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“So how does it feel?”
“How does what feel?”
“You know.”
“I know.”
They were staring at the night sky. The longer they kept staring, the more their eyes adjusted. Numerous times the sensation of being pulled into that black void appeared. It left them a bit breathless, thoughts silently humming, confused by the lack of an anchor point. Sometimes their mind played games, tricking them into thinking they saw something in the dark, or that the colour of the sky had changed from pitch black to a shadow of a violet.
The horizon was devoid of any clouds, full of a bright moon and even brighter stars. Charles’s Wain was right above them. He could name all of them, the asterisms, he meant. The Wain, The Northern Cross, The Boötes. He knew the names of every star, every planet, everything in the expanse of everything. He knew every speck of dust as if they were an indispensable part of his very being.
But he liked Polaris the most. It was his favourite speck of dust. The brightest star in the Ursa Minor, the one which dictated the North. He stared at it for – he would guess and his guess would be correct – about twenty four minutes. He had been interrupted in his stargazing though.
He turned his head to the left, now his cheek was gently caressed by grass blades. The ground he was laying on almost seemed comfortable after such a period of time. The rush of wind was barely detectable, the sway of the trees and grass the only indication of its presence.
D3rlord looked at Avery, who was still gazing at the stars. He was chewing on a singular piece of wheat, it dancing from one side of his closed lips to the other.
It took Avery a second to notice he was being watched and once he did, he quickly faced his friend, twisting onto his side. A playful smile was gracing his face, inappropriate for how long they were stuck in the coldness of the night. His eyes searched his companions face, bright with that energy he always carried.
D3rlord decided that Polaris couldn’t match that brightness.
“It’s… tough.”
“How so?”
D3rlord’s eyes snapped right up to match Avery’s gaze, they were met with some unbound curiosity.
“Overwhelming, I think is the better word,” D3rlord started slowly. He was whispering, though he knew no one could hear them, “It’s like trying to fill a glass that has a crack in it. Before everything, I would pour water in slowly, letting it reach a level that I desired and with time, just like everything connected with memory, it would leak out. Some of the water would stay, some of it would not. Now it’s different. My hands which poured the water are too shaky, too unstable. With one wrong move, I can spill the water and overflood the glass. It will still leak, but with every next try I will drown the glass with too much…” D3rlord took a deep breath, his heart was beating loudly, “does that make it any clearer?”
“Uhhh…” Avery looked to the side, his smile faltered and became unsure.
“It didn’t, did it?”
“Nononono-! I understood you perfectly, I-”
“You can’t lie to me, Avery,” D3rlord huffed out, smiling despite himself. He turned back to resume looking at the stars, Avery joining him after a second.
They stayed in silence for a minute.
“It must be weird to…” Avery started, but became hesitant and stopped talking.
“Hm?” D3rlord prompted him.
“To be able to predict everything. You have logic for… every singular thing. Does that make living… boring?”
“I guess it does,” once again, it wasn’t a guess when D3rlord said it, it was a given, “There are instances of logic being illogical though.”
“L-like the glass thing,” Avery immediately supplied.
The other man quickly looked at him with a scrutinizing gaze. A highly confused tone present in his words as he replied:
“What was illogical about that?”
“Like,” Avery did some nondescript gestures in the air as if that helped him prove his case, “Like if your head is like that glass, then shouldn’t it be an ocean or like a big ass bath? You know, your brain big, so the water thingy is also big.”
That was the end of his disquisition.
“Wha- no, you dumbass! You weren’t supposed to focus on the glass-! Wait,” D3rlord sat up on the grass, leaning on his hand, “Was the glass the only part you focused on?” he asked accusingly.
“Uhh… no…?” Avery answered with hesitance, a slight embarrassed flush present on his cheeks.
“You fucking liar!” D3rlord shouted and grasped a handful of the grass from the ground.
He instantly tackled Avery, and proceeded to shove the grass under the man’s shirt. Avery screeched loudly, trying to break away from his friend’s grasp without success. He was thrashing around wildly, laughing and constantly shrieking. D3rlord was having none of it, cackling like a cartoon villain as he continued to cover his friend with grass.
“Say you are sorry! Say you didn’t listen!” D3rlord commanded, swiftly dodging a kick that was supposed to hit him in the stomach.
“I- I can’t! I c-can’t breatHE-” Avery’s voice was cracking, his face red from laughing so much.
“Next portion I’m going to shove right in your face-” the other man threatened.
“Kay-kay! I’m s-orry, I’m sorr-y!” he finally shouted, bringing his arms up to protect his face.
D3rlord breathed heavily, the wide smile he had not lessened even for one second. His one hand still had a bunch of grass in it, so with unparalleled gentleness to the brawl they had just a second ago, he sprinkled it on Avery’s face. The man under him spluttered the greenery that had ‘accidentally’ gotten into his mouth, while D3rlord changed from straddling his friend to laying on the ground right next to him. Their shoulders were brushing, but with how exhausted they were, they didn’t have the energy to move.
“That grass tasted vile.”
“Consider it karma.”
“Whatever you say, bathtub.”
***
Since the day they met, they hadn’t separated. At least for long periods of time.
Since D3rlord decided that the allure of having a friend after the hell he had gone through was worth listening to, they became best friends.
Since Avery noticed that the other man was not only his protector but also a man desperate for an escape from loneliness, they started to understand each other on a level no one else could.
They began working together in the world that they had shared. Avery showed D3rlord all the buildings he had already done and D3rlord showed Avery every corner that he should avoid. Soon, they started creating mega projects, constructing towers that reached the clouds, cities which span miles.
Avery had to every now and then jump into other servers to deal with some personal businesses, nevertheless he always came back as quickly as he could.
It was surprising, because at first both of them thought that they would not get along.
To Avery, D3rlord was almost a complete stranger. The man was refusing to divulge any more sensitive details about his past and was very reluctant to share anything related to the wisdom he possessed. Sometimes he would suddenly drag them into another direction because ‘they were getting too close to it.’ Avery failed to understand what that was about, but he believed that acceptance didn’t need understanding. He believed in the ‘sixth sense’ that D3rlord possessed. The situation where he refused to follow his friends’ panicked orders was yet to happen.
To D3rlord, Avery had every right to abandon him. He could leave him alone in that world, refuse to talk to him, demand answers. Knowing became the essence of D3rlord’s entire life, but like a hypocrite he denied knowledge to whom he considered his closest companion. He could not leave this world, not like Avery could. The connection he had was hanging on a singular thread, and what surprised him, Avery never pointed it out. The man was always respectful, keeping his promises of returning quickly. He never truly asked what had happened to him. He tried to find out, but when D3rlord gave him a solid no, he would listen. The conformability of Avery was something that he could never predict.
Despite all those obstacles in their way, creating a strong bond wasn’t a challenge. It was easy to talk about games and mechanics, Avery yapping away about editing and video making, while D3rlord kept on schooling about literature. They always listened to one another, no matter if the topic was thoroughly familiar to D3rlord.
He found it genuinely intriguing how entertained he was around Avery. Before, when he was leaving messages in every corner of the world, he was constantly bored. His only mission was getting from point A to B and answering that nosy bastard.
