a little, he tossed Avery the book. “Here.”

Avery gave a dramatic huff as he looked at the cover. “Ugh. But I hate reading.”

“Like I don’t know that. I found this journal the first time I came into this place,” he explained, and then raised his eyebrows at him as if to say, go ahead.

Avery flipped open the book to a random page.

"The king is coming my ass," he read out flatly.

"Not that part. I— hold on."

D3rlord3 went over to him and pointed a finger to the lines he intended, reading them aloud for Avery.

"I'm leaving this here in the rare case someone finds it. If you have found this, I implore you, turn back,” D3rlord3 read, although he had the words memorized by now. “You see?”

Avery was distracted by other things. “You bite your fingernails?”

D3rlord3 sighed, though there was no snark to it, because he unfortunately found Avery an overwhelmingly endearing person. He pulled his hand back.

“Nervous habit. Now, focus. Do you see that the King has been around for longer than you or me? I’m not the first person to find him.”

But I want to be the last, he didn’t say.

“So, you found this journal and still decided to snoop around the place? You and I are a lot more similar than you think, dude.”

“Maybe, but I won’t let it end the same way as it did for me.”

“So, what?” said Avery, shutting the book with one hand. “He wants me to look at him now, too?”

“That’s my guess.”

Avery thought about that. “So, he’s like an annoying door-to-door salesman. But there’s just one door. And he wants me to go to it.”

Now it was D3rlord3’s turn to look to the floor, hoping the King shared Avery’s sense of humor. “I… guess.” And when he looked up at Avery, he recognized that antsy look. “Let’s sit outside.”

“What, for the fresh air?” joked Avery.

He shrugged. “Change of scenery.”

D3rlord3 extended a silent hand to him, and it was only then that he took it and stood. Bare hand to bare hand was a thrilling new kind of contact.

----

Before leaving the house, D3rlord3 instinctually considered slipping back on his helmet. Following a look from Avery, he decided against it.

Avery held the door open as they headed out. Outside, D3rlord3 had a chance to check on his farm. Avery sat down on the front steps and D3rlord3 joined him, looking out at the distant village.

It was there that Avery asked more questions about his infinite knowledge, and D3rlord3 obliged, explaining as best as he could. Avery never seemed to mind when he took far too long to hobble together the right words or sentences. He listened on with rapt attention.

“Whenever I look at something,” D3rlord3 was saying, “I’m reminded of all the details, the facts, the past, the context of it. I think that’s part of the reason why I chose to stay down here. I may have gone crazy if I had to deal with reality again. There’s less stuff down here. Less to think about, less to see and to recognize.”

“What about me?”

D3rlord3 turned to face him, and he felt a twinge of a smile on his lips. “What about you?”

“I mean, when you see me, does your head start hurting with all the infinite knowledge and stuff? About my life?”

It took D3rlord3 a second to reply. “...No,” he said gingerly, saying the words as they came to him. “Knowing things about you doesn’t hurt. It’s the opposite.”

“The opposite,” Avery repeated, thinking that over. “Hm.”

They were quiet for some time before D3rlord3 met Avery’s eyes, and he finally blurted out the question that had been on his mind since they’d met:

“Don’t I scare you?”

Avery chuckled a little before realizing his question was a serious one.

“What?” he said, an unsure smile on his face. “No. You serious? Why would you scare me?”

“Every little thing about you, I know. Probably better than you. That’s unsettling,” he said quietly. “I knew you before I even met you.”

Avery doubled down, “It’s not unsettling. I mean, when you put it like that, it almost sounds cute.”

“I-- I mean it.”

Avery studied his face for a moment, then sighed, tearing his gaze to stare down at the sleeve of his shirt.

“Come on. I could never be scared of you. Especially considering yesterday, with how you…?” his words trailed off. “Well, you know what I’m talking about. I like that side of you.”

“Do you?” D3rlord3 said, tilting his head knowingly.

Avery let out a nervous laugh. “Um. Yes. I guess. But that’s besides the point,” he dismissed, so quickly that it almost made D3rlord3 laugh. “To be honest, I think it’s comforting. That someone knows me, totally, and still…”

“Likes being around you,” he finished for him.

Avery went still at the indirect admission. “Yeah,” he said through a tiny smile. “So, no, you don’t scare me.”

Silence took over. He looked over Avery, the endearing way he was fiddling with his shirt sleeve, the way he had scooted closer to D3rlord3 without either of them noticing.

And then D3rlord3’s eyes strayed behind Avery, and it took all his will to not react at what he saw.

In the far distance, there was the King-- damnably, unquestionably. Skulking in the shadows, golden robes billowing, silent and staring directly at D3rlord3.

Because of course, every moment had to be punctured by this wretched thing.

He must have not been a very good job at masking his horror, because Avery gave him a lopsided smile.

“What is it?” he asked D3rlord3, and began to turn to see what he was looking at.

In a panicked heartbeat, D3rlord3 grabbed Avery’s chin to keep his eyes on him. Away from the King. It was only a second later that he realized he’d just put them in a very intimate position. He could feel Avery’s breaths, could feel the warmth of his skin. He did not move out from under D3rlord3’s palm.

It was impossible not to notice Avery’s blush.

“Um. Hah,” he mumbled at the proximity.

D3rlord3 spared another quick glance upwards, and the King was gone.

“Sorry,” he said to Avery sheepishly, and tore his hand away from his jaw as if the contact burned.

Avery did not move away a single inch. “For what?” he said quietly.

“For…”

D3rlord3 trailed off without really realizing. Judging by Avery’s eyes, he was focused on other things, too. His eyes were wandering.

D3rlord3 got the unmistakable urge to take his jaw again, to run his thumb against the contour of his chin, or even further up, to show him that he wanted to be gentle when it came to Avery. To show him that he deserved it.

And that line of thought guided D3rlord3 to think back to yesterday, in that dully-lit corridor with that gut-wrenching sight of Avery. D3rlord3 remembered how he had cried. He remembered how he melted into his hold, how trembling fingertips had found purchase in his cloak, how he stumbled over his words while trying to explain what had happened.

D3rlord3 never wanted to see him like that again.

“I really have to tell you something,” Avery blurted out, and that was what jolted D3rlord3 out of his thoughts.

“So do I.”

Avery balked. “You… do?”

D3rlord3 nodded. Avery’s hands were tapping nervously against his knees, blinking hard. “Uh. Um. You go first.”

“I’m sealing off the mine.”

Avery’s face paled, and he jumped to his feet. “What?” he blurted out. “No. What? This again?”

D3rlord3 put a hand up, fearing his further reaction. “Just listen, please. I have thought this over, and realized that we need to get you out of here. He can’t get you from up on the surface. Go back to your old life and you’ll be safe again.”

Avery blinked down at him in disbelief. “No. No way. Is that seriously your plan? I thought we went over this!”

“It’s the only way. I told you all of this so that you could understand— understand that there is no beating the King. There is no outmaneuvering him. This is the only way to keep you safe.”

“But— But… I won’t be able to see you.”

D3rlord3’s chest wrenched. He said nothing to that, because the same argument was stubbornly sticking in his own mind, too.

Avery rattled on, “But I like seeing you. I love bringing you stuff, and sparring-- And, just talking. I- I like… being with you, okay?”

D3rlord3 remained firm. “I'm not worth risking your life. Your sanity.”

“Yes,” Avery insisted, and stepped closer, “you are.”

D3rlord3 met his eyes. “Say you keep coming down here, then. Say that yesterday happens again. How do I keep… it away from you?” he said, finally voicing the worries that had been clawing at him.

“The King?” Avery said for him, and D3rlord3 never liked how easily he threw his name around.

“I don’t know what he will try to do to you next.”

“We’ll figure it out,” Avery said, as if he were surprised that he had to debate this at all. “Together.”

“That’s no assurance. This is the only way I can guarantee that he leaves you alone. For good.”

“But you'll never see me!”

D3rlord3 stood, now, too, and looked down at Avery with pleading in his voice. "But you'll be safe."

“You don’t seriously blame yourself for what happened yesterday?” Avery asked, and his tone was starting to take on something desperate.

“I should have known this was going to happen. I was stupid to let you keep coming back, risking your life.”

“You don’t know that!”

D3rlord3 gave him a sharp glance. “I think I do.”

Now it was Avery’s turn to look away, grappling for the right words. “I… You cannot be serious,” he said flatly. “This can’t be your plan.”

D3rlord3 stepped close, until Avery was left blinking up at him, with those ever-curious, ever-wondering eyes. He set his hands on Avery’s shoulders, feeling the fabric under his palms, and the warmth of his skin underneath the sleeves. And it was that touch that almost made him scrap this idea altogether.

“Please try to understand. I cannot…” D3rlord3 began, searching for words that would not bare his heart too much. “I will not have him messing with you, Avery. I swear it.”

