Chapter Text
Car tires ground against the gravel driveway leading up to a shoddy house. It looked as if it hadn’t been upkept in years, but the warm lights on in the windows told another story. Two other cars were left on the path, a slightly run down sedan and an older but nicely kept 80’s classic. His car (well it wasn’t really his car, the car he borrowed from his parents) was nothing special. He double checked the numbers above the front door before climbing out of the car and beeping the lock twice. He almost couldn’t hear the crunch of gravel under his sneakers when he walked up the path, nerves distracting him easily. It was quite insane what he was doing, but he had come too far to turn back now.
Pressing the doorbell once, he stood a foot or two from the door. A minute passed in silence. Sneakers shifted nervously on the wooden porch and he buzzed it again. His eyes glanced around the porch as he waited minutes, noting the potted plants struggling with life and the window with curtains closed, light shining through the gaps. He huffed and resigned to knocking on the door, solid wood rattling with each hit. There was a small commotion behind the door and footsteps approached. The door swung open to a woman, middle aged and exhausted. Specks of confusion dazzled her eyes as they made eye contact.
“Uh, hi-“ he said. “Is Dorian here?”
She looked at him and tilted her head. “Who are you…?”
He mentally cursed himself. He had gotten distracted from the introduction he rehearsed on the drive over, he hadn’t seen there was a woman living at this residence when he did his research.
“Oh, sorry- I’m Avery. A friend of Dorian’s?” he said after shaking the stun from him. His voice said he wasn’t entirely sure if it was true.
The woman looked at him like she was trying to hold back tears of relief.
“Ah, apologies. He hasn’t talked about any of his life since he left for college. No wonder I didn’t recognize you!” She tried to give him a polite chuckle.
The door slipped open further and she cleared the way for him. “Come in, come in. I’m his mother, Sherine. Oh, and leave your shoes by the door with the rest.”
Avery smiled and welcomed himself in, noticing the doorbell had its wires torn apart. It was then he realized he never heard the doorbell sound off. He paid it no mind, shuffling his shoes off and leaving them with the two other pairs. The mother wore a tired smile when she saw the childish patterns on his socks.
“Sorry about the doorbell, he hates the sound of it.” she said softly.
He gave her a bright smile. “No biggie!”
She wrapped her shawl around herself, relaxing in its comfort. “His room is this way, follow me.” Sherine said, leading him past the living room into a dimly lit hallway. “It’s nice to finally meet a friend of his.”
An awkward smile gave away his uneasy feeling, thankful she wasn’t facing him. A bit of shame lingered, for he really wasn’t a friend, exactly. Like a blessing, he wouldn’t have to respond because the conversation faded as she stopped and knocked on a door and the conversation faded. When no response came,she cracked the door open gently and leaned into the dark room. Through the opening Avery just managed to make out a human shaped lump laying under the covers of a bed. He could only glimpse at the lump’s face almost entirely covered in curly, knotted hair before the door shut again.
The mother backed away with an apologetic look. “He… he is still asleep. Nothing will be able to wake him, he is a very heavy sleeper lately.”
“Oh,” Avery said, thinly masking his confusion. It was already past 2 PM. “That’s okay! I can wait.”
She looked relieved at his gentleness. They walked back down the hall and she gestured to him to sit down wherever he pleased. “Would you like some hot tea? He has quite the collection!”
“I’m okay, but thank you.” Avery said, sitting in a plushy arm chair.
“No, please, please! You are very welcome to have some. Tell me, cinnamon apple or honey lavender? Or a simple earl grey?”
A warm smile graced his face, recognizing that he didn’t have a choice in the matter. “Cinnamon apple, please!”
She turned to the counter and rummaged through several boxes of tea until pulling one out. A little kettle sat on the stove, already filled with water waiting to be heated. “So, tell me about yourself?”
Avery paused for a moment. He hadn’t thought of a cover story, figuring he wouldn’t need one if he was only expecting to meet that mysterious d3rlord3. His brain racked over everything he’d found on this stranger.
“Uh, we met in college. Dorm mates!”
She stopped to turn around and swirl a spoon at him playfully. “About yourself, dear.”
Drats. “I went for chemistry, I guess? Didn’t do too well but hey, ol’ college try, am I right?”
Two tea bags dropped into a mug and water began producing small bubbles. The words floated in her mind, pinned to the front by thumbtacks. “Well, sometimes that is the best you can do.”
He opted to move past. “He’s two years ahead of me though so he graduated already. I figured I’d visit him during the holiday break! Catch up, hang out.”
Boiling water poured over the tea bags, stirred by a spoon as Sherine walked over to hand it to him. He took it from her with thanks and held the warmth close. She sat on the couch across from him.