When he had decided to finally face his strange companion, the pressing weight of every information he had access to lifted. During their talks, he didn’t try to predict what the other man had to say. On the days where they built together, the vision of the finished project rarely flashed through his mind. The omniscient knowledge seemed almost useless in comparison to the bottomless pit that was Avery’s unpredictability and recklessness. It was as he had said, logic that was completely illogical.
And it made sense. Whether they were messing around or simply together, it seemed like everything that happened didn’t change a thing about D3rlord.
With Avery, the intrusive wisdom was a silent hum in the background. Only present when truly needed, because it would not go wasted for such…trivialities.
“Red or silver?”
“What?”
“The carpet!”
…Right. They were building a castle. He had forgotten about that.
“Uh…” D3rlord faltered as he was placing another stone wall, “You mean the one on the upper floor?”
“Yes!” Avery shouted. He was leaning over a railing from a balcony that was a ten or so blocks above D3rlord. To see him, the man needed to shield his eyes as looking upward meant facing the blistering sun too, “I am not sure if red or silver will match the door better!”
“Can’t you decide that by yourself? What are you? A thirteen year old?” He yelled in response, returning back to placing blocks.
“No! I’m just indecisive!” Avery’s head disappeared from view for a split second, before returning, “Come here! Help me choose!”
D3rlord grumbled something under his breath, just to throw a very sharp thumbs up a second later. A distant ‘yippie!!’ sounded from the upper floor of the building. D3rlord dusted off his armour from pieces of stone rubble and started making his way upstairs.
The castle was huge, spanning hundreds of meters. They started building it as a mere joke. A ‘wouldn’t it be fun if we’ type of thing. Something that should cross all their building limits. A Segrada Família of their own, although it looked more like the Malbork castle, more gothic and definitely less beautiful.
He was making his way through unfinished chambers and ballrooms. Stained windows masterfully lined the walls, which would make even the Sainte-Chapelle jealous. He remembered placing every piece of glass, his knowledge letting him recreate art as if his hand was led by Burne-Jones himself.
What started as a joke, was growing on him. Especially when he saw Avery looking in awe at his works. Especially when Avery would convince him to run alongside him in the long halls. Especially when Avery pretended to be a king while dancing to the tune of Ward just to make him smile. Especially when D3rlord decided to keep it to himself that the first notes of that disc were the same as Chopin’s Funeral March. It would destroy the mood, and all he did want was to keep Avery happy.
That castle was a place where they were together. Every block placed reminded him of that.
“Come on, come on!” Avery shouted from the top of the stairs. When he saw that D3rlord kept his steady, slow walk, he rushed down. He jumped across multiple steps, his flip-flops making a squelch. He pulled D3rlord by his hand, dragging him forward, “You have to see that room, I’ve worked hard on it.”
They ascended up the stairs, the higher they got, the more unfinished the halls were. Walls were surrounded by scaffolding, stained glass windows were halfway done.
Avery let go of his hand, excitedly making his way to wooden doors that looked newly placed.
“Ready?” he asked, almost completely putting all his weight on the brass handle. When D3rlord nodded, Avery’s smile widened and he pushed the gates open, “Ta-daaa!”
The room was dark, the only light in it was coming from the doors that they had opened. There were no windows, the room devoid of any particular detail. The walls were yet to be chiselled, only a hammer left laying on the floor.
Avery proudly stepped in, stopping in the middle of the room. He raised his hands to the sides, motioning widely around him. He turned around to face D3rlord, his smile blinding.
“What do you think?”
And for the first time in months, D3rlord didn’t think anything.
Because he was looking at the golden gates.
They were proud, dignified. The barely present light reflecting off of them, making the gold seem like molten lava. They were slightly ajar, but beyond them he could see only darkness. If he looked closely, he would see his reflection in the intricate patterns sculptured onto the golden surface.
His reflection seemed to be rigid, tight with some unspoken tension.
Yet all he could think and feel was… nothing.
All of his thought processes seemed to stop. He could not differentiate between what was a formed thought or just a fleeting hum. There was definitely something on his mind. Like a weight; a pressing, suffocating burden at the back of his head.
His body felt like it had disconnected. His ability to move his limbs was beyond gone. It took him a second to realize that he was sweating underneath his armour. The next realization was his harboured breathing.
Something in his mind was telling him to run. He was remembering the way they got in, the walk up the stairs, the ground floor. He thought about the best places to run and hide. To hide away from the glow, from the light, from the gold, from the yellow.
He tried to make logic out of what was happening to him.
Was he aware of what was going on? Was he breathing? Was he even alive?
To all those questions the answer was a no in his current state.
The panic made his mind spiral, forcing it to work overtime. He tried to find the answer to what was happening.
He looked back through the past and present. He could remember the caverns, the crossroads, the doors, the King. Something about those things was screaming in his ear. The gates were similar. Both golden. And grand, and beautiful, and hazardous, and hideous.
But that didn’t make sense. Those weren’t the same doors. He wasn’t back in that labyrinth. It was already in the past.
Then why did he feel like it was in the present?
“D3r- are you-”
Why didn’t he know the answer to that question?
He had access to all the knowledge, to everything- to art, to literature, to biology, psychology, chemistry, politics, geography, astrology he had access to everything beyond everything and yet he had no answers, he had no answers and he was panicking because for some reason he doesn’t like this and he doesn’t know why, does he know does he know why he doesn’t know-
“You-... sh-”
-somewhere, somehow, so what, had to be an answer but he didn’t know it he should know he should search he should seek he will find and learn and absorb and know why because-
“T-...r-…-t”
-he knew everything, he knew that he knew this, he knew you and me and himself and Avery-
“Sorry, sorry, I don’t know what I’m doing…”
He knew one thing. His thoughts. Were misplaced. No. He knew that was wrong. They were erratic.
He should do something, but he doesn’t know wha-
“Nonononononono-”
“Shhh… it's alright. Glad you are speaking-”
The thoughts in his head were rushing like a stream of a mountain river. He tried to grasp any of them but they kept swimming away.
His fingers were cold as if deluged in the Arctic Ocean. They were numb and hurt every time he moved them.
“Please breathe.”
Nevertheless, he moved them. That sensation felt foreign and wrong. He immediately began to ask why and immediately he was flooded with answers. Information about his own body, nervous system and control found their way into his head.
He moved those fingers and placed them tightly near his other wrist. As if from behind the wall, he could hear the clinks of his armour.
D3rlord opened his eyes to try and observe his movements, yet all he saw was a blurry image. Instinctively he blinked a couple of times, surprised to find his eyes watery and aching.
He didn’t dare to move his head, so all he could see were his hands and legs. Was he sitting, leaning? More likely the latter, judging by his current position.
The attempts to straighten his back failed, every muscle for some unknown reason taut. While the realization of his position slowly sunk in, he noticed something else.
Fuck, he forgot to breathe.
Within a second he took a big gulp. His burning lungs flooded with the cold air, relieved. His throat was scratchy, but all he could hear was how he was wheezing like a dying animal-
“That’s right, breathe. Just not too fast.”
He tried to listen to the orders the voice was giving him. However, every new inhale was like a drug and before he finished the first breath, he was already starting the second. Tears were spilling from his eyes, but breathing so fast and obtaining so much pristine air was more important.
“Hey, no no no. You need to slow down.”
A weight was pressing onto his back, different from the one he had previously felt at the back of his head. It was comforting, nice, an anchor point he hadn’t realized he needed. Although at first the muscles underneath that weight contracted, after a minute they started to relax. Another weight appeared, this time atop of the hand he had placed near his wrist. It was warm and gentle, it interlaced with his fingers, bringing them carefully apart.