They stared at each other, silent, both with entirely different types of pleas in their eyes. One second, five seconds, and then Avery finally said what D3rlord3 had been dreading:

“Come with me.”

D3rlord3 swallowed thickly and lied.

“You know I can’t.”

Avery sidestepped out from under D3rlord3’s hands. “No, actually, I don’t know,” he said insistently. “And neither do you. You don’t need to stay down here— why don’t you live for yourself?”

“This,” he said, “is how I’m supposed to live out my days.”

Avery frowned. “You don’t know the future. You made a point of telling me that.”

D3rlord3 just looked at him, searching his expression, trying to understand. It was infinitely puzzling how Avery could possibly find comfort in a man like him, to fight for the opportunity to see him. Even with someone like the King in Yellow as an obstacle.

D3rlord3 was objectively not good company; he was not worth the journey to visit. He was unsettling, blunt. He disliked eye contact. He dodged questions, kept too many secrets. He knew more than possible. He was hardly a person, and he was supposed to be alone.

And yet, Avery stared up at him, eyes flicking over his armored posture, trying to read him. Even without the helmet, this time, it seemed he was failing.

“I’m not leaving you here with… with kings and stalagmites, and no sun! You said you missed the sun! What if I want to tell you something? Or just see you? Did you know I always cook for two, nowadays?”

D3rlord3 set his jaw, drained for any further argument. The only thing worse than Avery protesting his plan, he thought, was if he didn’t object to it at all.

Avery opened his mouth to add something more, then shut it. “You really are his knight,” he said sorely.

D3rlord3 stared at him. “What?”

"Have you considered that this is what he wants?” Avery jabbed a thumb in the direction of the floor. “You, staying down here. Looks like he doesn't need to get rid of me-- you're already doing it for him.”

D3rlord3’s words were unsure. “I do nothing for... it.”

“Well, you're definitely not doing it for me. Or you. Neither of us wants this.”

D3rlord3 did not reply to that. In the stead of his silence, Avery took a step closer.

“Come with me,” he said for the second time now, and it hurt just as much.

D3rlord3 said, dismally, “Avery, you really don’t know what you’re offering.”

“I do! I’m offering it because I— gah,” he said, interrupting himself. “Oh, gosh. If only you let me talk first.”

D3rlord3 felt himself frown, because he couldn’t figure out what he meant by that. That irked him.

“What?”

Something close to disbelief appeared in Avery’s eyes at the question.

“Nothing,” he mumbled eventually. “It’s nothing, I guess.”

It was very rare for a piece of information to escape D3rlord3’s grasp. Especially when it came to Avery. Some of that old curiosity flared and did not leave-- at this pinprick of time, felt like nothing else mattered but those unspoken words.

“No, hold on, what was it?” D3rlord3 asked, daring himself to step closer. “What were you going to say?”

A very empty laugh from Avery as he shook his head.

“Oh, come on, like you don’t know?”

D3rlord3 almost let himself hope. He went quiet, waiting for him to explain, but he did not.

“Huh.” Avery looked off to the side. “Huh. Seriously, how can someone as smart as you be so…?” he trailed off. At his sides, his hands opened and closed in frustration. “Ugh. I need to think.”

With no further word from either of them, Avery turned and stormed into the house, letting the door shut roughly behind him.

D3rlord3 could not fight the twinge of panic that burned as soon as Avery left his sight, and he almost went after him-- immediately, instinctively.

Chapter Text

D3rlord3 did not go inside for a long while.

He stared at the wood of the front door and rewound the words of their argument.

Something tugged and tore inside of him— he had hurt Avery. That was a feeling unlike anything. It was not pleasant to remember that D3rlord3 was the cause for the hurt and anger in his eyes.

Avery had always been the one to listen, and try to understand, to persist in the face of D3rlord3’s stubborn efforts to keep his walls up.

It was logical to split them apart, it was safe, it was reasonable. And D3rlord3 thrived on reason. Above all, he could not allow himself to get selfish, not now, not when the King was already playing his usual tricks and temptations.

This was always the plan: if D3rlord3 had his way, he’d march Avery up to the surface right now, board up the mine entrance. Live down in the village for the rest of his life, alone with the King. Protecting the terrible, gated horror— just like he was supposed to.

And he would be downright miserable.

No sun, no Avery.

D3rlord3 looked down at the ground, at the pale dirt that had never seen the sky and never, ever would.

Ten minutes apart from Avery, and he was already unraveling.

——

Eventually he stepped inside the house, shutting the door softly behind him. He looked around the main room and saw no sign of Avery. Well, just one-- D3rlord3’s helmet was missing from the dining table.

Down the hall he went, sending the old floorboards creaking slightly until he stood in front of the door to the bedroom. He hesitated a second before slowly pushing it open.

Avery was sitting on the bed, posture guarded, eyes only barely flicking up. In his lap he was holding D3rlord3’s helmet, hands carefully cradling it as if it was some sacred object.

D3rlord3 imagined he’d recite some grand, noble words-- something to wipe that look off Avery’s face-- but his mouth went dry. And for a while, neither of them exchanged a word.

Just when he was starting to feel comfortable making bare eye contact with Avery, there came the time to split them apart. Some small part of D3rlord3 had the boldness to call it unfair.

“Now’s your chance to go,” D3rlord3 said to him, after finally finding his voice. “I’ll walk you back up to the surface, make sure it doesn’t mess with you.”

Avery’s expression was unreadable. “And then that’s it?”

“This is how I protect you.”

Avery seemed to be going over something in his head, eyes flicking around the room before settling on D3rlord3’s face. He stood up from the bed, setting the helmet aside.

“Well, I’ve been thinking, too,” Avery said, which always preceded a bad idea. “And I decided that I’m not leaving.”

He said it so plainly, so matter-of-factly. D3rlord3 tried to understand what he meant and failed.

“What?” he said quietly.

“I’m staying down here,” Avery explained, now with a convincing smile on his mouth. “With you.”

D3rlord3 searched his face carefully. “No. No, that’s… not the plan.”

“Why not? What’s the difference?” Avery gestured between the two of them with his thumb. “You can protect me down here, if I stay--”

“--This is no life for you.”

Avery let his hand drop. “But it is for you?”

“You deserve to see the sun.”

Avery stepped closer, headstrong as ever. “So do you!”

“I am secondary,” D3rlord3 doubled down.

The words had a quieting effect on Avery. He stared up at D3rlord3, meeting the eyes that remembered every instance of the past-- and that really should have unsettled anyone else. Not Avery. His one exception.

D3rlord3 struggled to understand how he could be the recipient of such stubborn, unapologetic care. He knew Avery was persistent, but it never occurred to him that he might become the subject of it.

“You think you don’t count as a person,” Avery said. It was not a question. A light frown appeared on his face as the fact dawned on him.

D3rlord3 did not reply to that.

It was not something that he was consciously aware of; certainly not a label that he happily applied to himself. All the same, it was something that motivated his every move and thought. There was no other reason why he would choose to live down here, why he mentally checked himself after any soft thought that revolved around Avery, why he denied himself a view of the sun or thoughts of hope.

Ordinary people got to make their own choices based on an unknown future and an individual past. D3rlord3 was not people. He did not have that privilege. With his curse of knowledge came responsibility-- and it offered no room for personal wants.

Avery, meanwhile, was human-- blissfully unaware. He could live, he could see the sun and not be reminded of a past that nobody else was cursed to think about. How could D3rlord3 not aim everything toward Avery’s wellbeing? Toward preserving his free life?

D3rlord3 swallowed thickly, and his next words fought their way out of his throat.

“Yesterday,” he began to say, slowly, because he very much needed Avery to understand, “When I found you in the tunnels, there was a split second where I thought you saw what I saw. To make me like this.”

Avery frowned, and his confusion faded for a moment, unsure where this was going. “The… King in Yellow?”

D3rlord3 nodded numbly.

“If that happened, I would have never forgiven myself.”

Avery opened his mouth, surely to protest, but D3rlord3 took a single step closer that quieted him. He reached out, palm settling on the side of Avery’s shoulder, feeling the warmth emanating.

“Do you understand? My duty is to you.”

Avery stared up at him, still not saying anything, looking a bit dumbfounded at his blunt devotion.

“The thought that you might have had to live the same life as me…” D3rlord3 said thickly, letting his hand drop to his side. “For the first time, I couldn’t think about anything else. I hated seeing you scared. because-- because it reminded me that I… you could have been lost to the King. Your mind. Your identity. Like I lost mine.”

D3rlord3 was saying the words as they came to him; every worry and panic-stricken thought that he’d ever mulled over in between Avery’s visits. Nobody else had the honor of hearing his most vulnerable thoughts voiced aloud like that.

“I don’t know,” D3rlord3 said, half-wincing under the sound of his own unpolished words. “I’m not making any sense, am I?”

