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Derek was having nightmares. He got migraines now too, and they would leave him incapacitated for days on end. He never got migraines before the King.
Pain and nightmares. That's all he was left with. Well, that and Avery. Derek glanced over at his partner, dead asleep.
Why does he stick with me? Derek wondered. I'm an abomination. I know too much about him. I know secrets that he's never told anyone. Why the hell does he trust me, even after the King? Derek shook his head and got up to get water.
The kitchen was farther from the bedroom than the bathroom was, but he didn't want to catch a glimpse of his reflection. His eyes. He didn't want to see his eyes. The very sight of the unnatural gold made him sick to his very stomach. Avery always said he didn't mind, but he'd also never seen his eyes before the King.
His mom had always said that his eyes were beautiful. What will she think of your eyes now? They had been the color of a sprawling field of grass at the height of summer. Yellow is an ugly color. She said that they looked just like his father's. Your father would be disappointed in you. She said that she had never seen a green as beautiful as his eyes. Yellow isn't good enough for your mother. No. Shut up Derek. He pulled his head out of the clouds and started filling a cup with tap water. His eyes wandered, trying to look anywhere but the window in front of him. With a squeak he turned off the tap. He stared at the cup. Almost against his will, he looked up at the window.
Against the black sky the window was but a mirror reflecting back in, and what it reflected back was horrible. A nauseous yellow, a putrid gold. His eyes that had once been so beautiful, now desecrated by that monster's influence. The price he paid for surviving what he should not have. The cup shattered on the ground.
Avery rushed into the kitchen. Derek took a deep breath before he turned and asked, “Could you grab me a broom?”
“Yeah. Uh, what happened though?” Avery shot back.
“The cup slipped,” he lied.
Avery walked back into the kitchen carrying a broom and dustpan. Together they cleaned up in silence, making sure there was no glass left on the tiles.
“Are you alright, Derek? You've been a bit on edge lately?” Avery had finally broken the silence. Derek looked at him with his unnatural eyes and forced a smile on his face.
“I'm fine, Aves,” he said, shifting his abnormal gaze to the shards of glass he had just dumped into the trash. “I'm just a bit tired, you know?”
“If you promise. You mean a lot to me.”
You don't mean anything to him. How could a creature like you mean anything to anyone?
“I know I do.”
Avery left Derek alone with his thoughts, alone with himself. Alone with the monster. Derek turned out the light in the kitchen and walked slowly to the bathroom, blocking out every thought he had. He locked the door and turned on the light. He stared at the inhuman reflection.
Despicable. Putrid. Unlovable. Monstrous. Unholy. Sacreligious. Ungodly. Hellbound. You will never be worth anything. You failed the one purpose you ended up with. Why did you survive that? You should have died right there! You are a–
Pain cut off his thoughts. He was beginning to have a headache. He swallowed a Tylenol before shutting his disgusting eyes and turning off the light.
He climbed back into bed and pulled Avery close.
“Why do you stick with me?” He asked in a quavering voice. “I'm a monster.”
Avery’s arms wrapped around him before he answered, “You're not a monster. You're my wonderful partner.”
“My eyes are proof of the King, they're proof of an unholy entity that I was one with for at least a moment. They're unnatural.”
“I love your eyes. They're the color of sunflowers, they remind me of dandelions, they make me think of the sun on a warm summer day.”
“My mom always said my eyes reminded her of summer.”
“Hm. Is that a good thing?”
“I suppose so. I don't know if I want to be reminded of her.”
“Yellow is one of my favorite colors. It can remind you of me, instead.”
“I think that's possible.”