He had failed to notice how hard he had squeezed his wrist, only when the delicate force pulled his other hand away, did he start regaining sensation there.
Seeing one of his limbs being so gracefully handed, the tension in his muscles lessened. He could feel how stiff his spine was and how his legs felt as if he had run a marathon. Bit by bit, he noticed those things and manually focused on relaxing every part of his body as he freed them from the unforgiving lock.
His breathing was still unstable, nonetheless it was much calmer than before. He could blink the tears away from his eyes because they stopped constantly flowing. But most importantly:
He regained his ability to think straight.
Some thoughts in his head were still confused, yet everything else was slowly coming back to him like the end of a low tide.
D3rlord bit his lips uncertainty, a slight feeling of embarrassment creeping into his mind as he started to grasp what had happened.
Without looking upwards, he judged his current location by analyzing the floor under his soles. It was not the unfinished one from the room they had been in. He knew it, because he picked the pattern himself. They were on the staircase then, probably sitting on one of the stairs. Now that he knew where he was, where was-
Oh right. The nice, warm weights were Avery’s hands. One was rubbing circles right beneath his back plate, while the other was tracing random squiggles with the thumb on one of his palms. D3rlord huffed out a very pathetic sounding chuckle, squeezing Avery’s hand with his own.
“Feeling better?” Avery inquired quietly, the tone light, but mostly concerned.
“I-I feel-” D3rlord’s voice cracked painfully. He winced at the sensation. Was he dehydrated or was he just screaming earlier? “-shit. Feel like shit.”
“Yeah, I bet. You gave me quite a scare,” the other man admitted, “Thought you were having a heart attack or something, friend,” his hold got tighter for a second.
“Sorry, I-” D3rlord began but he had no idea what he was apologizing for. He bit his lip harshly to stop himself from talking.
“Hey, can you uhh, look at me?” Avery asked hesitantly, his voice was wobbling quite a lot.
Without responding, D3rlord lifted his gaze and he was quite confused.
Both of them were sitting very close, legs basically tangled together on the floor. While D3rlord knew that they were on the staircase, he was surprised he could not see the walls and windows of it. It was because both him and Avery were blanketed by his friend’s Hawaiian shirt. It had been put over their heads, something akin to a cover on a pillow castle. He could not see much from underneath the cloth, only the surrounding floor and perhaps a part of the staircase railings. The shirt created some sort of feeling of protection that he was fond of. He looked at Avery confused.
“Sorry- you kept freaking out about something and constantly covering your eyes,” the man jumped in to explain, stumbling and tripping over his words, “I thought that you saw something you didn’t like so-”
“Were you crying?” D3rlord interrupted his monologue, scanning his face from top to bottom.
It wasn’t a farfetched guess. Avery’s hair was a more goopy mess than usual. The white wife beater he was always wearing under his normal clothes had a bunch of wet spots. Not only that, his eyes were bloodstained and glossy. His smile was barely hanging on, shaky and extremely forced.
When D3rlord was assessing him, Avery turned his head to the side, desperately trying to avoid eye contact.
“N-no! I mean yes, a little bit,” Avery quickly mumbled, before gripping D3rlord by his shoulders and shaking him violently, “I thought you were fucking dying!” he shouted.
“Avery-”
“I-I thought everything was fine but suddenly you went all stiff! I didn’t know what to do!” His voice was desperate, filled with tension that finally snapped, “You were quiet, then you started shouting, then you went quiet once again! At one point you weren’t even breathing- you were just mumbling and like trying to walk, but you were falling over from side to side-”
“Avery-!”
“-I thought it could be a stroke or something like that, but then you went still again and didn’t breathe, I didn’t know-”
“Avery!”
The man in question finally stopped his rapid talking. He looked up at D3rlord with teary eyes. They stared at each other for a couple of seconds, before Avery’s expression started crumbling. His lip wobbled pathetically, as he tried to speak up again.
“I’m just so, so glad you are okay!” Avery suddenly gathered D3rlord into a tight embrace. He was shaking terribly and quietly sobbing into the plates of armour on his shoulders.
Surprised by the unexpected contact, D3rlord froze for a short second. After a moment, he remembered to use his arms and wrap them around his friend. He laid his cheek on Avery’s shoulder, and very delicately started speaking:
“Hey, it's alright, I'm alright mate,” his throat was rough and tight, but he continued, “You helped so much. Thank you. We are okay now, see?”
D3rlord pulled out of the embrace, forcing Avery to look at him.
“See? I'm fine. Not dying or anything. Meanwhile you…” he motioned at his friend, having trouble trying to point out a positive, “You are a bit snotty. And a mess. Honestly, you probably look worse than me,” D3rlord chuckled gently, his companion also joining him, “Say it. Say it, we are alright.”
“I think alright is a bit of a stretch. We are alive, that’s for sure,” Avery suppressed a laugh, hiding it behind his hand.
It was D3rlord’s turn to smirk:
“You really are setting the bar low for us, huh?”
“Heh, yeah…” at the end, Avery’s voice mellowed. D3rlord could see the adrenaline and the energy from the whole situation seeping out of him, slowly leaving him exhausted and sleepy.
As if to set that image in stone, Avery leaned forward and rested his head on D3rlord’s shoulder, breathing deeply. The other man once again wrapped his arms around Avery. He awkwardly patted him on the back as if that would make anything better.
“Do you uhh…” Avery started hesitantly, “Know what happened?”
At that question D3rlord tensed.
Did he know what happened?
He tried to search his mind. Almost nothing was coming up, perhaps some half formed definitions of some psychological terms, but nothing more. Just pure lack of knowledge.
“I-I don’t know,” he finally answered.
Avery looked up at him from his place on the shoulder.
“You don’t?”
“No.”
“Hm,” Avery hummed, then in a soft voice added, “That’s alright. There’s always a place for the first time.”
***
That’s alright.
It definitely was alright for Avery.
But D3rlord wasn’t satisfied with an alright.
It definitely wasn’t alright that as a person who was supposed to know everything, he didn’t know something. That little conundrum of his was beyond illogical.
So he mulled over that entire situation in his head hundreds of times, to be exact: 414 times.
After they had calmed down a tiny bit more, they decided to leave their carpet dilemma alone. Avery only rushed back to the room to seal the wooden gates shut. While D3rlord pretended that he wasn’t looking, Avery tried to discreetly jam the lock forever.
The man put on his Hawaiian shirt and they made their way downstairs. Although none of them talked during that journey, it didn’t feel awkward. They were just… exhausted, if not a tiny bit on edge.
D3rlord could still feel that some of his muscles were strained more than usual, and his eyes had trouble focusing on certain objects. Avery in the meantime was filled with an unusual amount of nervous energy, glancing around him and quite often at his friend.
When they returned back to the house they had built for themselves, the fatigue started to hit hard. While it was only a couple hours after noon, they promptly decided to draw the blinds and cover their home in darkness. Their appetite was nonexistent, same with the energy to properly wash and pull themselves together.
With a very hesitant ‘are you going to be okay?’ said at the threshold of the entrance to Avery’s room, they departed different ways. Avery said he was going to sleep, his shirt was taken off and shorts replaced with sweatpants in a Lightning McQueen pattern. Avery said he was going to rest, yet he still spent at least five more minutes talking in the doorway. Avery said he was going to relax, but the light visible from under his door was on for far longer than usual.