Avery, meanwhile, just blinked up at him, seemingly in awe at the rare voicing of his sentiments. D3rlord3 himself couldn’t understand where his own boldness was coming from, where he was finding the guts to stare Avery in the eyes as he admitted all of this.

“You worry too much,” Avery mumbled out eventually, finding his voice, however breathless. He did not step away from D3rlord3. “Look, I don’t care, I want to stay with you. I mean it.”

Any remaining doubt was crushed: D3rlord3 was screwed.

He looked away, down at the floorboards, away from Avery’s trusting eyes, because he knew that his own support for his plan was crumbling.

“I just want what’s best for you.”

Avery pointed a finger to D3rlord3’s chestplate, almost exasperatedly. “That’s you. I like being around you. How much clearer can I be?”

“Me,” D3rlord3 repeated flatly: the man who had witnessed the creation of the planet they were standing on, who had to stop himself from accidentally speaking in languages that had been dead for centuries, who was the sole witness for a majority of mankind’s history. “Me.”

“Yes, you. Is that so hard to believe?”

D3rlord3 watched as Avery pulled his hand back. He still said nothing.

“This place isn’t good for you,” Avery said to him. “You’ve shut yourself down here so long you’ve forgotten how to be alive. And I don’t know how else to remind you.”

With every word, D3rlord3 had that much more to think about, and could not focus very well with Avery’s softer voice and proximity.

Finally, Avery sucked in a quiet breath before saying, “Your plan sucks because of one fact: I would miss you.”

No sun, no Avery.

There was probably more that he wanted to say, but his argument crumpled along with his expression.

D3rlord3 was almost sure that he stopped breathing entirely when Avery stepped just a little too close, and his arms were suddenly wrapped around D3rlord3. Clingy as ever; not that a part of him wasn’t also starting to crave Avery’s touch.

D3rlord was the one to pull him closer, and his palm came to rest on the back of Avery’s neck, rubbing a thumb at his nape just how he knew he liked it. Automatic was the word for it.

He stared down at the sight of Avery tucking close against his chestplate and sighed. “I still really don’t know how you find this comfortable.”

“B’quiet,” Avery mumbled back, with a hint of a smile in his muffled voice.

Gently, in the corner of his mind, something began to slot into place. New understanding, nothing invading or rough, but rather an assurance.

Maybe his mindset would not get any less overwhelming, but maybe it was comforting to know that someone was worrying about him. Someone wanted to carry his burden, even if they never would be able to. The sentiment alone let something warm sneak into his chest.

D3rlord3’s thoughts circled back to the earlier morning, when Avery had sleepily curled into his side. Avery trusted him with ease, D3rlord3 honored that trust with a knight’s devotion.

“I’m sorry,” he said aloud, apologies draining out easily. “It was a bad plan.”

Avery tightened his hold an infinitesimal amount. “Glad you’re using your brain again,” he mused quietly.

D3rlord3 could agree to that.

“How about this,” Avery said, words close to his ear. “For now, let's get out of this weird cave, and we can figure out some sort of… visiting schedule. Sometimes you can come see me, and other times I’ll come and see you.”

“I would like that,” D3rlord3 murmured, more focused on memorizing how Avery’s posture had gone much softer, or how his fingertips were still tangled in D3rlord3’s cloak.

“We’ll figure it out.”

And he believed it. After another second, Avery pulled back from the embrace. An unfounded urge to continue the embrace overwhelmed D3rlord3. Still, he resisted.

Avery smiled up at him and asked, “Walk you to the surface?”

----

With their troubles mostly all hugged out, it was time to leave. D3rlord3 could admit that it was a much more appealing plan— drop off Avery at the surface for now, figure out the rest later. Already, his mind got to work on how to make the visits to and from the caves work. The matter of Avery’s safety still held absolute importance in D3rlord3’s mind.

It was something to plan later, something to think about when they weren’t in the caves.

Before they headed out, D3rlord3 brought along a small dagger-- which Avery raised an eyebrow at, but said nothing. D3rlord3 had mumbled something about being better safe than sorry. As he attached it to his belt, Avery did a last-second scamper off someplace within the house.

He returned a moment later with D3rlord3’s golden helmet in his hands, running a thumb along the plume before holding it out to D3rlord3.

“Ready to go?” he asked, that infectious cheerfulness not waning one bit.

D3rlord3 took the helmet from him, deliberately letting his gloved fingertips brush over Avery’s. Blame it on his curious hands. He nodded as he slipped it on.

“Ready.”

And with D3rlord3 only sparing a final glance at the empty flower pot that remained on the table, they shut the door behind them and headed out.

----

The caves gave no indication of having been changed or altered. With every step, everything looked the exact same. It was when D3rlord3 finally decided to retire his scans of the tunnel walls— analyzing for any changes— that he realized it was awfully quiet.

A look over at Avery confirmed he was throwing similar glances around the tunnels. His hands were fidgeting slightly at his sides.

There was definitely a marked difference in the air between them. Something that could not be blamed on the general uneasiness of the caves. It went deeper.

D3rlord3 wanted to reach for Avery’s hand, he wanted to ask what he was thinking, he wanted to answer one of his ridiculous questions. Above all, he felt like he wanted to tell him something.

He did not.

It was a given that neither of them were particularly good at conversation. D3rlord3 would sooner choke than let loose a single affectionate word, and Avery would rather stall and joke his way into a new conversation before admitting something straightforwardly genuine.

D3rlord3 eventually broke the silence to ask him, “What is it that you wanted to tell me before?”

At the question, Avery tensed up slightly, and let out a nervous little laugh. “What? Nothing.”

“It was obvious you wanted to say something.”

“Nuh-uh.”

“What do you mean, nuh-uh? I can tell that you wante—”

“—Can I try on your helmet?” Avery promptly interrupted, an innocent smile on his face.

D3rlord3 tilted his head at him. “Pretty sloppy way of changing the topic.”

“But is it working?”

“Kinda.”

After a moment's consideration— not without Avery’s pleading look— D3rlord3 honored his request through a sigh. He slipped off his helmet and placed it over Avery’s head. It was much too big, and looked totally ridiculous on his frame.

“Happy?”

Even from behind the metal, D3rlord3 got a sense of the grin on Avery’s face.

“Absolutely. Do you know how long I’ve wanted to do this?”

“I have some sort of idea.”

Avery turned his head, a hand on the side of the helmet to keep it steady. He was directly facing a wall— not that he knew that. “Wow. I can’t see a thing.”

D3rlord3 reached and took a light hold of his shoulder, gently guiding him the right way around.

“That much is obvious,” he teased.

Avery made some attempt at puffing out his chest. “Do I at least look cool?”

“Profoundly cool,” D3rlord3 agreed, and didn’t mind that his smile was on unmasked display. “Can we get back to walking, now, please?”

----

With D3rlord3’s helmet back on his own head, they soldiered ahead. Avery upheld the usual stream of conversation, and before long, they found themselves facing the familiar wood tunnel. They both came to a natural stop just before the entrance, as if it were a border they didn’t quite want to cross yet.

Torches were alight and flickering a trail down the corridor. It was the same spot where D3rlord3 found Avery yesterday-- something they surely were both thinking about in the moment.

It was clear that Avery was a bit more tense at the memory of what happened here; he was eyeing the tunnels and torches warily, his hands fidgeting slightly.

He gave a small hum as he looked over the high ceilings. “This is where shit hit the fan last time. Metaphorically speaking.”

D3rlord3 was quick to reassure him. “Everything looks okay.”

“I guess,” Avery said, and only began to walk after D3rlord3 took the first step into the corridor.

They walked in mostly silence. In between his glances at the torches and wood panels, Avery turned to face D3rlord3.

“Can I ask you something? It’s about when you found me here, yesterday.”

D3rlord3 glanced over at him, and prompted him to go on.

“How did you even know to go out and look for me?” Avery asked.

There was no comfortable way to answer that question. D3lord3 had his mouth open to reply when--

A noise interrupted. From behind them, a pair of torches were snuffed out. Then another.

D3rlord3 had turned around in an instant, feeling dread pool in his gut as he saw each torch extinguish, starting from the far side and creeping toward them.

He turned to look at Avery-- who had a similar fear on his face-- helpless to do anything to quell it as the light slowly withdrew.

Just before the tunnel plunged into complete darkness, he took Avery’s hand-- which was halfway to grabbing his own.

His memory rushed in to fill the gaps in information; he knew where the cave walls were, where the edges in the floor curved. Avery, though, was not so lucky. D3rlord3 fruitlessly looked down to try and spot his face in the darkness. At least he could be assured he was still by his side.

“Wha-- What just happened?” Avery mumbled, fingers intertwining with D3rlord3’s glove whether meaning to or not.

“I don’t know,” D3rlord3 admitted. “But I do remember which way to go.”

The panic was evident in every word that Avery blurted out. “This means something bad, right?”