“Do you think I don’t notice your lies?”
Avery froze. He couldn’t think of a response.
“I know he dropped out, but it seems that you didn’t. I will ask again, who are you?”
His eyes fell from hers and stared at the tea in his hands.
“I am Avery. But I didn’t go to college with him. I don’t even know him, to be honest. But he knows me.”
He risked a glance at her and found her waiting, expecting. He sighed.
“Look, it’s gonna sound crazy but he got into my Minecraft world and left a note for me. ‘Don’t go left’ or something. And when I found it I posted a video about it and somehow he edited the description to link to some cryptic video of him in my world.”
Avery looked up at her. She looked back with an expression he couldn’t tell if it was concern or fear. His heart sank a little.
“Okay- okay, I see now how it probably seems that I stalked him but I didn’t! I just tracked him down- okay, well that- okay I’ll just leave actually.” Avery rambled, jumping from the seat and putting the mug on a nearby coffee table. Just as he rounded the seat’s corner to make it to the door the mother spoke up.
“He’s been muttering your name in his sleep.”
“He has?” He couldn’t get his voice above a whisper.
Her words stopped him before he could make it past the seat. His hand still laid on its back.
“For weeks.”
Avery made himself look back at her and knew the look on her face was nothing other than despair.
He went back to the arm chair.
“I know he’s always been one for finding himself in places he shouldn’t be but I don’t know why he would want to go in your… what was it, Minecraft?” Sherine said softly.
He nodded. “Yeah, my Minecraft world. And Youtube account too. I don’t know why either. Nothing he did really made sense?”
Her eyes trailed down, fearful sadness overtaking her. “To me, one day he just changed. He stopped responding to my texts and calls entirely and I got so worried I came up to check on him and found him just… wasting away. He didn’t even open the door.”
It didn’t make sense, how did someone so dysfunctional do all of those things to him? “When did he stop responding?”
Sherine shook her head lightly, unsure. “Uh, six weeks ago I believe?”
He found the book seven weeks ago.
“What’s- what’s been going on with him?”
It was clear the topic only brought her pain. Her hands lifted the mug of cinnamon apple tea and handed it back to her guest. Avery took a drink, if only for her sake.
“He sleeps so much. It must be 16 hours every day. Always uttering nonsense to himself, words I can’t understand. He’s started having these seizures- at least I think they are. He just wavers and drops before his body starts jerking. Sometimes his eyes roll back. It’s scary, seeing him like that. He never remembers.”
Avery wasn’t sure if the warmth spreading in his stomach was the tea or anxiety. He took another sip anyway.
“He barely eats anymore. I had to put a fridge of soylent in his room so he doesn’t starve. It’s a blessing when I hear his voice. His room needs to be dark so the sunlight can’t get in and it needs to be cold so he can always be under the covers in winter clothes. I don’t think he’s gone outside a single time since I’ve been here. He says the sun and moon hurt him.”
Sherine had begun holding herself. Her voice shook with emotion. She couldn’t look him in the eyes. “Sometimes his head hurts so much he throws up. He always has a migraine. Sometimes he just… yells and cries and tries to pull his hair out. Sometimes I have to use my entire body weight on him to hold him down so he stops hitting his head. I have to hide everything he could use to hurt himself because I’m scared he-…”
Her voice broke into tearful gasps. She couldn’t bring herself to say it. Avery came here with no expectations but he certainly wasn’t prepared for this outcome. Thankfully, one of the few things he was good at was compassion.
“Can I hug you?”
The weeping mother struggled to look up to him. She resigned to shakily nod her approval. He wasted no time in setting the mug down and sitting beside her, twisting himself to hold her close. Sherine laced her hands around him and tried to calm her shaking.
“The tea is really yummy, by the way.” Avery said, earning a small laugh from her.
“It’s Dorian’s favorite brand.”
“Yeah, I could tell by the seventeen boxes you have in there,” he joked.
Sherine pulled away and patted his cheek. “You are a sweet one. I bet your mother is proud.”
He gave her a smile, hoping she couldn’t sense its fakeness. “Sure is!”
—-
Behind the guarded windows the sun had begun dipping past the trees and into the horizon. The environment dimmed to a low light that almost made Avery sleepy. His mug was now empty and sitting discarded on the table. They sat across from each other, comfortably relaxed under warm blankets in the cold winter temperature.
Muffled grumbling broke into their conversation, quieted by the walls that stood between them. Sherine’s eyes lit up with hope and she jumped from her seat.
“Oh, he’s awake!” she reported to Avery as she walked towards the hallway.
Avery followed suit, standing from his seat and beginning to follow.