A slight pang of guilt hit D3rlord when he used his wisdom to find out when Avery truly went to sleep. The poor guy was struggling for at least two hours before finally dropping off.
In the meantime, while D3rlord also promised to head to bed, he decided to finally conduct some research.
He went up to an armchair in his bedroom. It was placed in a tidy corner with an abundance of bookshelves and papers. A little study zone where he could be alone with his thoughts. When he sat down, he immediately closed his eyes and opened up the library that was his mind.
To keep everything in check and to not get too absorbed in his maze of information, he made a list:
- The cause
- The process
- The after effects
With no time to waste, he focused on the first task.
What was the exact reason for what had happened?
He asked that question in his mind, and it suddenly became flooded with answers. Something akin to:
formicariumisagreatexampleofpartialprocessesofthehumanmindwhichcanbeobservedwithinthespeciesofants-theclassificationDSM-IVsaysthatthesymptomswithinthecriteriaBCandDneedtolastmorethanamonth-waysofdefusingbutnotquenchingpainanddistresscausedbynonreversibletragedywerebeingdiscoveredbypsychologistsoverthelastfewyears
He heard the word ‘psychologist’ somewhere in there, so he had one (1) hint.
And that’s how it worked. With every new piece of information analysed, he would find a clue that would lead him closer to the solution. The streams of knowledge in his mind were blurry and overwhelming, but with the experience he managed to gain over the last couple of months he shifted through everything almost comfortably.
Psychologist… psychology was the way to go then. He expected it, to be entirely honest. If there was one field that could make sense but also not make sense at the same time, it would be that.
He wasn’t really passionate about that subject, he liked reading literature that touched on it. Dostoyevsky and Camus being one of his favourite examples. But reading just for… learning? That couldn’t be fun, could it?
He was a human. He knew his feelings and desires. Psychology was a science which could be summed up easily: humans studying humans. Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto, as Terence once said.
Nevertheless, it seemed like there was something important from that field that must’ve slipped his mind. So, he dove into it.
And boy. It was a mess.
Definitions flooded his mind, same with all the theories, assumptions, laws and many more. He learned about heuristics and stereotypes. Addictions and phobias. The pathology and the physiology. He shifted through countless monologues on human morals and the causes of evil. Social games, both sadistic and masochistic, became known to him like the back of his own hand. The experiments and data were a constant string of numbers and results.
And within all of that, something felt more prominent than everything else.
A simple word, which he thought he knew very well:
Trauma.
Or as his mind liked to supply when not satisfied with a simplification: post-traumatic stress disorder.
thepersonexperiencedwitnessedorwasconfrontedwithaneventoreventsthatinvolvedactualorthreateneddeathorseriousinjuryorathreattothephysicalintegrityofselforothers
Amongst hundreds of different voices, he started picking up singular thoughts. D3rlord tried to form a coherent explanation.
PTSD was something that concerned people who lived through something terrible and scarring it rewired their entire nervous system. A change that made the smallest memories into gargantuan stones that one needed to carry. It was an irrational fear of a past that had passed and no longer was present.
PTSD was an illogical fright of a thing that was already gone.
And D3rlord couldn’t have that, could he?
Because there was nothing he couldn’t explain. It was simply dumb.
Yes, he chided himself, he went through hell and back, but he got out alive. He wouldn’t call his little encounter with the Yellow ‘Devil’ traumatic, however some would argue. Nevertheless, the knowledge that he had received was like a knife dug straight into his heart. Yet due to it, his blood became golden and he became omniscient. He knew better that what had happened in the past cannot repeat twice, at least not with him. Not with Avery, because he prevented that. The golden gates, the empty caverns, lights getting blown out, they were in the past. He knew better than that that the past was long gone. He didn’t feel fear when he thought about it now.
So it wasn’t making any sense. PTSD was supposed to be illogical and D3rlord was only capable of logic. He found the cause, the process, yet the after effects had no comprehensiveness to them.
Why would he have symptoms of such a thing if he knew all the logic behind his tragedy?
And his brain found no answer to that.
Just silence.
Both in his head and in the room. Except…
Sluuurp.
D3rlord opened his eyes, scowling.
Avery was sitting cross-legged on his bed, still wearing his pajamas. In his hands he had a steaming cup of something. He was looking curiously at D3rlord, yet despite his ever-present inquisitive glint, the exhaustion was clear in his eyes.
D3rlord slumped down in his chair, sighing deeply. He brought up his hands to rub at his face and get rid of his helmet. He placed it on a designated pedestal next to his seat.
“What are you doing here?” he asked, his words full of annoyance and gruffness.
“Tea,” Avery only answered, lifting his cup as if he was proving a point.
“And beyond that?-”
“You were supposed to sleep,” Avery suddenly said very sharply. He eyed D3rlord from head to toe suspiciously.
“Yeah, same as you. Which, by the way, you are also not doing” the other man replied dryly, crossing his arms.
“I went to sleep. But I had a feeling you would not stay true to your word and keep being a stubborn bastard. I was right,” Avery tried to keep his tone as serious as possible, however in the last sentence one could tell how proud he was of his prediction.
“Right, so you decided to bother me.”
“Spot on.”
Both of them stayed silent for a minute, not saying a word. They had a stare-off, Avery looking up from his cup of tea, meanwhile D3rlord was simply staring daggers at him. They were waiting for who would make the first move and lose the silent game. To no one’s surprise, obviously it was Avery.
“What were you thinking about?” he questioned with an impatient tone.
“So, that’s why you came here,” D3rlord faked his surprise mockingly.
“No-”
“Lie.”
“-Yes, because I could see you overthinking everything since we returned home and we know that overthinking for you is a dangerous sport,” Avery accused harshly, his glare not leaving his companions face even when the man started getting up from his armchair.
“I have it under control, Avery. You don’t have to babysit me for my every thought,” D3rlord could feel himself growing more and more annoyed at the shots Avery was firing at him. He walked across his room to where an armour stand was placed. He started to peel the protection layer off of himself.
“I know, but it’s quite fucking hard after I saw you literally almost peel your eyes away.”
Suddenly, you could hear a pin being dropped in the room. D3rlord froze, the chestplate he was holding locked in his tight grasp.
“W-what?”
D3rlord’s voice shook, him being nearly too stunned to speak. Avery in the meantime had not lost even an ounce of his fire.
“Y-yeah! I don’t know how your ‘knowledge’ works and all that shit and usually that’s fine, because yeah, you got it under control. But today you didn’t. You were shouting, screaming, almost h-hurting yourself,” the cracks in Avery’s voice hadn’t gone unnoticed. On the bed, his body caved on itself, as if trying to curl into a ball. From the cup, a couple of drops fell down onto the duvet, the man’s hands trembling terribly. He turned his head away from D3rlord, but by the way his shoulders were shaking, the man could tell he was on the verge of crying, “I-I can’t let you do that again. Not when I have no idea what to do. I can’t see you hurting yourself this way. You matter to me. Do you understand that?”
Avery turned his head to look at D3rlord. No tears were spilled, however his expression was on the verge of falling apart. Eyes watery, lips pressed tightly together. D3rlord wasn’t quite sure what to do with that.