“It’s just one last scare. You’re fine. We’re fine.”

“It’s pitch black!” he said, true worry in his voice now. “We can’t-- We have to turn back or something, or--”

D3rlord3 still hadn’t begun walking-- he tugged Avery just a little closer to his side, hoping to recenter his worry. “You’re okay. I swear it.”

He quieted at that. D3rlord3 adjusted to run his fingers along Avery’s knuckles, wishing he could see his face, wishing he could wipe any and all fear from him entirely and forever.

Avery went still and very silent. D3rlord3 could hear his breathing even out slightly.

“Okay,” he eventually murmured out. “Let’s go.”

They began to walk. D3rlord3 didn’t have to tell him to stay nearby-- Avery adjusted his steps to keep close by his side. D3rlord3’s cloak brushed against his shoulder as they cautiously walked further into the tunnel. Avery said nothing the entire way; just intermittent squeezes of D3rlord3’s hand. The memory of the path came easily to him, even with his visuals gone.

“We’re close to the exit,” he said to Avery eventually.

Then, up ahead, he spotted something new in his vision: a hard turn in the tunnel. From around the corner, a sliver of light was flooding across the rock, illuminating the edge of the upcoming turn.

He heard Avery breathe out a small sigh of relief. “Finally, some torches.”

D3rlord3 glanced down at him but otherwise kept his eyes on the yellow light, which was blooming closer with every step forward. He did not want to admit that there was not supposed to be a turn in this tunnel at all.

Unless he was remembering wrong, or…

“Avery,” he began to say, feeling something unplaceably wrong about the entire moment.

“Yeah?”

They were a step away from the turn, golden light starting to illuminate their path.

“I don’t think…”

D3rlord3 never finished his sentence. They turned the corner and were face to face with the front of the golden gates.

Chapter Text

D3rlord3's stomach sank as soon as he saw the gates.

They were not supposed to be here, and yet the entrance looked exactly as he remembered, as if snatched from his nightmares:

Golden doors, overlapped into one another and reaching to the ceiling, carved stone flanking the entrance. Sickly yellow light that bloomed dully from within.

Avery was saying something to D3rlord3, but his mind was too abuzz to really make sense of any words.

All at once, D3rlord3 realized his breathing was too fast, his posture too stiff. The helmet suddenly felt too heavy.

He remembered the day he first stumbled into this place, and he remembered stepping close, caving in to his curiosity. He remembered looking up, seeing, feeling…

Avery gave a squeeze of D3rlord3's hand.

He blinked and was unceremoniously pulled back to the present. Looking over to Avery, he found his eyes holding nothing but concern.

"You okay?"

D3rlord3 bit back bile. "Yes."

"I, uh, asked if you knew what this place was."

There was really no mincing words.

"This is the left turn of the crossroads," D3rlord3 explained, and didn't mean for his voice to go so numb. "This is where I saw the King."

Understandably, Avery made a noise in the back of his throat and did a double-take at the towering gates. "What? I-- I didn't think we turned left…"

"We're being toyed with. Again."

"The King is here?" Avery said, still staring ahead. Then he shook his head. "No, wait, don't answer that. We just… need to turn around. Go back the way we came, that's all."

Avery was halfway turned around when D3rlord3 set a hand on his shoulder, and he went still.

"No," he said quietly. "It'll be the same."

A noise of disbelief from Avery, and he turned to face D3rlord3 directly. "What other choice do we have?"

"I think he wants to talk to me."

It seemed Avery could only blink in disbelief. "What? Talk to you?"

D3rlord3 nodded. There was no other reason for all the taunting, all the changes. There was something it wanted.

He searched Avery’s expression, and felt his gut wrench at the scared look in his eyes. He’d do anything to fix it.

"The only way out is through," he explained.

He thought back to Avery-- how he stumbled around while trying on D3rlord3's helmet-- and an idea came to him.

Sometimes the simplest solutions were best.

D3rlord3-- regrettably-- let go of Avery’s hand to grab hold of a corner of his cape. He unclipped his dagger from his belt and tore a strip of red fabric from the very bottom.

Avery winced. "That’s your… What are you doing?"

"Blindfold. For you."

Avery balked. "You’re not seriously considering just walking in there with no plan?"

D3rlord3 lifted the makeshift blindfold up between them. “This is the plan. You can pass through a gate, like a doorway. This is the exit, I know it.”

“I thought you said seeing him was the bad part,” pointed out Avery, who was now flicking uneasy glances to the gates.

“You’ll be safe with this on, and I’ll be guiding us out. I’ll plug up your ears, too. No chances.”

Avery was staring at the gates, golden light reflecting against his eyes, all crinkled in worry.

D3rlord3 gently tilted his head to face him instead. “Trust me,” he assured.

As with any boldly tender move from D3rlord3’s end, Avery’s face flushed considerably before he scraped together a reply.

“I do, of course I do, but that’s not what I meant,” he said. “I mean… what about you? Seeing him again cannot be good.”

D3rlord3 had to bite his tongue. He pulled his hand from Avery’s jaw, and didn't want to admit out loud that this was not going to be the first time he’d be witnessing the King for his sake.

“Don’t worry about me.”

“But I do. I won’t make you go through all that again, especially not for me.”

D3rlord3's reply was quiet. “I’d do it for you.”

Avery huffed, averted his eyes.

“Ack, you sap. I’m being serious.”

D3rlord3 could not help the tiny part of himself that found Avery’s stubborn concern endearing.

But as he looked at him and saw the golden light hitting the side of his face, it reminded D3rlord3 of who was watching, a being with unknown plans fiddling with reality as it pleased.

And ever since stepping within sight of the gates, D3rlord3 was filled with the overwhelming urge to get Avery out of here as soon as possible.

With little else to say to convince him, D3rlord3 took a single step closer, enough to really see the worry etching across Avery’s face. He pressed the blindfold into his hands.

“Please,” D3rlord3 said to him, very quietly. “You’re almost home.”

He watched Avery set his jaw, very obviously fighting against whatever it was that he wanted to say.

“Once we’re up on the surface,” D3rlord3 promised, “We can spend the day doing anything you like. I won’t leave until sundown.”

Leave. He abruptly realized that he didn’t like the idea very much. But that was the plan-- scheduled visits and a careful balance between underground and surface. D3rlord3 knew that they both had their own, silent reservations about it, but right now was just not the time.

Avery sighed and pointed a finger up at D3rlord3’s obscured face.

“Oh, at least take that thing off,” he said. “Let me look at you properly.”

D3rlord3 did as he was told, slipping off his helmet and holding it at his side. Avery’s eyes softened as they always did when the helmet came off; D3rlord3 had committed the sight to memory. He wondered when he got so sentimental.

“This is a terrible plan,” Avery said, squashing down a sad sort of smile. “And I hope you know that.”

“You’re… not saying no.”

Avery sighed. Then he looked down at the blindfold.

“No. I guess not,” he said quietly.

So with his blessing, D3rlord3 got to work.

After setting his helmet on the ground, he began to blindfold Avery’s eyes with the ripped piece of his cape.

It was a strangely tender moment; he had to gently tilt Avery’s head here and there in order to better wrap the fabric around his head.

“That’s not too uncomfortable?” D3rlord3 asked at one point, when the blindfold was secure around his eyes and tied in a knot behind his head.

Avery shook his head no.

With the blindfold secure, D3rlord3 then tore off two, smaller pieces of fabric from his cloak— the bottommost hem of which had been reduced to an uneven mess— and rolled them up, using them to block up Avery’s ears. He would take no chances-- every sense was a risk that had to be accounted for.

With everything in place, D3rlord3 then lifted the blindfold up and off Avery’s eyes in order to test his handiwork.

“Can you hear me?”

Avery blinked. “No, but I can read your lips.”

D3rlord3 let slip a tiny smile. He nodded, then mouthed, “Ready?”

It took a second, but Avery nodded. And if his eyes were on D3rlord3’s lips for any other reason, he didn’t dare let himself think about it.

He was about to slip the blindfold back over Avery’s eyes when he piped up.

“Uh, wait.”

D3rlord3’s hands went still.

Avery asked him, “You’re absolutely sure about this?”

Given that he couldn’t hear, at first D3rlord3 just nodded and hoped it was convincing enough.

But neither of them moved to shift the blindfold back over Avery’s eyes. They sank into a strange, quiet moment, and neither of them would admit it out loud-- they were stalling.

D3rlord3’s bare eyes met Avery’s as he mulled over what he could possibly do or say to make him feel safer. They were standing very close.

An idea suddenly hit him and would not leave. He blamed his boldness on the way Avery’s eyes were searching his bare face, and the way that Avery’s fingertips were hovering above D3rlord3’s hand, obviously itching to hold them for some bit of comfort.

Without another thought, D3rlord3 took Avery’s hand and brought it up to his mouth. He pressed a gentle kiss to the top of his knuckles.

