Chapter Text
Avery woke up feeling more rested than he ever had before in his admittedly not very long life, the type of sleep he'd had was the type that left you boneless and somewhat unsure of what time it was or where you were.
It truly was the life.
There was something warm beneath his face and it almost felt like there was something against his back, holding him upright in his sleeping position.
Wait.
He wasn't still napping against D3r, was he?
Avery very slowly opened one eye to confirm. He was attempting to be sneaky, but he wouldn't be surprised in the slightest if D3r already realized that he was awake, D3r was really good at knowing and noticing stuff like that.
Oh.
Oh.
Yeah, no—he was absolutely still leaning on D3r.
Avery keeps one eye cracked open just enough to confirm what his brain already figured out. He’s still tucked against D3r’s side, head resting comfortably on his shoulder, and at some point while he was asleep D3r had shifted just enough that Avery is… more supported now. Not slumped. Not sliding.
Just—held in place by proximity and a very deliberate lack of movement.
There’s also definitely an arm behind him.
Not tight. Not trapping. Just there, braced against the wall in a way that keeps Avery from tipping over.
Avery closes his eye again immediately.
He considers his options.
Option one: pretend to still be asleep forever and live here now.
Option two: move and acknowledge reality like a functioning person.
Option three: dissolve into the ground and never recover.
He goes with option one for just a few more seconds of time with D3r.
The sun is warm. The air is quiet. Somewhere nearby the chickens cluck softly, and D3r’s breathing is steady against him. It’s… nice. Really nice. The kind of nice that makes it hard to justify moving at all.
D3r shifts slightly.
Not enough to wake him—if Avery were actually asleep—but enough that Avery feels it. A subtle adjustment, like D3r has noticed something and is recalibrating without disrupting him.
“…You are awake,” D3r says calmly.
Avery opens both eyes and squints up at D3r for a couple seconds. “Rude.”
“I did not say it loudly.”
“You said it correctly.”
D3r hums faintly, which is probably the closest he gets to amusement.
Avery pushes himself upright a little, immediately aware of how close they still are. His core flickers faintly, warming just a bit.
“Sorry,” he says. “I didn’t mean to—like—fall asleep on you again.”
“You needed rest.”
“Yeah, but—”
D3r glances down at him. “You did not harm me.”
Avery huffs softly. “You keep saying that like it’s going to stop me from feeling bad about it.”
“It should.”
“It does not.”
D3r accepts that without argument and looks back toward the coop, where one of the chicks has successfully climbed onto something it definitely should not be standing on.
He watches it very intently.
Avery can’t help but watch him.
There’s something about this—about the quiet, the warmth, the way D3r keeps half his attention on the tiny, fragile creatures like they’re worth guarding—that makes something soft settle in Avery’s chest.
Before he can overthink it—he leans in just a little and presses a quick, absentminded kiss to the side of D3r’s helmet.
The metal is warm from the sun.
Avery freezes, his brain catches up to his body about half a second too late as it usually does.
“Oh,” he says faintly, his core immediately turning an almost blinding bright green.
“I—did not mean to—well I did but like not in a—wait no I did mean to but not like—”
Avery is easily the most flustered he's ever been.
D3r doesn’t move immediately.
For a split second Avery considers bolting. Just launching himself off the wall and pretending none of that happened. Going to live with the chickens. Becoming one with the flock.
Then D3r’s hand moves. He catches Avery by the wrist—not roughly, not sudden, just firm enough to stop him from retreating.
“Aves,” he says quietly.
Avery stops.
D3r turns his head toward him fully now, gaze steady and unreadable in that way that usually means he’s decided something. Then, without hesitation he pulls Avery forward and uses his other hand to lift his helmet just enough.
Avery doesn’t have time to think.
Or talk.
Or spiral.
Because suddenly D3r is kissing him.
Not hesitant. Not unsure. It’s controlled, deliberate, the kind of movement that feels like D3r already made the decision somewhere earlier and is only now acting on it.
Avery makes a very small, startled sound before melting completely into the kiss, or rather melt as much as he could while still keeping his form.
Because of course he does, how could he not?
His hands come up automatically, one catching on D3r’s shoulder, the other hovering uselessly for a second before settling against his chest. His core flares bright, then steadies into something warmer, softer.
The world narrows.
Sunlight. Warmth. D3r.
That’s it.
When D3r finally pulls back, it’s slow, like he’s giving Avery time to process instead of just ending it.
Avery blinks at him.
“…Oh,” he says again, significantly less coherent this time.
D3r studies him for a moment.
“You initiated contact,” he says calmly.
Avery’s face burns. “I kissed your helmet,” he protests weakly.
“That is still contact.”
“That is not the same level of contact—”
D3r’s mouth twitches faintly.
Avery stares at him for a second longer, then groans and drops his head forward, pressing his forehead against D3r’s shoulder.
“I’m going to combust,” he mutters.
“You are not flammable.”
“That is not the point.”
D3r lets out a quiet breath that might actually be a laugh this time.
Avery stays right where he is, core warm and bright and thoroughly betrayed by his own impulses.
“…Okay,” he says after a moment. “Just to be clear. That happened.”
“Yes.”