He let the last piece of his armour drop on the floor with a loud clank. With hesitant steps he made his way onto the bed, joining Avery. He sat a distance away from the other man, whose face managed to turn from ‘on the brink of crashing’ to slightly determined.
“So?” Avery began when D3rlord continued to stay silent, “You gonna tell me what you were thinking abo-”
“-I might have trauma.”
“Oh.”
That was all that his friend had said. He was mulling over those words, not really looking surprised or especially stunned. He was just… considering them. In his thinking, he even managed to finally put his cup on a nearby nightstand, the possibility of him spilling it disappearing. Avery wiped under his nose with one hand and sat up straighter. He began to talk:
“Yeah, suspected so to be entirely honest,” he said, like it wasn’t a huge revelation for D3rlord.
“You suspected it?” D3rlord questioned immediately, not quite believing the words he was hearing from his friend, “I wasn’t even considering it a possibility.”
“Well, it made sense,” Avery once again debunked all of his theories with one well placed sentence, “You don’t talk about your past, you keep on avoiding that subject and during today you are constantly behaving like you are somewhere else, which is definitely not here.”
“Huh,” D3rlord murmured, brows furrowed in concentration, “I guess it kinda does make sense.”
After he said that sentence, a warm hand appeared on his knee, patting it. He lifted his gaze to look at his friend, who seemed to be slowly gathering himself.
“You are handling it worse than me, I think,” D3rlord joked slightly, glad to see Avery answering him with a quiet chuckle, “Thank you for your concern, though.”
The man answered with a nod, the smile becoming wider.
“I can’t believe I am getting so emotional over a nerd like you,” Avery mumbled in a lighthearted tone, “I fell off.”
“Yes, you truly did.”
The hand on his knee disappeared, the warmth suddenly missing. Avery gave his friend a double thumbs up, probably thinking it could be a testament that everything was good now.
“C’mon, let’s hit the bed,” D3rlord whispered.
“Together?”
“Yes, together, because you are still shaken.”
He grabbed Avery by his arm, while using his other hand, he pulled the duvet down. They both settled on two sides of the bed, the distance that separated them feeling cold and alien.
Avery kept on staring at the ceiling after he dove under the quilt. D3rlord also would have kept on appreciating their ceiling, if a small voice in his head hadn’t told him to take a look at his friend. With no small amounts of hesitation and doubting, he scooted closer to Avery. When he saw that the other man had made no moves to get away, he delicately put his arm over Avery’s chest. The man brought up his own hand to press the limb even tighter to his chest. That was the last allowance needed for D3rlord to spoon his friend from the side, effectively pressing his whole body against the other.
And they stayed like that. Avery finally closed his eyes and fell asleep. Meanwhile D3rlord kept on looking at his best friend, a fond feeling rising in his chest. Only when he had heard his heartbeat grow loud in his ears, he dared to whisper:
“You matter to me too, Avery.”
And then he drifted off.
***
“Wakey, wakey, motherfucker.”
A harsh voice had resurfaced from the hum that was the sea of his dreamless sleep. D3rlord opened his eyes, stretching his arms. The sun was peaking from behind the curtains, the room glowing golden due to the light’s presence.
D3rlord scanned the bedroom. He usually tried to keep it quite tidy, but it seemed that yesterday was an exception. His armour was messingly thrown over the armour stand. There was a random cup on one of the night stands. His boots were lying somewhere on the ground, forgotten. What’s worse, there was an Avery looking far too awake for such an early wakeup call.
“Uhmmm… Five more minutes?” D3rlord grumbled, his voice laced with sleep.
“It’s thirty until noon, you slept for thirteen hours,” Avery moved from his place at the door to the foot of the bed, holding something in his arms.
“Awh, shit,” D3rlord murmured. He closed his eyes and covered them using his arms, planning on going back to sleep.
“In the meantime, I had been busy,” his friend boasted, moving somewhere across the room. A rustle of plastic packaging could be heard, “I went to other servers and got you this.”
Something heavy dropped on D3rlord’s gut, knocking the air out of his lungs. He snapped fully awake, instantly trying to pinpoint from where the assault came from. Avery was standing next to the side of the bed proudly, his arms crossed and face smug. Meanwhile D3rlord looked at himself and found out that he was buried beneath a pile of… books?
He picked up one of them and read its title:
Psychological assessment of adult posttraumatic states: Phenomenology, diagnosis, and measurement, 3rd edition by Erin M. Eadie and John Briere.
He looked at another one, slightly larger:
Abnormal psychology by Seligman Martin E., P. Walker Elaine F. and Rosenhan David L.
And he looked at another one:
The Psychopathology of Everyday Life by Sigmund Freud.
D3rlord groaned at seeing the last author. He let go of the book he was holding and dragged his hands across his face. Avery seeing his reaction immediately perked up:
“That’s right. I’ve bought you books. Now you can learn how to deal with what’s going on in that head of yours,” he stated proudly, hands on his hips as if he was impersonating a stance of a superhero, “The lady at the bookstore might’ve given me a strange look, but it was worth it,” he grinned widely.
The three books weren’t the only ones the man had bought, there were at least five more laying on the duvet. Their titles mostly connected with trauma in one way or the other. They would be really useful if not for the fact that…
“Avery.”
“Yes?”
“You know that in my mind I have… access to all these books?” D3rlord inquired softly. He pushed himself up from the bed and sat up straighter, while Avery seemed to be processing what he had said.
“I-...” he bit his lip, D3rlord could practically see the logical gymnastics the man was going through in his brain, “-I might’ve not thought about that.”
“How much did you spend on them?” D3rlord asked, though he wasn’t sure if he wanted to know the answer to that question.
“300.”
“Oh my fucking god, Avery,” he laughed out loud, the absurdity of the situation cracking him up. He started picking up the books on the bed while still giggling, and handed them to his friend, “That’s so useless, but I thank you for your consideration.”
“Well, it’s not that useless,” Avery started once again, clutching the stack of books in his arms, “I planned on reading them too.”
The final chuckles escaped D3rlord while the words his friend spoke slowly sunk in. He blinked a couple of times when he registered what Avery was trying to convey.
“But- you don’t like reading,” D3rlord argued, looking at his companion in disbelief, “Sorry, I will correct myself, you hate reading as you once said.”
“I know.”
And that was all Avery answered. He continued to stand by the side of the bed, back straight, his arms getting more and more tired with the weight of the books. Most importantly, his expression wasn’t changing. It was full of quiet, relentless determination. Stern, but with hints of protectiveness softening its edges. Avery’s eyes didn’t show any trace of uncertainty, just matching the intense stare D3rlord was giving him.
“A-Avery,” he started hesitantly, finally understanding the meaning behind his words, “You don’t have to do that for me. This is my mess,” D3rlord sighed with exhaustion, hopeful his friend would let go of his little plan.
“It might be all yours, but it’s affecting us,” the man said sternly, “Plus, I care about you, so we share our messes,” he added as an afterthought, his voice softening around the word ‘care’.
D3rlord couldn’t believe it.
He knew what kind of a person Avery was. An easygoing, if not a tiny bit lazy character who sometimes liked to rely a little too much on others to solve problems around him. He was able to do complicated maneuvers just to work even a minute less. Disappearing and avoiding everything that didn’t or could slightly concern him. If there was a way for him to get things going his way, he could be hellbent on trying to achieve such a scenario.