Avery looked close to falling over. “Holy crap,” he squeaked out in one, tiny breath.

D3rlord3-- not eager to explain himself for that move-- reached over and gently slipped the blindfold back over Avery’s wide eyes.

Avery had barely recovered from the display. His blush still had not faded; admittedly, it was approaching the color of his blindfold.

Reaching blindly for D3rlord3’s hand, he murmured, “I— Don’t think that we’re not gonna talk about that afterwards. That was… you…”

D3rlord3 took his hand and gave it a hopefully reassuring squeeze.

“Almost there," D3rlord3 quietly assured, although only he could hear it. His lips were still buzzing from his brazen kiss to Avery’s hand, though he pushed it aside. His duty took precedence.

He put on his helmet and began to walk, slow at first so that Avery could fall into an even pace beside him.

-----

It was a deeply odd feeling to make himself walk toward the gates. With Avery at his side, no less.

The feeling of being watched followed D3rlord3 as he approached, and every fiber of his being was screaming to turn away, to stop, to close his eyes and leave.

He did not.

Avery stayed quiet all the while, his blindfolded head slightly bowed as he walked on, hand not leaving D3rlord3’s.

Closer and closer they stepped, until the threshold between the cave and the gates were reached. D3rlord3 and Avery stepped past the tall, overlapping yellow doors and saw--

Nothing.

The gate led into just another winding hallway, much the same as the wooden corridors from before. Empty. D3rlord3 forced himself to untense his shoulders as he threw wary glances around the interior.

Despite every expectation, it was silent and devoid of anyone but himself and Avery. Pushing through some uneasy mix of relief and confusion, D3rlord3 continued on.

And although there was seemingly no need for the blindfold, he made no move to remove it. Avery was depending on D3rlord3 to guide them out of here; he wouldn’t dare do anything hasty.

D3rlord3 lingered on the thought.

Avery trusted him so very easily. With just D3rlord3’s gloved hand in his, he was willing to blindly walk right into such a terrible place. His only reservations about the whole plan was in regarding D3rlord3’s wellbeing. That was something he struggled to understand, though that was more and more common.

Most recently, he supposed there was the question of why he kissed Avery’s hand. Maybe D3rlord3 was starting to realize that he was too tired to bother with pretense, that he wanted to bleed out just a bit of the sentiments he was more defiantly harboring.

Maybe he just simply wanted to do it.

D3rlord3 glanced back at the golden gates; it felt strange to be looking at them from the inside.

He continued walking, still throwing cautious glances around. Then a voice echoed out at him, low and brittle. It seemed to come from everywhere at once.

“I see you’re still frightened of me.”

D3rlord3 froze. Instantly, he glanced over at Avery, who gave no indication of having heard anything. That was a minor relief.

But when D3rlord3 turned to face the source of the voice, it was there.

The King’s form ebbed and flowed at the edges, blurring with their surroundings like watercolor. It remained static and silent, no doubt reveling in D3rlord3’s shock.

In truth, D3rlord3 did not remember how long he’d been staring at the wretched thing until he felt a tug at his hand.

“What’s happening?” Avery whispered, panic in his voice and posture. “Why’d we stop? Are you okay?”

He blinked. And for that single moment, D3rlord3 could not have possibly cared any less about the King, and all his focus was redirected. The hand that was holding Avery’s gave a reassuring squeeze, and the other hand gently touched the side of his face. No words were exchanged, but none were needed.

Avery gave a tiny nod of understanding, and seemed to be assured at that.

“How touching.”

D3rlord3 scowled at the voice but said nothing.

“I must thank you for joining me here. Even if you only see me as an obstacle to your noble plan.”

Still, he said nothing. He retreated his hand from Avery’s jaw and faced the King directly. “It’s escape from you.”

“I see. It’s just as I said, then: You’re still terrified of me.”

D3rlord3 tensed. “I am not scared.”

“I know you very, very well. Certainly better than you know yourself.”

He dry swallowed and could not think of anything brave to say.

“Please know I don’t care for hurting you.” The King’s voice lightened somewhat. Then he tilted his head to Avery, as if just now remembering he was here. “Or him.”

D3rlord3 felt his spine go stiff. The King’s focus being on Avery felt very, very wrong, and he hurried to divert.

“Your word isn’t worth much to me.”

“Do give up the grandeur,” the King said, sounding almost bored. “I’m not here to scare you. If all goes well, this will be our last time meeting.”

D3rlord3’s hand went, automatically, to the dagger at his belt.

The King didn't react. “You misunderstand.”

“Then make me understand,” he said curtly.

It was as if the King had been waiting for those words. He began, syllables careful and clear.

“I know how much fear motivates you, how much you despise me. I know how much you fear his name in my voice. And I know you don’t really want to leave him up above the surface.”

D3rlord3 bit back a scoff. “What do you care about what I want? Just let me go.”

“I’m not keeping you here at all-- Admit your curiosity.”

In lieu of D3rlor3d’s continued silence, the King plowed on.

“I want to tell you what will happen if you go along with your plan.”

D3rlord3 almost bit back a reply, then paused. And within that hesitation he realized, begrudgingly, that his sense of curiosity was still as strong as ever.

The King took his silence as an answer and stepped close, leaning forward, with his posture and voice moving in ways that shouldn’t have been possible.

“He will think of you whenever he sees the sun, and miss you every morning. And worry when you miss a visit. Two lives wasted in limbo.”

For the first time, D3rlord3 looked away, down at the ground. “What is it that you want from me?” he asked, once again.

“I want you to ask yourself,” the King worded carefully, “If you really need that weighing on you.”

D3rlord3’s voice was clipped. “This is not your business.”

“He won’t know until you tell him.”

His eyes flicked up. “Tell him what?”

No reply.

It was becoming increasingly obvious that the King had scurried into the tiniest crevices of D3rlord3’s mind, turning over thoughts like a shameless visitor. Even the ones he himself did not dare articulate, the ones that ate away at him during nights.

D3rlord3 should not have been discomforted by the King’s confusing words-- that was all he was good for. But, still, he struggled to understand what it was trying to impart here.

He spared a glance over at Avery-- patient and still, an unknowing third in this conversation between a knight and a god.

“Come along now, you’re clever,” the King crooned, obviously trying to draw out some reaction from D3rlord3. “I will tell you this much-- I was only ever trying to rid myself of you.”

He frowned. “Me?”

“Consider the oldest fairytale. The only way to lure out a knight is to dangle a damsel in distress in front of him.”

D3rlord3 looked down at Avery. “Damsel?”

“Close enough. Now, I don’t expect you to thank me.”

“Thank you?”

A mirthless noise from the King. “Don’t give me that look. People have been called to me for millennia. You are only the most recent to answer.”

“I never answered. You tricked me.”

“Did I?” the King asked, infinitely patient. “I didn’t make you step into my view. And I certainly didn’t tilt your eyes up at me. That was all done of your own will.”

D3rlord3 chose to stay silent. On instinct, he squeezed Avery’s hand, which only proved to be a mistake, because the King noticed. Its head tilted and its voice dipped, yet again, into amusement.

“I must admit, I have hardly ever known of someone who fought so hard to have his string of fate intertwined with another’s.”

He defiantly stepped closer and voiced a horrible offer:

“I can share with him our gift. He can know everything about you. It would be very easy.”

He extended a fingertip precariously close to Avery’s forehead, but D3rlord3 stepped backwards and out of his clutch. Avery had looked a bit confused, but quietly obliged in the motion.

“Don’t touch him,” D3rlord3 ordered, not sure where he was finding all this courage.

The King’s robes fluttered in the silence.

“What about you, then?”

D3rlord3 stilled. “What?”

“Knowing the past and present— but not the future? It’s only half a gift. I’m sure it itches at you.”

D3rlord3 said nothing.

The King tilted his head as if he were talking to a toddler, and rephrased his words.

“Do you want to know the future?”

It stepped closer to make up for the distance and raised a fingertip up, letting it hover a mere inch from D3rlord3’s helmet.

“Your future?”

The selfish answer entered D3rlord3’s mind: Yes, he wanted to know, desperately.

He wanted to look at it from all angles possible, he wanted to be assured of all possibilities, to never worry for Avery or for the gates again. To keep him safe indefinitely.

He knew that all fears stemmed from the unknown. People fear spiders because they do not know if they will bite. People fear heights because they do not know if they can trust themselves not to fall.

Nothing was unknown to D3rlord3 except the future. It was the single gap in his knowledge, the one hole. And it terrified him to no end. He would never be totally sure of anything-- he didn’t know if choosing to stay close or away from Avery would be safer. If it even mattered.

He could say yes. He could say yes, and know it all, and never fear anything again, and live in peace that he so desperately sought.

But…

One point caught on his logic, like dry hands against cotton.

He would be stripping himself of so many chances.

