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1.
"The Challenger exploded seventy-three seconds after launch." Derek says almost absentmindedly. He drops a sugarcube into his tea only to pause with the cup halfway to his lips. He seems to think better of the whole thing before setting it back down.
"Ochratoxin A is a mycotoxin produced by fungi, more specifically mold. It tends to contaminate crops and food—like cereal and fruit. It's linked to Parkinson's disease and may cause significant kidney damage." He smiles like he knows something Avery doesn't. Avery slowly pulls the cup away; he won't be letting Derek take that anytime soon.
He thinks he should clean out his pantry now.
2.
The doctors diagnose early-onset dementia: that Derek is losing many of his memories, and not only those but also the ability to form new ones. Anterograde amnesia, they call that part...but the whole thing just conveniently dodges the facts and statistics and knowledge of the world. Semantic memory, his psychologist says: sometimes the brain keeps the facts and ditches the personal experience.
The brain is a beautiful and terrifying and confusing thing, they all seem to agree. Nobody really gets it; this organ works in mysterious ways.
But the organ is not God and Avery actually knows a thing or two about gods.
Outsiders can call it dementia or amnesia or semantic or whatever—Derek is only 24. Avery hypothesizes that this is what happens to a brain when all the knowledge in the world is crammed inside of it: it does everything it can to make room for this information. It starts abandoning all its other functions.
3.
"You should eat," Avery says, and still Derek just looks right through him. The only way he can tell the other pays attention, is by the tidbit that he delivers next.
"The average male basal metabolic rate is one thousand, six hundred ninety-six daily calories. This is how many calories one needs in a day even if doing absolutely nothing, like laying in bed and not moving a muscle besides blinking and breathing."
He shakes his head, recalling a lesson on something like that in middle school health. Avery wonders if Derek knows that he probably learned it the same. "Yes." He says, a little breathless. "So let's get you to your basal... Whatever you said. Please, Der. Eat."
Derek picks up the toast from his plate, and he eats. Progress.
4.
"I love you." Avery says while he helps walk Derek to the window. Derek walks perfectly fine, except for when he gets distracted naming exactly how many steps he's taken in his life, and ultimately freezes because his counting can't keep up with his walking.
Avery has been trying to 'teach' this as a new fact. It hasn't stuck yet, but he has hope. "Fifty-eight million, three hundred twenty-nine thousand, seven hundred forty-one." —is Derek's response. Avery feels himself cry a little.
"Humans cry to release overflow hormones in the form of tears. This is why different emotions in tears look different under a microscope." Derek places his hand on his shoulder as if to comfort him. Few facts can comfort Avery, even if they interest him.
He sniffles, wiping away the tear. "And what would my tears look like under a microscope right now?"
Derek opens and closes his mouth, a bit like a fish. Avery knows this look: he's recalibrating, searching the endless throws of his mind. He's like the Library of Alexandria stuffed inside one person. "Like a circuitboard, but sparse. Photographer Rose-Lynn Fisher categorized this as 'grief.'" He tilts his head, "A Grief Observed, by C.S. Lewis. Quote: 'I know that the thing I want is exactly the thing I can never get. The old life, the jokes, the drinks, the arguments, the lovemaking, the tiny, heartbreaking commonplace.' Unquote."
Avery places his head in his hands and he weeps. Derek looks through the window and watches outside. All the knowledge in the world, and still he doesn't seem to know what Avery wants.
5.
Derek's favorite pasttime is people-watching.
Their apartment is on the 5th floor, so it isn't a difficult hobby for them. Maybe it's invasive, the way Derek does it, but Avery likes a good gossip and he (guiltily) does nothing to correct it. Derek points one finger outside the window, following a pedestrian so precisely that Avery wonders if he can see from his point of view or if he can just do the math for Avery's line of sight so quickly.
"Thirty-nine. Two dogs, two children—or six, depending on how you think about it. She is on the way to a surprise party." He pauses, searching, "Her ex-stepdaughter is throwing it to celebrate the divorce."
And Avery laughs, because it's ridiculous and a little nice to share these moments with total strangers. He nudges Derek's shoulder, pointing out a new stranger walking their dog. "And that one?"