That’s why D3rlord was so surprised by his friend’s confession.
He was willing not only to spend his time, but learn about a problem that was of no importance to him. He wanted to accompany D3rlord in this weird trainwreck that suddenly became a part of his life. Avery might be already trying a bit too hard, buying so many books to make up for his lack of knowledge, but D3rlord was finding it really… touching.
A tiny part of him, that he hadn’t felt active in a while, slipped a thought into his mind, that maybe, just maybe this was the loveliest thing someone had done for him. Ever.
That singular realization made his heart skip a beat. He suddenly felt a bit too warm to be under the covers and the lack of his armour made him feel exposed. And although all those things might seem negative, the strange sensation of being loved that accompanied them was something he would never complain about.
That’s why he got up from the bed and proceeded to stand right in front of Avery. The other man looked at him with no small amount of confusion.
“Place the books down,” D3rlord ordered lightly, which Avery quickly listened to.
He placed the books next to the cup on the nightstand, sighing when the weight was removed from his arms. He returned to the spot in front of D3rlord, still looking lost but not for long.
For D3rlord swiftly pulled Avery forward by the shoulders and hugged him tightly. He immediately hid his face in the crook of his friend’s neck, almost squeezing the air out of Avery’s lungs. The other man wheezed slightly and patted D3rlord on the back before embracing and reciprocating the hug.
“For someone so smart, you don’t know shit about hugs,” Avery said, the lack of air making his voice as if he smoked twenty packs of cigarettes per day.
“Shut up, I’m trying to be vulnerable with you,” D3rlord hissed in response, applying even more pressure to his grip.
“I would appreciate it if you wouldn’t be breaking my ribs,” Avery patted the other man on his shoulder, a final signal for him to let go before he would eventually pass out.
D3rlord did so, letting go and clapping Avery on the shoulder when he started coughing slightly.
“Thank you and sorry,” D3rlord said, giving what he hoped was a friendly smile, “Besides, I don’t think slimes have ribs,” he remarked with a chuckle.
“Oy, you watch your words about my species, racist man,” Avery bit back the remark with the same heat, smiling widely.
“Racist man?!” D3rlord laughed out loud. He grabbed the cup from the nightstand and took some of the books in his arm, “What do you mean??”
“Oh you know, you’re pretending to be a racist, a guy who knows a lot about races and stuff,” Avery replied with a deadpan tone, also grabbing a handful of books, “A racist is a person who either: a) knows a lot about other races, b) watches races, you know like with cars. I’m not joking, that’s the real definition,” he tried to keep his serious expression, but by the last sentence, he kept on almost bursting into laughter.
D3rlord wasn’t stopping himself though, full on wheezing and giggling. The joke made him bend in half while walking through the hallway. Once he calmed down enough, he said:
“Oh you are so stupid, I love that.”
To which Avery replied with:
“Oh, trust me. I know that.”
The day ‘started’ out almost the same as always, despite the fact that it was already afternoon. They both got dressed in their usual clothes, did their morning routine, made breakfast together. It was surprisingly calm and uneventful. Just like usual they discussed plans for the day and possible future projects. They decided to not do anything grand yet, a lazy evening if they may.
So they went down to a dock that Avery had built and on which they had first met. Since then, it has changed considerably. Now, the harbour was accompanied by a whole city, the style of it resembling ancient rome sea-side architecture. The roofs of houses were red and bright, walls painted with intense yellows or pristine whites. Roads built of cobble and aqueducts painting the far away horizon. Yet what both Avery and D3rlord loved the most were the ships. Grand sailboats lining the distant waters. With D3rlord’s direction, Avery recreated some of the most memorable ones like Santa María or France II. Their sails unwound, however the vessels stayed still as if stuck in a painting of Willem van de Velde.
While the entire world was theirs, that particular harbour felt the most like their own.
They sat down on a bench overlooking the marina, silently observing the sea and the ships. It wasn’t the first time they spent time in that spot. Somehow it became their favourite, a quiet place where nothing could interrupt them.
When Avery felt the time pass and the atmosphere getting more languid, he started talking.
“I’ve started reading those books, you know. While I was waiting for you to get up,” he confessed, still looking at the waves.
“Oh? And what did you learn?” D3rlord asked, genuinely intrigued.
“That psychology is fucking boring,” Avery raised up his hand, each thing he mentioned counted on his fingers.
“‘Course, you think that,” D3rlord snorted.
“Shut it, I’m speaking,” the man hissed and continued, “Second thing, there was like a long ass introduction by the author or something like that.”
“Uh-huh, so you learned a lot.”
“Yeah, definitely. Fucking nothing. The third thing was like the general explanation of what PTSD is and stuff like that.”
“That’s something.”
“Fourth was like- classification or something like that.”
“Mhm, and what else?”
“And that’s it.”
“That’s it?” D3rlord laughed, leaning on his knees as he looked at Avery, “That’s almost nothing, Avery.”
“I know!” the other man shouted incredulously, “I’ve read like, twenty pages too or something like that,” he huffed out, arms crossed.
“That’s not a lot Avery,” D3rlord patted him on the back, smiling brightly, “To get to the good parts you usually need like fifty.”
“Fucking hell.”
They stayed silent after that, once again looking at the waves. The hand that D3rlord patted his friend stayed on his shoulder. Avery didn’t protest, he even shuffled a tiny bit closer to the other man.
“The part that I’m currently on is about stressors,” Avery picked up the topic again, “You think you have any of those?” he asked gently.
“You mean like, triggers?” D3rlord matched the careful tone. He kept on staring out into the distance, overlooking the ships.
“Yeah. You-... You think that…” Avery swallowed as if something got stuck in his throat and continued hesitantly, “You think the doors that I built were a trigger?”
D3rlord’s heart almost broke into pieces hearing his friend’s unsure tone. He turned over to look at him. Avery refused to meet his eyes, deliberately staring at the sea in front. Though he could still see how tightly his friend was gripping the bench with his hand, knuckles turning white.
God, was that what he was thinking about since then?
“Based on my reaction they probably were,” D3rlord didn’t want to lie to him. Give him the easy way out and say it wasn’t them, but that would be a lie. Even if he tried to change the truth, Avery would probably still detect his bullshit. Lacking a couple of brain cells didn’t mean the guy wasn’t smart at times. So, D3rlord decided to not sugarcoat things, however he would keep them real, no matter what, “But it wasn’t your fault.”
Avery bit his lip harshly, clearly having a different opinion in his mind.
“You couldn’t have known. I myself didn’t even know I would react that way. It was just a dumb, ‘stars aligned’ kind of shit,” D3rlord tried to explain. To emphasize his point, he laid a hand on Avery’s knee gently, “I know it wasn’t your fault. If you knew what would happen if I saw those, you wouldn’t have built that thing in the first place. I hold no grudge towards you, Avery. That trigger was a simple stroke of luck, I can’t blame you for that. Got it?” D3rlord smiled warmly towards his friend, whose shoulder visibly relaxed.
“Fuck, I needed to hear that,” Avery laughed slightly, the atmosphere once again becoming lighter, “Yes, I’ve got it, thank you,” he replied and finally turned his head towards the other.
He smiled as he always did, wide and bright. In comparison D3rlord thought that that grin was brighter than the sun in the sky. Avery placed his hand on top of the one that was on his knee, lightly squeezing.