Because it would mean never hearing Avery’s laugh, never noticing something new in his eyes or in the cadence of his voice. Never hearing his genuine questions or any of his musings.

No act of his would ever be new, no question previously unheard, no act unpredictable.

What a dull life that would be. Could it be that the prospect of Avery’s company overrode D3rlord3’s most human fear?

It was a scarily easy answer-- Yes, he’d rather live in uncertainty with Avery as his company, than in a world where he already knew each of his jokes and smiles. He wanted to experience it all for the first time.

A larger truth dawned upon D3rlord3: Although there was nothing left for him to know, there was everything left for him to do. And the prospect of spending an unknown future was scary, but much less scary with Avery in it.

And why was that? What was it about him, Avery, who wandered where he should have never gone, who refused every one of D3rlord3’s attempts at pushing him away, whose persistence and sunniness would blot out his worst fears?

D3rlord3 slowly turned to stare down at Avery-- and even hidden behind the blindfold, he could still picture those ever-bright and curious eyes of his.

He didn’t understand how it could be, that even with infinite knowledge, the truth had escaped him for so long— he loved Avery.

“Oh.”

The King let out a pleased little hum.

“You understand now.”

As D3rlord3 grappled with the newfound feeling that he may have allowed himself to fall for his only true companion, the King soldiered on with his talk.

“I know every human emotion and custom, all the social niches. I know the name of every chemical sparking in your head right now, and I know every word of his that makes your heart jump. But I will never understand it.”

The King’s voice dipped into something close to reverent.

“You were fascinating to watch. Thank you.”

In the silence that followed, D3rlord3 was still stuck staring at Avery. The King’s words eventually caught up to him, and he mumbled out a very lost, “What?”

“On you go and live, little knight. I tear my gaze from you.”

“And… what do you get out of this?”

The impression of a smile was all the reply he got.

Avery had turned his head to try and face D3rlord3, a silent question written on his posture. D3rlord3’s heart turned over for seemingly no reason at all.

He supposed he had no other reason to remain, and a whole lot he needed to say. His final glance up at the King was met with nothing but empty air-- it was gone.

D3rlord3 took a moment to remind himself to breathe, and began to walk, making sure Avery was following along.

Chapter Text

D3rlord3 was still not entirely sure what had just happened.

As he led them through the last of the tunnels, his hand didn't loosen its hold on Avery's, and he still waited to remove the blindfold.

From beside him, Avery followed along in silence, blissfully unaware of just how much D3rlord3 was struggling to get a rein on the realization that he had allowed himself to fall in love with his only companion.

His mouth went dry at the word.

Putting a name to the feeling did not make it any easier to understand. It definitely did not quell the hammering feeling in his chest every time he glanced over at his blindfolded face.

The fact that D3rlord3 had needed a poke from a vaguely immortal entity did not exactly serve as a compliment to his intellect. Really, he should have seen it coming— how could he know every possible detail about Avery and not fall in love, at least a little bit?

There was a logical next step to this that he was not looking forward to. A conversation.

D3rlord3 tried to get a hold of the revelations flitting around his mind as they continued on.

Eventually, finally, the very end of the tunnel gave a glimpse of the outside: The sight of a blue sky, framed by the initial mine entrance.

With a few more steps, the two of them were emptied out into a beautiful day.

The afternoon was amusingly bright, with the sun hanging high in the air, stretching its gentle rays upon every inch of the surface. Golden light teased at the treetops and upon the blades of glass. It warmed D3rlord3’s cloak.

His focus, though, was directed elsewhere-- Avery must have felt the sunlight beaming down on them, because a hand went up to touch the edges of his blindfold.

D3rlord3 coaxed away his hand and untied the fabric himself. He slowly peeled off the blindfold and plucked the earplugs out, watching as Avery blinked at the change in light.

“You okay?” he asked him quietly.

Avery was focused on other things, clearly.

“What happened? We were standing there for, like— th— Are you okay?” he asked, looking D3rlord3 up and down.

“Fine, yes. Are you?”

“Well, yeah. But what happened down there?” Avery looked back at the tunnel they had just come from. “I was starting to wonder if something went wrong.”

D3rlord3 opened his mouth to reply, then shut it.

“Um,” was all he said, because there was really no simple way of summarizing it all.

Avery read his look easily. His own expression flattened into one of concern.

“You saw it, didn’t you? The King?”

A hesitant nod from D3rlord3.

“What did it want?”

“It’s hard to explain.”

Avery went quiet as he looked him over some more, and then took a tiny step closer. “Well, are you okay, at least?”

The concern in his voice grabbed at D3rlord3’s heartstrings and tugged incessantly. He almost let it all slip right then and there. Steadying himself, D3rlord3 just breathed out a very quiet, “Yes.”

“Good. That’s… good.”

They stood in silence for a while, taking equal comfort in the fact that they were safely out of the caves.

Avery hummed. “Well, if I’m fine and you’re fine, what now?”

“We go and live,” D3rlord3 mumbled, pulling the words from his memory.

Avery tilted his head. “You sure you’re okay?”

“Um. Yes.”

“You didn’t get any more secrets of the universe revealed to you, or… whatever?”

He smiled a tiny bit at his concern; he couldn’t help it. “No. Nothing like that.”

Avery squinted at him, probably trying to meet his eyes behind the visor. “I’m only asking ‘cause you’re acting funny.”

D3rlord3 didn’t reply to that. He pulled his helmet off and held it at his side.

Now, whenever he saw his reflection in the dingy glass of his house, or the water of the fountain, he saw the gold armor, the plumed helmet. By all appearances, he was a knight. The picture of selflessness, of sacrifice, of resolution.

D3rlord3 was not supposed to want. He was not supposed to covet. He, of all people, had been given his lot in life, and he was to be satisfied with nothing more.

Except he really wasn’t.

A smile teased the corners of Avery’s mouth, confused but fond all the same. “Is something wrong?”

“No, nothing’s wrong. Or, I don’t— I mean, I just,” D3rlord3 stopped himself, started over. “I need to tell you something. Because I never tell you what I’m thinking— what I’m really thinking.”

“Well, you’re probably hungry. Come on, I’ll make something for us to eat. Don’t tell me you forgot the way to my place alr—”

“Avery,” D3rlord3 cut in, quietly. “I am trying to tell you something.”

He went still. Probably without thinking, Avery began toying with his own fingers; the same hand that D3rlord3 had kissed. He stared up at him, gears in his head turning. “Oh. Okay.”

D3rlord3 looked him in the eyes. “I don’t think I’m any good on my own anymore.”

Avery blinked. He said nothing, just kept staring.

“I lied to myself for the longest time about you. I think of you. I worry about you. I let you sleep in my bed, I kissed your hand. And I don’t… understand why I let you get away with half the things you do to me.” D3rlord3 said each word carefully. “You’re confusing.”

Every word was building, incrementally, toward the truth— the very precipice of it. Although D3rlord3 knew very well that nobody in history had ever died of butterflies before, he thinks he’s about to come close.

Avery gave a tiny, amused smile. “Maybe you just like me.”

“Maybe,” D3rlord3 admitted. “I might even be in love with you.”

“Hah.” Avery blushed right up to his ears. “Uh, wait, what?”

D3rlord3 took a step forward, then another. They were close. Close enough for D3rlord3— with his thumb and forefinger— to slowly tilt Avery’s face towards him. The look on his face could only be described as the physical embodiment of OMG.

D3rlord3 felt his eyes crinkle in humor as he let his thumb grace Avery’s jaw. “Yes?”

His reply was instant, exhilarated. “Yes.”

D3rlord3 kissed him.

With that, the world came crashing to a halt. It felt like the opposite of staring into the golden gates. His mind went blank— for once, it was not swirling with a million thoughts, but just one. Avery.

He didn’t remember dropping his helmet on the grass to cup Avery’s jaw, and he certainly couldn’t remember why he hadn’t done this sooner.

They pulled back and silence enveloped them, until they were just breathing, their faces still only inches apart.

Avery’s eyes were wide. He stood silent and awe-stricken for so long that D3rlord3 was starting to think he was just that lousy of a kisser.

Then Avery took a single step back.

Without warning, he threw his hands in the air and whooped out:

“Yess! Finally!”

D3rlord3 mumbled out a very croaky, “What?”

“I was wondering when you’d do that!”

“When I’d…?”

“To be honest, dude, I didn't fully think that you… Well, I guess I knew that you were sweet on me, but I didn’t think— And the—” he cut himself off, waving a hand. He looked up at D3rlord3. “Can we do it again?”

“Hold on, you mean to tell me…” D3rlord3 faltered. “How long have you…?”

“Um. A while. Not important.”

“You could’ve said something.”

“Oh, I tried! And, anyway, I thought you knew everything.”

D3rlord3 rolled his eyes lightheartedly. “Except I find it hard to keep a clear head around you.”