“Oh, you stay there, I’ll bring him out to you!” she added.
He stopped where he was like a well-trained dog eager for a treat. He watched her disappear into the shady room and heard faint words, too quiet to make out. A few seconds later two conjoined figures appeared from the doorway, one’s arms intertwined around the other. They slowly made their way down the hall, support limiting how much the other could stumble.
“Look, Dorian, your friend came to visit!” The mother’s hopeful smile felt like a loving embrace even from far away.
Coming from the shadows of the hallway Avery could finally see who he had come all this way for. He looked… deteriorated. Even with his excessive hours of sleep he had dark circles around his eyes, eyes that drooped with the fatigue of someone that’s just finished a 32 hour work day. Brown skin that began to grey like someone on their deathbed. Layers of dark curly hair fell around his face, just to his back, tangled but not matted. Scraggly remnants of a beard that struggled to grow littered his jaw, He hung on his mother’s arms, barely able to hold himself straight.
Despite it all, Avery still felt his gaze piercing him as his head managed to lift. The way he stared at him gave him unease.
“It’s me,” he forced out. “Avery!”
A moment passed in silence. Wordlessly, Dorian turned and hobbled back to his room. His mother’s hands fell from him as he denied her help. The smile had left her. She walked back to the living room.
“I’m really sorry, he gets like this-“
Loud crashing of metal and glass shook them quiet, turning back to the room it came from. They abandoned caution and rushed into his room to find him standing over a pile of broken electronics, already throwing his PC tower onto the floor. He didn’t notice or care about their presence, dropping to the floor and smashing the electronics with his fists. His mother cried out in horror and fell to the floor next to him, grabbing at his arms and hands but unable to stop him. With every bit of his strength he destroyed every piece he could get his hands on, unresponsive and obsessed. The shrapnel cut into his hands and arms, leaving blood to flow freely without care.
Avery could only watch in horror, stuck under the doorway before the scene. Sherine yells her son’s name endlessly. His movements grew weaker with every thrash, lungs heaving when he forgot to breathe. Using her legs, she pushed the pile of broken computer parts from his reach knowing he was too weak to follow. She bloodied herself grabbing onto his hands and holding them tightly.
“Run to the bathroom- turn right, first door across the hall on the left- get the first aid kit- under the sink-“ Sherine ordered as her breath failed her, her terrified face breaking Avery from his frozen stance. He doesn’t need to be told twice, stumbling through the hall and returning to drop the bag at her side. He stares at the blood sullying the both of them and flees the room. Into the kitchen he rushes through cabinet doors until he finds a large bowl. Grabbing a hand towel and filling the bowl with warm water, Avery returns to the bedroom as quickly as he can without spilling any.
Sherine’s eyes darted from him to the bowl as he crammed himself on the opposite side of Dorian. She shuddered out a “Thank you” as he soaked the rag and took his hand, wrapping the towel around him. With a bit more focus, she unzipped the first aid kit and laid out her supplies, trying not to cry at how her son leaned on her.
Avery could feel his stare. Dorian collapsing against his mother did not stop him from watching him from behind the hair falling over his face. It felt angry, helpless, scared, guilty. It filled Avery with terrible feelings and he couldn’t help the tears from welling up in his eyes. He didn’t understand why this stranger could feel these things for him.
He tried to distract himself with the damp, blood stained rag. He dunked it back in the water and gently wiped the blood from the stranger’s hands. Dorian wanted to tear his hands from him, to push him away and scare him away, but he couldn’t move even if there was a gun pressed to his head. He almost wished there was. All he could do was stare at the man with everything he had left in him.
It broke his heart to hear Avery sniffle. He was not a cruel man. He couldn’t maintain his facade of resentment hearing the way he cared for him. He didn’t even know him.
His stare softened into exhausted guilt. Before Avery could notice he looked away and closed his eyes, letting them do whatever they wanted. He was theirs.
Bandages wrapped around his limbs, a kiss pressed to each by gentle lips. A faint stain of his mother’s lipstick stayed behind. Her arms wrapped around him as her head rested upon his, petting his tangled hair. He was too exhausted to thank her but the way he leaned his full weight into her embrace was all the thanks she needed.
Avery felt like an intruder in their moment, so he shifted to clean the blood from the floor. He eyed the smashed computer and decided he wouldn’t even try to clean that.
Despite his false hope, Dorian knew when Avery had noticed the note scattered across his desk. He wanted to jump at it and tear it to shreds or yell at him to leave it alone- but his body betrayed him. Through closed eyes he knew that Avery had read the poem he had deciphered those weeks ago. He prayed that it wouldn’t be enough.