“Talking about triggers,” he resumed, “We should make a list.”
“Of them?” D3rlord inquired curiously.
“Yup, if you are comfortable recalling them, of course,” Avery quickly added, not wanting to cross any line.
“That’s fine. I remember everything that happened either way,” he confessed, there was no point in beating around the bush, “You got a book and quill or something?”
Avery pulled out the mentioned items out of his pocket, proudly showcasing them.
“Great, so let’s go from the beginning,” D3rlord said quite confidently while Avery was dipping the quill in a little ink compartment he placed on the side of the bench.
During that fleeting moment of distraction, D3rlord closed the distance between them, letting his back rest on Avery’s side. The man almost paid no attention to it, mindlessly lifting one of his arms and placing it across the other man’s shoulders. D3rlord decided to take off his helmet, letting it rest on his lap while he played with the plume and spoke:
“I think the first one would be uhhh… shit this might be hard,” he admitted. He never really tried to recall his adventure often. It was like a blurry image in his mind, completely unimportant. Pinpointing a specific thing that could be a trigger was weird. It wasn’t like he was scared of caves, books or other things that he had encountered. Sure, they had a bad collocation in his mind, but nothing more than that. D3rlord shifted through his memory, every chamber he was in analysed. He would say there was nothing, yet… “Underwater caves.”
He remembered that. The big, flooded complex. The blind guess he took, the air slowly disappearing from his lungs. The feeling of being stuck, in spite of the neverending diving and running away.
Involuntarily, he pressed his back more tightly against Avery’s side. The man only wrote down his words and adjusted his arm to lay more comfortably around D3rlord’s shoulders.
“Anything else?” his friend asked politely. His voice was devoid of any rush, just respectful patience.
“I don’t like… forests. Those dense ones especially,” D3rlord continued, his hand constantly playing with the plume from his helmet.
“Dark oak forests you mean?”
“No-no. Like really dense oak forests, like made only of oak. The dark ones are fine,” he clarified. At his response, he could hear a long scratch of the quill and soon Avery continued on writing.
“I also don’t like… abandoned… villages,” because they were empty and dead. They reminded him of people who should have been there but weren’t. They reminded him of unconditional devotion that still resulted in failure.
The grip around his shoulder got tighter and the quill stopped writing.
“Whispers… they are also uh…”
“Not nice?” Avery finished for him.
“Yeah, they are uhh…” the words seemed to get stuck in his throat, not going anywhere.
His entire body tensed as if he could almost hear those whispers again. The sea and the ships were gone, except all he could see was a blurry image in front of him. He felt like his entire armour was soaking again, like he had just resurfaced. The air was also scarce, him being trapped in the little bubble above the maze that were those underwater caves. He could feel their presence before he heard them. Whispers, of different voices and tones.
He wanted to hide and run, but-
“You there?” a voice pulled him out of it.
D3rlord’s gaze snapped upward, immediately locking on the Santa María in the distance. He was still sitting near the marina, on the bench. D3rlord couldn’t tell why he thought he was somewhere else. The plume was twisted harshly between his fingers. A hand was caressing his shoulder gently.
He suddenly sat up straighter, turning around to face Avery. D3rlord looked at him for a brief moment, before finally asking:
“The fuck happened?” he questioned with a worried tone.
His friend also straightened and immediately switched his demeanour to a serious one, sensing the change of the atmosphere.
“You stopped responding,” Avery said, confused that D3rlord didn’t remember that, “You were talking about the whispers and then you just stopped. I asked you a question about the gates again, did you hear it?” Now Avery was full of concern, judging by the fact that he moved his hand to lay on D3rlord’s shoulder.
“No… I did not,” the man answered timidly, scared of admitting the truth, “Shit, sorry. I didn’t hear that at all, I-”
“Hey, it’s fine,” Avery interrupted him, sending a welcoming smile, “You don’t have to explain that to me. I’m proud of you for listing those things,” he added.
“Proud?” D3rlord asked, feeling completely dumbfounded, “I didn’t do shit, I just said what things I don’t like.”
“I would call it a step forward,” that sentence held no doubt or uncertainty, just pure appreciation and pride. Avery moved his hand to place it atop of the one that was playing with the plume.
“You-” D3rlord began, except his heart jumped into his throat as Avery squeezed his hand. He looked at his friend, his expression unsure but grateful, “-thanks.”
They kept on staring at each other, sometimes hesitant chuckles interrupting them. It took Avery a hot minute to let go of D3rlord’s hand. The absence of warmth felt especially cold to D3rlord.
“We should get up, my ass is freezing off,” Avery laughed, dusting off his shorts and standing up.
“Yeah, we need to get home,” the other man responded, putting on his helmet with practised ease. As if an afterthought, he added, “Thanks for today.”
“Don’t mention it,” Avery simply replied, weaving his hand around in a dismissive manner.
The sun was setting down as they walked down the harbour towards their house. They must have spent at least two hours talking on that bench, but none of them minded that. They got the lazy day that they wanted after all.
Upon returning home, it was clear that D3rlord was the most exhausted one. He only reached for an apple that was in the fridge, took two bites and decided to hit the bed. Avery understood that and let him peacefully get his rest.
There was something D3rlord was missing though. When he made sure his friend was in his bedroom, sleeping soundly, he made his way back into the kitchen. He hadn’t mentioned it at the time, but when he was grabbing his impromptu supper, he noticed something. On a kitchen table, two books were lying around. One of them was closed, with a bookmark placed at page twenty five. Its title read: Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror by Judith L. Herman.
The other book was open, a bookmark left on a page eighty three. The title was:
Trauma Treatment Toolbox: 165 Brain-Changing Tips, Tools & Handouts to Move Therapy Forward by Jennifer Sweeton.
D3rlord couldn’t help but chuckle fondly at that.
He imagined Avery, sitting in the morning alone at that table, determinedly reading those books.
He thought he would despise that. Think that his friend was dumb enough to believe those books could fix him, that they would help. That he was wasting his precious time on something so useless.
Yet all D3rlord could do was stand there. He reached for those books, looked at their titles. And he smiled. Smiled so wide his cheeks hurt. His eyes might have gotten a tiny bit watery and his nose became stuffy but that had nothing to do with this. That’s what at least he tried to tell himself.
Trying to advance as quietly as possible, he left the kitchen with books in his arms. He stepped through the hallway, all the way until he reached Avery’s bedroom.
Cautiously, he peeped inside. Avery was sleeping on his bed, facing the other way. He had not made a singular move that would indicate that he was awake. Seeing that, D3rlord stepped forward, heading towards the man’s nightstand. He soundlessly placed the books there. He was just about to head out, but something stopped him. D3rlord looked at the sleeping man, who had not moved an inch.
He stepped towards the edge of the bed, leaning forward. He silently praised himself for taking his armour off while he was preparing to go to bed himself. Because that allowed him to press a gentle kiss onto the top of Avery’s head. D3rlord pulled back as the other man started grumbling something, but he knew he wouldn’t wake up.
With a smile, he left his… friends bedroom, very carefully closing the doors behind him.
It was a long day, and it was finally D3rlord’s turn to go to sleep.
***
The next weeks were, not eventful, but quite different. They returned back to their usual routine. Get up, eat breakfast, build, dinner, quality time, supper and sleep. They switched to working on another big side project of theirs, this time it was from the initiative of D3rlord.
