Chapter Text
This is it.
You’re at the end of the road, there’s no turning back, no other way to finish this.
Those cold, piercing yellow eyes clawing their gaze into you, chucking your painfully golden armor aside like it’s nothing and burrowing deep, deep into your skin, clenching at your veins. Reaching for your mind.
It hurts. God, it hurts so fucking much.
You’re ready, you have to be, you can’t–do this, much longer. There wasn’t any other way for this to go down–This is the only future left. For you, and the entire world.
And… Avery.
Avery?
“d3rlord3?”
You quickly spin around on your heels to follow the noise–the voice, the ever so familiar voice of him–mind blanking as you hands shake and your eyes lay upon–
“Avery.”
This is wrong, this is all wrong, he didn’t–He hadn’t seen this part of the future, he’d trusted Avery he thought–
Avery can’t be here. This isn’t safe–this wasn’t a part of the plan. Everything you’ve done, everything you’re about to sacrifice is for him, to protect him, he can’t just–Show up. You have to save him.
Desperation and fear claws at you, blanketing all other emotions, your mind tunnel visions on him.
“What are you doing here–Why aren’t you at the tree?” Your voice shakes out, low, coarse, and a little too quick, but you don’t have the time or even any mental capabilities to hide your panic right now.
You feel yourself inch closer to him, eyes boring into his stricken face as Avery looks d3rlord3 incredulously up and down. His hands jerk up, brows furrowing and lips slightly quivering.
“What am I doing here– What are you doing here!?” His voice rises dramatically, contrasting d3rlord3’s quiet, as he rushes to fill the empty space between them, pointing at d3rlord3’s chest with such conviction and– anger?
“You lied to me! There was nothing on that tree d3rlord!”
Avery’s arms still, dropping to his sides as his anger begins to leave him after bursting out so loudly, only looking up at d3lord3 solemnly.
“What are you doing here? What is this?”
You take a sharp breath in. Panic settles into your bones, you can’t do this, not with him staring at you like that, like–you’re something to be angry for, like you’re worth so much more than you truly are.
How are you supposed to explain this to Avery? He’s not going to like it, he’s not going to like any bit of it, but it’s all going to end the same way.
There’s no time for any of this, you could die any second now, you need to protect Avery.
You take in a hesitant breath, forcing the sternness into your quivering voice. “Avery, I need you to leave.” You clench your fits, the gauntlet armor clicking together, “Now.”
Avery takes another step forward, inching ever closer into d3rlord3’s personal space.
“I’m not leaving until you talk to me.”
Instinctively, you take a step back, gritting your teeth and tensing at the harsh reaction.
You force yourself to continue to look into Avery’s eyes, “I’m not talking. You have to go– Now.”
He blinks at you, “Why?”
You close your eyes and turn away–You can’t keep this up for much longer.
“I’m finishing the job, Avery. You need to get out of here.”
You can hear the sorrow making its way into his voice, even if you can’t see him you can tell he’s upset and so confused.
Fuck. You can’t do this–Not to him.
“What do you mean ‘finishing the job’? What is this?”
“Avery, you need to leave! Now! Disconnect from this server, go anywhere else, you can’t stay here! Not right now, not with me–I- I’ll tell you after. Just not right now.”
Your fists release, your voice straining against your tired vocal chords, your muscles tense and you can’t help but yell back at Avery, unable to keep your eyes away from him–To keep your emotions back.
Avery only looks even more exasperated. “No! I can’t just leave you, just tell me what’s going on now!”
You bite your lip. “I will afterwards.”
“Afterwards- I don’t believe that shit!”
There has to be some way–Any way to convince him. You’re running out of time.
“Please, Avery, I need you to leave or this will all be ruined.”
His voice raises again, anger rising at your insistence, and yet again moving to fill the space between you two despite you constantly moving backwards.
“I’m not leaving until you tell me what’s, going, on!! What is this place and what are you doing!?”
You can’t do this anymore, you can’t sit and watch Avery beg with you like this, you don’t want this to be your final moment, not with Avery.
You can feel the tears prick at your eyes, but there’s no time for that right now, this is the only chance you’ll ever get–You take a deep breath.
“Avery, the only way to stop this thing is to merge with someone who’s mind is already gone. If I force it to enter my mind then it’ll go down with me as I deteriorate. It’ll be trapped–We will win, okay?”
You gulp, and press closer to Avery, who reverses the roles and this time, takes a step back as he stares at you in astonishment. You take another breath in.
“But I need you to leave or it won’t work– If you stay here it’ll all fall apart, I have it under control just– leave, please.”
Those soft green eyes look at you, something unknown swirling through them, some conglomeration of emotions you don’t have time to decipher.
“..And what’ll happen to you?”
…
“I don’t know.”
He instantly snaps back, “don’t lie to me.”
You suck in your teeth and push him away (He lets you easily). “I said I don’t know!”