Avery was about to argue when the words hit him, and he promptly blushed into silence; D3rlord3 would probably never tire of seeing it happen. Unthinkingly, he grabbed Avery’s ridiculous shirt by the lapels and pulled him into another kiss, as was previously requested. Another thing he’d probably never tire of.

Avery pulled back and took only a second to let out a breathless laugh before he asked, “So, does this mean you're not gonna stay in that sad little house underground?”

D3rlord3 sighed. “I hate that house.”

“So, you’re gonna stay? With me?”

He nodded. “If you’ll have me.”

“Uh, duh.”

Avery pulled D3rlord3 into a hug, and with his face pressed against his chestplate, he quietly breathed out, “I love you too, for the record. But I think you knew that.”

D3rlord3’s fingers curled around Avery’s collar as he pulled him closer.

——

His days could be described as easy. That was the word for it.

It was easy to live, to talk, to think, to settle into life in the sun, to whisper his real name to Avery and have the memory of life in the caves grow more distant by the day.

It felt like he’d spent forever down there and was only just now awake and alive.

There was this phenomenon that came to mind called gravitational time dilation. It explains that the perception of time changes with distance. Time moves differently, for example, if an object is above the Earth or way underground.

He told Avery about it once. He only fondly concluded that D3rlord3 was a nerd.

And it was during these days with Avery— settling into any of the new, mundane habits he grew to revel in— that he wondered how he ever let himself consider living without him.

——

They were sitting side-by-side on the steps of their house, watching the wind sweep through the grass, the trees reaching high into the blue sky.

D3rlord3 had taken a liking to the habit, really. It was nice to sit and slip off his helmet, watching nature go about its work. And even though Avery would insist that it was a boring pastime, he would still go out and join him every time.

And so they sat, a typical day in every sense, with D3rlord3 still savoring the idea that this got to be his new normal.

Avery, meanwhile, was trying to guess the names of the songbirds chirping above.

“Blue jay.”

“Close,” D3rlord3 said.

Avery perked up. “Really? How close?”

“Subalpine eastern warbler.”

His shoulders slumped. “Oh, you’re too nice.”

D3rlord3’s smile softened. “Sorry,” he teased.

They sat in silence for some time, watching the clouds lazily drift across the sky. Eventually, Avery spoke up.

“I don’t know how you find this entertaining. Just sitting outside.”

“It's nice. Lets me think.”

“Well, then, what are you thinking about?”

“Songbirds.”

“Other than that?”

“You.”

“Other than that?”

D3rlord3 paused. “I’m thinking about the mine.”

Avery’s nose crinkled slightly. “Oh. Ew. What about it?”

“Do you remember how I left you a book? With a warning you ignored?”

Avery waggled a finger at him. “I technically didn’t ignore it. But, yeah, I remember. What about it?”

“I think we should leave it in the mine, in that chest. Just for the peace of mind.”

Avery considered that. “What, the same exact one? With all your spelling mistakes?”

D3rlord3 gave a lighthearted huff. “Yes, that one. You still have it?”

“Well, of course. Why don’t we write a new one, though? I wanna keep yours.”

“For what?” D3rlord3 asked.

“Souvenir.”

“Souvenir?”

“Yes, souvenir. Those were the first words you ever said to me!”

“Written, not spoken.”

“Still counts.”

“I wrote in half a minute,” D3rlord3 pointed out with a tiny smile. “I mean, I passed out after I put down the last word.”

Avery gave a mock swoon. “And all for me.”

D3rlord3 stared down at his boots, trying to smother a laugh.

Avery piped up, “So, you wanna do it, then? Write another warning?”

“Yeah. In the interest of… closure. For peace of mind.”

With a clap of the hands, Avery stood, saying, “Okay. Let’s do it.”

D3rlord3 peered up at him. “Where are you off to?”

“Well, we’d better get started, right? I think I’ve got spare ink somewhere.”

D3rlord3 could always admire the sheer enthusiasm Avery brought to even the most mundane of tasks. He tilted his head at him in quiet thanks and said, “Ink’s in the woven basket by the stairs.”

Avery nodded and was off. D3rlord3 listened as his footsteps trailed up and toward the front door, then stopped as if forgetting something. In the next moment, Avery appeared back at D3rlord3’s side again.

“Kiss,” Avery requested, tilting his face to him expectantly. D3rlord3 dutifully pressed one to the corner of his mouth.

With that request granted, he skipped off inside with a smile.

——

Avery insisted on taking the lead on writing the journal-warning, citing his better handwriting and spelling. D3rlord3 had to agree. He often found himself accidentally writing in long-dead latin scripts whenever he put ink to paper, anyway.

So, Avery would spend the later hours of their days hunkered down at their dining table, inkpot and paper in front of him, thinking up ways to properly scare people from turning left.

It was during one such evening that Avery leaned back in his chair and beckoned for D3rlord3, who was puttering about somewhere in the house.

“Hey. C’mere. Read what I’ve written so far.”

D3rlord3 went over to him, hovering above Avery’s shoulder and reading aloud what was on the page in his neat handwriting.

“‘Whatever you do at the crossroads, don’t turn left’— Okay, well, now you’re just plagiarizing me.”

“Shared creative custody. But, see, no spelling mistakes!”

D3rlord3 sighed amusedly but continued on reading. “I really mean it, don't turn left, there's nothing down there, I took the last cute knight--’ What?”

Avery looked up. “What’s wrong with it?”

“Nothing.”

“You were the main attraction down there.”

“You think too highly of me.”

Avery shook his head resolutely. “Not possible. Now, anyway, if it’s got your seal of approval, then I’m keeping at it.”

He moved his ink bottle closer and started a new page. D3rlord3 watched him for a few moments before pulling up a chair and sitting across from him, deciding to keep him company.

Avery seemed quietly pleased at that. After a moment, he looked up and asked, “Should I mention the King in Yellow?”

“If you want,” he said, slipping off his gloves and flexing his fingers. “What would you write about him?”

“That he’s a jerk.” Then Avery glanced down at the floor. “Wait, is he gonna curse me for saying that?”

“Probably not.”

“Well, no matter. I don’t think he likes me, anyway.”

D3rlord3’s mind wandered to his last meeting with the King, at the weirdly calm way he conducted himself.

“He likes you plenty,” he concluded.

Avery squinted at him. “I know this is ironic to ask, but how do you know that?”

“Well, who wouldn’t like you?”

Avery lightly rolled his eyes at him and then returned his focus to writing.

——

The days went on. Another thing he found easy, D3rlord3 discovered, was thinking.

Infinite knowledge never weighed any lighter on his mind, but Avery was always there to soften out the world around it.

Even the difficult days were outnumbered. The times when D3rlord3’s mind just wouldn’t stop looping on details from eons ago, or would sink into a migraine— Avery would be there. Sometimes he would talk to D3rlord3 about mundane things, trying to distract from the worst thoughts.

But even when he just stuck close and said nothing at all, the consolation would come all the same.

——

The two of them had been outside for most of the day, doing odd chores while they talked about ideas for dinner.

D3rlord3 knew with finality that he would never get bored of this sort of life. Avery always had his way of making the most unmemorable activities worthwhile. In the late afternoon, they stopped at a riverbank for a much-needed drink. D3rlord3 set his helmet onto the grass as they sat and looked out across the water.

“Sure beats the fountain water,” Avery commented.

D3rlord3 grimaced internally at the memory and had to agree. “I’m not sure how I ever managed it.”

“I know, right? It always tasted dusty.”

A tiny smile from D3rlord3. “Well, yeah, but not just that. I meant living down there in general.”

“Oh. I dunno,” Avery said, swirling the tip of his shoe in the water. “I guess you were used to it-- you were different back then.”

“It was hardly that long ago.”

“Sure feels like it.”

They sat with that. D3rlord3 watched as Avery tried and failed to skip a stone across the water.

“Zoochosis,” D3rlord3 said after a while.

Avery looked up at him. “Huh?”

“Animals in captivity fall into repetitive activity during prolonged periods of loneliness. Happens to pet cats. They get used to it.”

“You’ve got to stop comparing yourself to kittens.”

D3rlord3 stuck his tongue out at him.

“Hmph. Well, anyway, that’s interesting. I guess it’s good I found you. Scooped you out of your… prolonged period of loneliness.”

“Yeah. I think you accidentally saved my life.”

Avery huffed out an amused sigh. “I thought we agreed to keep a lid on the mushy stuff.”

“Can’t help it. Honestly, you’d better change the subject before I start waxing poetic about your eyes or something.”

Avery smirked. “Yeesh. Okay, then, I guess I will. Like this,” he said, and jumped to his feet. “Let’s spar!”

D3rlord3 stared between Avery and at his finger, which was pointing squarely at his chestplate. “What, right now? With… what?”

Avery dropped his hand, likely remembering that they hadn’t brought their swords. “Ah. Wait. Hold on.”