"Eighteen. On the way to a date with the future love of their life." This time, Derek makes a new face, like he's just found new information; or like he's made a new connection between old factoids. Either way they both sit a little straighter. "Sonnet Eighteen, by William Shakespeare: 'Shall I compare thee to a Summer's day? Thou art more lovely and temperate. Rough winds do'—"
Except Avery interrupts this time, but he never interrupts, but it hurts him to hear Derek talk about love. "Uh, Der, what kind of bird is that?" He takes the man's hand, directing it to point within a tree. Those fingers are so thin and ashy within his.
"It's a blue jay, scientific name Cyanocitta cristata. It's the official mascot for John Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland."
"What's significant about John Hopkins University?"
A pause. A tilt of the head, "Dana Hutchins attended there. She earned a master's degree in public health studies with a double-minor of bioethics and leadership studies. She is attending a meeting right now. It is two: forty-one PM in Gothenburg, Sweden; where she is now. It is eight: forty-one AM in New York City, New York, the United States of America. There are three thousand, seven hundred seventy point seven four miles between us."
Something beautiful has just happened, and Avery doesn't have the vocabulary to speak it. He grabs Derek's arm, now, maybe a little bit too tightly. "Oh my god, Der. That's your sister."
"Serendipitous, an adjective. From the Collins dictionary: 'an event that is not planned but has a good result.'"
6.
2 hours later, they're on a Zoom call with Derek's physical therapist Bailey. While she's modelling stretches, Derek's eyes are glued to the painted wall behind her.
"Imperial Yellow, hex color #FADA5E. Once dyed using the ammonium salt of Hexanitrodiphenylamine. Japan used this chemical in bombs during World War II."
"Um... Wow." The woman on the other side seems very uncomfortable. The chunky pixels of her screen warp and rearrange—the connection is spotty anyway. Avery considers just hanging up the call and telling her later that it must've glitched like crazy for her to hear Derek say all that. He decides not to follow through. "Derek is... Really a walking dictionary, huh? You should tell him that that information is, uh, cool."
"You can talk directly to him, by the way." This time Avery doesn't make up an excuse when he slams the laptop shut. There are many other people available, he thinks; people who won't treat Derek like some circus attraction.
Avery probably won't find anybody cheaper than Bailey, though.
7.
He can't take the yellow facts for very long. Derek rarely ever gets stuck on one topic like this, always jumping from one fact to the next loosely-related one before Avery can even process the first. He's always making connections that Avery wouldn't have even thought of, in the first place. This time the connection is the color yellow.
"A yellow star," Derek speaks over his shoulder as Avery taps at a Mario game on his Switch, "Is extremely rare. Most are actually white, even our own sun. Polaris is a yellow supergiant."
"Oh really?"
"Polaris, also known as the North Star. It was historically used in guiding ships during travel. A submarine is a deep-sea underwater ship encased in metal. The Beatles have a song about a yellow submarine."
And now, ridiculously: he's singing. Even more ridiculously: he has a terrible singing voice.
"As we live a life of ease, everyone of us has all we need: sky of blue and sea of green in our yellow submarine."
Avery laughs, rolling his eyes and powering off his console. He tilts his head back to watch Derek, "Can we please change the subject from 'things that connect to yellow?' I'm fighting for my life out here, dude."
Then he actually listens, he pivots, "Dude, a noun. It surfaced in the eighteen eighties as a shortening of the phrase, 'Yankee Doodle Dandy,' an insulting term for Americans trying to be sophisticated by British standards."
Avery laughs, "You've got that right. Man...I love you. Thank you." Derek doesn't respond to that but he does let Avery lean their foreheads together for a second before he forgets what they were doing anyway and scoots away again.
8.
At lunch, Derek eats a tomato like an apple and Avery is extremely judgmental for it. If anybody is stuck on a circular thought now, it's him.
"Ew. Do you want, like... a real apple? That's got to be a lot better than that abomination."
And Derek actually scowls. Avery has seen expression from him before, it isn't new, but it delights him to see something not pleasant. He fixes himself before Derek can think it's the scowl itself he's celebrating. "Eve ate the Apple and that was the first sin. The Apple tastes disgusting."
"Hey, that's subjective!" Avery calls out as he pulls a pear from the fruit basket—he'll get Derek to eat fruit in some way, he hopes. "I thought you didn't do opinions anymore, Know-It-All." He talks like it isn't any big deal, but inside he's sensitive to the other's every reaction.