He wanted to build a calculator. ‘Boriiing’ Avery commented when he first heard of it, but soon he got hooked on the project too. That meant that the big castle construction was abandoned, and honestly they didn’t mind that.
Throughout the day, what happened in the castle would be bringed up twice or thrice. Discussed in some manner, or D3rlord recalling another trigger that might be dangerous.
“Oh, right. Gold. I don’t like gold.”
“You are literally wearing golden armour.”
“It’s different!”
And that’s how it would go.
Avery never questioned what D3rlord had said, listening to him intently every time. Sometimes he would joke about it, or add a comment, yet it would always end up in a notebook that he proudly called ‘D3rlord’s mess.’
At some point D3rlord wanted to tell him his entire story. Not skipping any details. Tell him about the ancient civilization, about the caves, about the King. Yet whenever he tried, he would get stuck. A part of his history would be too much to handle or too painful to recall. He would freeze as he tended to do and Avery would snap him back every time he went too deep.
“Hey, breathe for me, will you? You are doing so amazing, sweetie.”
“What- what did you just say?”
“Nothing, just that you are getting better and better.”
“At what?”
“At not spilling the water.”
“...”
“What are you looking at me like that for?”
“You understood my explanation this entire time.”
“Uhh… yes?”
“You-... you are not lying.”
“Why would I? I care for you after all.”
As much as D3rlord wanted to get rid of the part of him that was traumatised, against all his expectations he was getting better and better at understanding and accepting it.
He knew what happened to him couldn’t be undone, and that it had changed him forever. No surprise his mind would unexpectedly rewind to those moments to relieve them again like some broken record. It was illogical, but it made sense that he was stuck in his past.
The worst part about it was that trauma seemed to be a packaged deal. Not only with recurring memories came additional anxiety and hypervigilance, it also made him unable to do some things.
Diving really deep underwater became a huge roadblock, same with venturing alone in dense woods.
Avery didn’t let that discourage them though.
He bought many more books after he read the first batch. Now, he was trying to help D3rlord rebuild his longlost feeling of comfort and protection.
So, they immediately started with extreme exposure therapy, of course.
“Avery, I’m going to fucking kill you- where… where- the f-fuck is the e-exit of this f-f-forest. …Fuck.”
Which, may or may not have been a complete failure.
Which Avery immediately profusely apologized for because D3rlord did not get out of the forest and ended up having an anxiety attack.
Once again, Avery was shaken a bit more than D3rlord. They were fine after that though.
What mattered the most, that after that spectacular fiasco, they actually started making steps forward.
They established something called ‘reading nights,’ where both of them would pile into D3rlord’s bed and read about possible treatment strategies that they could imply. Those nights usually ended up with them falling asleep together and getting nothing done, but that always improved their morale for the next day.
If they did get something useful out of those nights, then they would try to learn how to use it in case of a trigger encounter.
It would be the simplest of: ‘Relax your muscles one by one.’ ‘Count to four, breathe in, count to four, breathe out.’ ‘Rationalize your thinking process. Should you really be scared of something that can no longer hurt you?’ And surprisingly, some of those ways worked.
If Avery was out and D3rlord got stuck in his head once again, he could almost smoothly prevent an incoming breakdown by himself. Obviously, it wouldn’t always work out, but he was getting better.
Nevertheless, if Avery came home and heard how much D3rlord fought against his anxiety, whether he won or lost, Avery would always hug him tightly and congratulate him. D3rlord would be lying if he would say he didn’t melt against his friend each time that happened.
One step at the time they were getting better.
Avery was better at reacting. He could always sense if his companion accidentally encountered something from his past, reacting accordingly and bringing him down from his panicked high.
Anxiety attacks had less of an influence on Avery than before. He understood that he could not prevent everything and as a person he was prone to making mistakes.
D3rlord’s PTSD was indeed, not his mess, that’s why he learned that he couldn’t be the man to fix up his friend each time he fell down. He would always be a shoulder for him to lean on while recovering, but never a stepstool required for him to calm down. So he taught, not only himself but also D3rlord, various types of ways to quench those problems.
Meanwhile D3rlord was better at handling himself. It was a long, exhausting road, where he had to face many of his feelings and memories. At the same time, he started to understand them better.
Unexplainable panic attacks now had a hidden reason, one he could dissect and break into elementary parts. Without Avery’s help, he could calm down, control his thinking.
In some way, even if one could say he was messed up more than he was before, he felt… more like him. By him, he meant the one before infinite knowledge was given to him. Streams of thoughts became more manageable than ever thanks to tactics they implemented. His mind spiraled on a weekly basis rather than daily. It felt like he was back. Like he finally accepted a flaw that was a piece of him. And he accepted that that flaw did not define who he was.
That’s why he was cutting the lock open.
Avery was standing behind him, leaning against the railing, foot tapping against the floor.
The jammed lock finally gave out, falling down with a metallic clank while the wooden doors cracked open slightly.
“You want me to go with you or…?” Avery asked.
He approached D3rlord, his hand sneaking onto the low of his back, a grounding weight that he welcomed.
D3rlord sent him a slightly surprised look at the proposition, but quickly changed his expression to a determined one.
“I want you to go with me. That’s how it happened, no?” he chuckled slightly.
“I guess you are right,” Avery replied in a hushed tone, “At your signal.”
D3rlord looked back at the wooden doors, the room behind them completely dark. He could feel his heartbeat quickening, getting louder in his ears. He took a deep, measured breath, letting his already taut muscles relax. Avery in the meantime changed the position of his hand, sneaking it to grasp D3rlord’s and interlacing their fingers tightly.
“Kay,” D3rlord said, barely loud enough for his partner to hear.
He started walking forwards, steps determined. Avery walked a meter behind him, but still holding onto his hand.
D3rlord pushed the wooden doors open, letting the light fill the room.
It was the same as before. No windows, a hammer left on the floor. Nothing had changed in that room.
The golden gates were still standing. This time not proudly, but mockingly. They were shining boastfully with the knowledge that they turned a man’s life around. They proved themselves dangerous.
But…
Nothing had changed in that room.
Except for D3rlord and Avery.
D3rlord stared at them and he felt no fear. He remembered their last encounter, he remembered what had happened. He was scared it would repeat. But he wasn’t scared of them.
He looked at his reflection in their golden patterns. It was relaxed, carefree.
He let go of Avery’s hand. He stepped forward, approaching the doors. Avery stood unmoving, letting his partner go alone.
D3rlord traced his fingers across the chiseled surface. He examined the details, the craftsmanship. He paid no attention to the gold or to his memories. Because that was a different door.
To prove his point, he pushed the doors ajar and looked behind them. They led into a smaller chamber, which was empty except for a couple of windows. No throne, no gold, nothing.
He closed them. Returning back to his place at Avery’s side. They stared at them in silence for a minute.
“They are pretty,” he said nonchalantly, “A bit too grand for this place, but they are still pretty.”
“Yeah,” Avery replied, his voice devoid of any stronger emotions, “I’ve worked pretty hard on them.”
“Mhm,” D3rlord murmured.
They continued to stand, not speaking one word. Avery’s foot began tapping on the floor once again, meanwhile D3rlord started absentmindedly playing with the plume. After a period of silence, D3rlord spoke up:
“You have that TNT?”
“Yep.”
“Blow them the fuck up.”
“On it, sweetheart.”