He glanced around and found what he was looking for some steps away-- two sticks of roughly equal length, which would do fine for a spar. After snapping off a twig that jutted out from the side of one stick, Avery tossed it to D3rlord3.

“That’ll do, right?”

D3rlord3 tested the heft of the stick-weapon in his hand and nodded.

They set up a few steps from the river, because he knew there was a nonzero chance one of them would fall in otherwise. With their sticks in hand and standing across from one another, Avery was peeling the bark off his branch as he listened to D3rlord3, reciting his usual spiel.

“No maiming, no hits above the head—”

Avery waved him off half-impatiently. “Oh, I know, I know. Like I would ever maim my knight.”

“Just making sure.”

“And, anyway, how could I decapitate someone with a twig?”

“You’d probably find a way.”

Before Avery could shoot back a quip, D3rlord3 gave the mark, and they launched into their round.

Fighting with sticks was strange at first, but soon they fell into the same rhythm as if they had their usual blades. Avery swung and D3rlord3 sidestepped, keeping up with each other effortlessly. It almost seemed the spar was going to end in a draw.

Following an exchange of hits and clashes, eventually they both struck at the same time and their two pseudo-swords locked in an X, unmoving.

In between the sticks, D3rlord3 said to Avery, half-joking, “Sorry, don’t think you’re winning this one.”

“Hmph.”

Avery, probably realizing he was right, promptly seized the moment and leaned in, pressing a quick kiss to D3rlord3's lips. That was all it took to change the tide. D3rlord3 lost his balance along with his grip on the English language, and fell to the ground with a huff and a clatter of armor.

“I win,” he heard Avery say innocently.

D3rlord3 was flat on his back and still catching his breath. He could never argue that Avery wasn’t innovative.

“That is cheating, you know.”

Avery appeared above him, smiling wide.

“No, I don’t think so,” he said, before offering a hand to help D3rlord3 back on his feet.

——

Some days later, they were sitting at the dining table, the hour very late. Avery was finishing up the warning message-- or, rather, claiming to be, when he wasn’t distracted by conversation-- as D3rlord3 sat across from him, a rag in his hand as he buffed out a mark on his helmet.

“How many ants share my birthday?” Avery asked.

D3rlord3 thought about it and answered easily.

“About forty-seven-and-a-quarter trillion.”

“Wow.”

His voice sounded rather sleepy. D3rlord3 glanced up and saw that Avery was indeed close to dozing off at the table, chin propped up with a hand that was steadily losing its place.

D3rlord3 leaned forward and gently plucked the quill from his hand. “You really should go to sleep.”

“Meh.”

“Is this some scheme to get me to carry you to bed again?”

“No,” Avery said, a bit unconvincingly. He rubbed his palm against his eyes and shut the cover of the journal in front of him. “Maybe you’re right. But, hey, I’m done with the book! We can drop it off in the morning.”

D3rlord3 stared at the cover, thinking that over. “I think I’d feel a little better about doing it sooner.”

Avery blinked, a tired pause preceding his reply. “What, like right now?”

Following D3rlord3’s tiny nod, Avery readied himself to stand before he was guided back down with a gloved hand on the shoulder.

“No. I can go,” D3rlord3 said to him. “You look dead on your feet.”

“I do not.”

D3rlord3 leveled him with a look. Avery sighed and leaned back a bit in his chair. “All by yourself, though? Are you sure?”

“I’m sure. I think this is something I have to do by myself, anyway.”

Avery seemed to think about that. “Is this about your secret gossip session with the King that you won’t tell me about?”

D3rlord3 tilted his head to the side and gave no audible reply.

Avery blew out a sigh. “Just be careful.”

“I will. It’s not like I’ll get lost.”

Avery cracked a tiny smile. “Ha-ha,” he droned sarcastically. “See, you can be funny.”

D3rlord3 pressed a kiss to Avery’s temple and stood, scooping up the book. “I’ll be back soon.”

He didn’t have to check to know that Avery’s feet were swinging under the table.

“Okey-dokes,” he said cheerfully.

D3rlord3 slipped on his helmet and crossed to the front door. He looked back— from the table, Avery was giving a little wave goodbye, his tiredness not smothering the lightness in his eyes one bit. D3rlord3’s heart tightened; he felt lucky.

With a final bid goodbye and an ask that Avery wrangle himself to bed, D3rlord3 set on his way.

——

Although night had crept in fully, the darkness was no obstacle to D3rlord3; the directions came to him without a second thought.

The moon was still a welcome novelty to him, and he took the time to appreciate its thin light filtering through the leaves.

He switched the book from one hand to the other, feeling slightly antsy.

All things considered, this would have been his last trip to the mine. Even when he and Avery went off fishing, they deliberately avoided any path that passed by the tunnel entrance. The place where his life was both ruined and changed forever.

Eventually, D3rlord3 arrived at the mine.

The moonlight made it easy to spot the mouth of the first tunnel entrance. He stepped inside and found that everything looked the same. D3rlord3 stepped over to the chest and lifted it, gently placing the book inside.

He was about to leave when he noticed something, in the furthest nooks of his sight, sitting off in the corner of the mine.

A singular flowerpot.

It was without a doubt the same one from the house in the village underground. The one that Avery had found and given to him.

D3rlord3 looked up at the entryway that led further into the tunnel. Then he scoffed.

“I hope you’re not expecting a thank-you,” he said aloud, and was met with silence.

A bit hesitantly, he went over and picked up the flowerpot.

He turned it over in his hands, mentally wincing for something to happen. Nothing did. The only sound was the muffled rustle of the night breeze running through the grass, coming from just outside.

That was when he felt something— or, rather, the lack of something.

A visit to the caves used to always bring with it a sense of being watched. This time, though, there was no force urgently poking at his shoulder, nothing finding the ends of his curiosities and pulling stubbornly.

D3rlord3 felt nothing at all.

In truth, that was greater assurance than anything— freedom from omniscience. He supposed the King really wasn’t lying about those parting words.

With his free hand, D3rlord3 let the chest lid fall shut, echoing its noise throughout the empty strip mine.

He turned and left, flowerpot in hand.

——

D3rlord3 stepped into the house and closed the door behind him, shutting out the ambient sounds of the night. Inside, it was quiet.

A glance around confirmed that the chair was empty, and so was the rest of the main room. The last flickers of the candle were tapering out. It seemed that Avery had taken his advice and gone to bed.

D3rlord3 slipped off his helmet and set it on the table. Toward the windowsill he went, and set the empty flowerpot on the ledge.

He stared at it, running a thumb along the rough edges of the clay.

He found himself shaking his head at his past self often. To think that he could’ve lived the rest of his life with only infinite memories of sunlight and Avery and peace.

There was a creak from the floorboards somewhere behind him.

Startled from his thoughts, he turned to see Avery, leaning in the doorway, voice tinged with sleep. “You said you’d be back soon.”

D3rlord3 tilted his head to the side, his heart swelling at his sleepy state. “And you said you’d go to sleep.”

“I am. Was. Whatever. Anyway, are you okay?”

“Yes. Why?”

Avery made a vague gesture to his face. He should not have been surprised at his perceptiveness-- Avery could always tell when he particularly had a lot on his mind.

“I’m alright,” D3rlord3 answered. “Just thinking.”

There was no need to prompt further and ask him to elaborate. The answer was always everything. Avery pushed himself off the doorway, crossing over to D3rlord3’s side.

“You dropped off the book?” he asked, and D3rlord3 nodded.

With nothing more to ask-- or maybe just too tired to talk-- Avery took a small step closer and rested the side of his head against D3rlord3’s shoulder, his fingers idly wrapping around his glove.

That was another thing that came easily: Affection. Avery would openly say he missed him, turn his face into his shoulder as they slept, trace shapes into his palm when they held hands. It made D3rlord3’s heart ache every time.

Infinite memories of people across history falling in love did not prepare him for actually experiencing and living it.

D3rlord3 brushed his thumb along Avery’s cheek, not daring to end the quiet moment by suggesting they go to bed. The sentiment seemed to be shared. They stood there for a long moment before Avery pointed a finger to the windowsill housing the flowerpot.

“Isn’t that from underground?”

“Yeah,” D3rlord3 said quietly. “I don’t know why it… Well, it was just sort of there. In the mine.”

“Huh.” Avery gave it some thought for about five seconds. Then he yawned, turning his face further into D3rlord3’s shoulder. “I’ll find a proper flower for it later. Tomorrow.”

D3rlord3 responded in his own way, lifting Avery’s hand to press a gentle kiss against his palm. Avery hummed contentedly.

He really should have urged them off to sleep by now, to the room and bed they shared, where Avery would no doubt curl into D3rlord3’s side as easily as breathing before actually falling asleep.

But right now, D3rlord3 was perfectly content to stay at his side a little longer.

He had all the time in the world.