"The Apple tastes disgusting." Derek repeats, and Avery laughs it off but inside he wonders how that applies at all. "It is an irrefutable fact."
He sticks his tongue out, tossing the pear so that Derek can catch it. He does so perfectly. "Nuh-uh, cos I like apples! Just because you don't doesn't mean they're disgusting for everybody."
A pause, longer this time than any time before—long enough that Avery becomes concerned. He takes a seat and taps Derek's shoulder; just for the man to flinch, eyes going wide. "I think that the Apple tastes disgusting, and that is an irrefutable fact."
"Huh. Yeah, I guess nobody can really argue your opinion. It's yours."
Inside, Avery is cheering and screaming and making a very big deal over this stepping stone.
9.
Derek has had these blips before, the same one he has 20 minutes later when he's washing pear juice from his hands. It's a strange moment of clarity, when the water is running over his hands and his favorite music is playing on the speakers and a red bird passes the window outside. Avery doesn't have to ask to know that he has it: He just has to pay attention, to really hone in when he hears Derek gasp.
Avery thinks that this is from the leftovers in his brain. He thinks that maybe there are some neural pathways left; something that his brain deemed important enough to preserve. Something that he's made a connection to, just now, somehow in some way.
"You are real." Derek says, calling over his shoulder in a way that Avery will call serendipitous.
He doesn't have a lot of time, he knows—they never last long, or if they do it's unpredictable. Derek never remembers afterwards, but they're special to Avery and he thinks it's important to be there for him when they do. Derek's psychologist says that maybe validating the 'blips' will reforge those neural connections.
"Yes. Yes I am. Derek! Hi!" Avery all but jumps over the back of the couch, launches himself into the other man's arms. He laughs and cries. Derek barely makes a sound.
"I know because I know you." Derek says into his hair, after what feels like a long time but isn't really. "It's an irrefutable fact," he quotes himself, "How special you are."
He cries a little more. "I love you, Derek."
A kiss to the forehead, "I'm sorry I forgot, Avery. I won't forget again."
"Shhh, Der. I just want to be here with you." He doesn't tell him that he's heard that line from him before.
Maybe, in all his infinite knowledge, he already knows.
10.
At 2, they're at the park, and Derek is back to his usual self—his 'usual' self being the shell of his soul that usually roams the apartment nowadays.
Derek breathes deeply here, leaning his head up over the bench back. Maybe, even like this, he still seeks comfort. Avery hopes so, anyway. It's proof of something, to him.
And then they're holding hands.
"Warmth," Derek says, before Avery can even ask. He blushes. "The average human body is ninety-six point eight degrees Fahrenheit." And Derek is always freezing.
He thinks Derek must feel nothing about him because in every moment, to him, they are perfect strangers...but Derek knows everything, so he must know all about Avery, so the memory loss should mean nothing anyway. Avery wonders if Derek would love him because he knows everything about him, or because he loves the things that he knows.
After a little too much headache, he decides not to think about it and in that moment Derek slips his hand away anyway.
11.
They get tea on the way back home. This time, Derek drinks it without any mention of scary mold.
Avery frowns, "Hey, should I clean out my pantry sometime soon?"
Derek laughs, and it's music to his ears. "Yes. Ochratoxin A is a mycotoxin produced by fungi, more specifically mold. It tends to contaminate crops and food—like cereal and fruit. It's linked to Parkinson's disease and may cause significant kidney damage."
"Yeah? Tell me more about it."
12.
It is 5 o'clock and they both sit on the couch, Derek watching Avery watch TV. They're pressed up close together, which is nothing new but still feels special. Avery feels selfish for it because he's convinced that Derek gets nothing out of it the way he does.
It's a Hallmark movie, the kind that Avery finds guilty pleasure in but that Derek doesn't tease him for. He wishes Derek would tease him more.
"Ron Oliver, sixty-six." Derek says, "Director of thirty-six Hallmark movies since two thousand seven." He pauses, if only to dig a little deeper; he's been doing that more today. "He only does it for the money."
Avery laughs, "Yeah, that's usually how it is for movies like this. They're mass-produced garbage."
A pause. Avery knows that Derek is buffering again—like he's sifting through all that information still. Sometimes, in that way, Derek reminds him of a search engine. "August, two thousand twenty-one. A headline: Film buff rescues more than twenty thousand VHS tapes set for dump."