You take a step forward, one after another to punctuate–to stress how important this is–how unimportant you are. Your hands flex in the air, moving with increasing exasperation as you begin to lose the little patience you had.
“My mind is gone anyway, Avery! It doesn’t matter what’s gonna happen to me, I can’t even think without horrible pain–Soon I probably won’t even be able to think at all! If you stay here, it’ll merge with you too–That’s exactly what it wants! It’ll be free–Do you want that!?”
His eyes drift to the ground as he takes a final step back, before he resigns and looks back to your eyes, unrelenting determination emanating from him.
“I don’t care. I’m not letting you do this, there has to be another way, just not this one.”
How much longer are you supposed to do this? To watch somebody beg for you to live, when you have no other choice?
You take another step closer to Avery, slower this time, gentle, with purpose. He doesn’t step back, allowing you to enter his personal space with only about a foot between the two of you.
“We don’t have time, Avery. If you stay here any longer he’ll kill the both of us. I can’t let you die Avery, you have so much to live for, I know how bright your future is.”
At each utterance, his eyes dart across your face, searching aimlessly for some kind of opening, some loose thread he can tug on to unravel the supposed ending and create a different one–any possible way to change this fate.
With growing desperation, and maybe at this point delusion, he begs harder, hands going up to grip the sides of your shoulders. “Yes we do. There has to be another way–I- I can’t just let you die like this, not after everything you’ve done for me, for saving my life! Please, there has to be another way!”
His grip goes tighter, though is unable to cause any real friction on his armor plates, slime fingers sliding. Avery’s gaze lowers to the ground, stricken expression hidden as he quietly speaks again, just above a whisper.
“..Please, I’m not letting you die for me.”
Something, something that you tried so hard to bury, to ignore and not think about despite the knowledge constantly nagging and prodding at you, slowly cracks as you watch a small, light green drop of liquid fall to the ground from Avery’s face.
You don’t want to die. You don’t want to die and leave Avery, to never see him again, hear his voice again, hug him again, protect him… Avery will continue to exist without you, in every possible timeline, you have to die for him to live.
All you want is for Avery to live, to enjoy what you no longer can, to experience life you won’t ever get to, to feel happy like you never could, not anymore.
You’ll do anything, just to see him smile one more time.
It’s hard to hold yourself back anymore, watching him so downtrodden because of you.
Without a thought, you feel yourself raise your hands up to your helmet, slowly taking it off, not caring to fix your helmet-hair.
When you touch Avery’s hand with your cold gauntlet, he startles and looks up at you, eyes widening at the first (and last) time he will see the true you under all the armor and pain you carry on your shoulders.
You don’t give him time to respond though, putting your spartan helmet in his hand and using your right hand to cup his cheek into your palm, the warm slime feels like jello squishing beneath your thumb as you slowly swipe it across his cheekbone, ridding his pretty face of tears.
“You won’t leave?”
Just a hair away now, you can hear his breathing quicken, his eyes darting up and down your face. Still though, he gently shakes his head no (careful not to shake off your hand).
“Never.”
You part your lips, leaning in ever so slightly to give him every chance to back away.
He doesn’t, and you know there isn’t a timeline where he does.
Ever so gently, as if you were holding the world itself in your palms, you press your admittedly bitten lips to his much softer ones, your hand drifting from his cheek to his neck as you feel him lean into the touch.
Everything seems to go away, just for a moment, nothing else matters or feels as blissful as just standing here, holding Avery and kissing him, showing one last time how much you love him. You don’t want to let go, not after you get to finally experience how it feels to love somebody like this, somebody that’s Avery.
You take a moment, just a moment to memorize the feel of it, his moist lips wetting your permanently dry ones, slotting perfectly between each other to create an almost equilibrium.
Then, the sound of your lips parting, as Avery looks up to you with wide and hopeful eyes.
You could forever get lost in those eyes, the window to the soul, the soft fold of skin below his waterline that shows how little sleep he usually gets, the small eyelashes framing his round eyes.
You take one last look, one final look.
And then, you take another step forward, forcing him to move backwards, and off the ledge.
His breath hitches as he feels his heel meet empty space behind him, forcing him backwards, to look up at you while he descends into the void.
You can see his sage green hand raise, almost as if to try to grasp onto anything, to stop his fall.
It hurts, it hurts so much, having to hear him panic, to call out for you.
“NO! WAIT!!”
You watch him, feeling a cold drip down from your eyes and drip onto the platform below you, you force yourself to look at him one last time as he disappears into the inky black void that surrounds you.
You take a shaky breath in, remembering that you in fact, need to breathe.
Everything in you shakes, but you have to stay standing, have to wear your golden armor one last time, to make sure to end this for sure, to make sure Avery’s safe and gets his happy ending.
…
With one last quivering breath, you turn around, and look up to the yellow eyes once again with gritted teeth.
You’re ready.