"Woah," He says, a little bit miffed and mystified. Some people have that dedication.
He sets his hand over Derek's. He'd like to have that dedication.
13.
They have Chinese takeout for dinner. Avery tries not to laugh while his other half fumbles at a pair of chopsticks. Derek is visibly getting angry. "I know," He says as if he has to defend himself. "I know how to use chopsticks."
He has to take a big, long breath to compose himself. "Knowledge doesn't equal experience, Der." And still, Avery giggles a little.
A beat and it's like something clicks for the both of them.
Derek pauses first, making a 'thinking hard' face as he absorbs the information. It's like he's never heard it before, like it is a truly new thought that nobody else has ever had—or like, to him, it really is new information. He takes it carefully, mulls it over, goes still for a length of time that Avery would call concerning if he didn't also get hit by the thought like a truck.
It bulldozes his insecurities and forces him to pause. He wonders if Derek knows about his love, or if he really knows it. He's brought back to a hypothetical he heard once in passing: if a scholar has studied the color yellow inside and out, and can describe it perfectly, and knows everything about it, does she truly learn anything new when she actually sees the color for the first time? If she knows everything there is to know but hasn't experienced it, is there anything to gain by interacting with it?
Avery thinks so.
He surges his hand across the table and scoops Derek's within it, interrupting both of their thoughts at once. "I love you." He blurts, "And that's an irrefutable fact," he adds just for good measure.
Derek looks at him inquisitively, smiles almost curiously. He's lucid here, but not enough. "I know."
"But do you know, like really?"
"I know."
"But would you let me kiss you?"
"I would." A pause, "I do."
And he does.
14.
When Avery asks, later, how Derek felt when they kissed: He doesn't answer.
He wonders if that question even brings him new information. He doubts it. Or if it did, he wonders if Derek even has the capacity to care.
He doesn't worry if Derek will worry over this moment. He knows it'll be forgotten anyway.
15.
It's time to go to bed, past that actually, but Avery still lingers. It's Derek's turn to use the bed tonight, so he hovers at his own bedroom door and he doesn't know it but he's crying.
Every day is hard but today has been particularly tough. It has been 73 days of living together.
Every day he questions if he can live on like this, living his life in snapshots with a fresh Derek every hour. A Derek that might never truly experience him.
He weeps.
Derek stirs.
"I'm sorry." Avery says, pawing at his tears. "I don't want to wake you. 'M sorry." He sniffles a gross sound. Of course this day would begin and end with tears. "I love you." And he says it more as a comfort to himself than to Derek.
But the response—"I know."—is sobering nonetheless. Avery drops his hands and opens his mouth a little incredulously.
"What?"
"An irrefutable fact." Derek adds, and his voice is small and his voice is never small because Avery is convinced that Derek doesn't really do feelings anymore. But then he's on his feet and their hands are joined and this is of Derek's own volition, not his, and his head is spinning. "I don't remember. I know, though."
He damn near whimpers, squeezing both of Derek's hands, "I don't get it." He wonders if this is a blip. Is Derek stating facts or is he making connections?
He sees Derek pause to buffer—he's doing math. Or searching for the facts. Or both. "I fell in love with you...fifteen times today, counting this."
"Oh."
"I do not remember doing it. But I know I did. I know the motions we went through to make it happen. I know what you said. I know how I felt."
Avery thinks back to that hypothetical, "But you haven't really felt it? That you remember."
"The knowledge argument; a thought experiment by Frank Jackson—nineteen eighty-two. Mary lives in a black-and-white world but she knows everything there it to know about color. Does she gain new knowledge when she sees color for the first time?"
"Oh."
He lingers, still, but this time it's different. Derek still takes the initiative, leaning down to tuck his nose in Avery's neck. "You have taught me what it feels like to love."
"Yes. And—" His voice cracks in an embarrassing way. He can feel Derek smile against him. "And it hurts."
"And it hurts. This is a fact."
"I love you, Derek. Don't forget it, because it's true. Because you know."
(Tomorrow, when they wake up together, Derek will see the same rocket contrail outside the window that he saw this morning, and he will say "The Challenger exploded seventy-three seconds after launch." And then Avery will kiss him. And then he will say, "And you love me."
And then Avery will say, "And I love you." And, if he's very lucky, Derek might just say it back.)