“And we’re not going to pretend it didn’t.”
“No.”
“…Okay.”
There’s a pause.
Avery lifts his head slightly, peeking up at him. “…Can I do that again without short-circuiting?”
D3r looks at him. “Probably not,”
“Worth a shot.” Avery grins, a little helpless, a little giddy.
Avery sits there for a second after that, brain doing absolutely nothing useful.
The sun is still warm. The chickens are still clucking. The world has not exploded or shifted or revealed itself to be a nightmare illusion.
Which is frankly a little surprising.
He’s still close to D3r—closer than before, actually—and he hasn’t moved away. He could. He probably should, by most normal social standards.
He doesn’t, instead he just sort of… looks at him.
“…Okay,” Avery says slowly. “So. That was—” He gestures vaguely in the air, like he can physically grab the concept and define it. “…a thing.”
“Yes,” D3r replies.
Avery squints at him. “You are being very calm about this.”
D3r tilts his head slightly. “Should I not be.”
“I mean—no—you can be calm. I’m just—” Avery waves his hand again, more emphatically this time. “I kissed your helmet and you escalated immediately.”
“You seemed amenable.”
“I was,” Avery admits, then immediately flushes brighter. “That’s not the point.”
D3r’s mouth twitches again.
Avery huffs and leans back against the wall, dragging a hand over his face. His core is still warm, still bright, still very much acting like the mood light Avery tries to pretend it's not.
“…I don’t know what we are,” he says after a moment, more honest than he meant to be, but it’s hard not to be honest when his core is showing all of his emotions openly.
D3r doesn’t answer immediately, he watches Avery instead, like he’s considering the question properly instead of brushing it aside.
“That is not a requirement,” D3r says finally.
Avery blinks.
“…What.”
“We do not need to define it immediately,” D3r continues. “We can… observe.”
Avery stares at him. “Observe,” he repeats.
“Yes.”
“Like a science experiment.”
“If that helps you conceptualize it.”
“That is the least romantic way anyone has ever said ‘let’s figure it out as we go,’” Avery snorts.
D3r inclines his head slightly. “And yet it is accurate.”
Avery considers that then shrugs. “…Yeah, okay. Fair.”
There’s a beat of quiet.
Avery glances at him again then, very deliberately, leans in a little.
D3r watches him.
Avery hesitates for exactly half a second this time—just long enough to prove to himself he can hesitate—and then closes the distance again.
This time it’s not accidental or absentminded. Just… intentional.
He kisses D3r again. Softer this time. Less startled. More certain.
And yeah.
Yeah, he definitely could keep kissing D3r.
Avery pulls back just enough to breathe, eyes a little wide, core practically humming.
“…Okay,” he says, a little breathless. “Wow. Yeah. I definitely like that.”
D3r studies him for a moment.
“Good,” he says simply.
Avery laughs quietly, leaning back against him again without even thinking about it now.
“Cool,” he says. “Great. Awesome. We’re just—doing this now, I guess.”
“Yes.”
“Very normal. Very casual.”
“Yes.”
Avery glances over at the chickens, who are completely uninterested in their developing relationship. “…Do you think the chicks care,”
“No.”
“Good. Because I don’t think I could handle judgment from something that small.”
D3r’s hand shifts slightly at his back again, steady and grounding in a way that Avery is definitely not going to think too hard about right now.
He lets himself relax into it.
“I still don’t know what we are,” Avery says after a moment.
“That is fine.”
Avery nods.
“…Yeah. It is.”
He tilts his head slightly, resting it against D3r again, glow soft and content this time.
“But I do know one thing.”
D3r glances down at him.
“What.”
Avery grins.
“I definitely like kissing you.”
D3r’s expression softens just a fraction.
“That is also acceptable.”
Avery snorts.
“You’re unbelievable.”
“And yet,” D3r says.
+---+---+
D3r is aware of several things at once.
Avery’s weight against him. The warmth of the sun on the right side of his face. The soft, irregular sounds of chickens moving in the coop. The way the breeze shifts every few seconds, carrying the smell of grass and ash and something faintly sweet from the trees.
And Avery.
Very present.
Very warm.
Very… close.
Avery has settled back into him like this is something they’ve done a hundred times instead of something that just happened after a sequence of increasingly strange and poorly planned events. His head rests comfortably against D3r’s shoulder again, his body angled just enough that he fits without pressing into the ribs D3r has been trying very hard not to think about.
D3r is also aware that he does not want him to move.
He adjusts his posture slightly, just enough to make sure Avery is supported properly. Not enough to wake him. Not enough to draw attention.
Avery’s core glows softer now. Not the bright, reactive flicker from earlier. Something steadier. Warmer. It pulses faintly under his skin in a slow rhythm that D3r has begun to associate with calm.
D3r’s hand rests loosely at Avery’s side.
He tells himself this is practical.
(Average human body temperature is approximately 37°C. Slime hybrid thermal regulation appears variable, but proximity to stable heat sources may assist in maintaining cohesion in cooler environments.)
He does not move his hand.
The chicks make a small, high-pitched noise from inside the coop.
D3r’s attention shifts immediately.
One of them has climbed onto the edge of a low plank and is attempting to maintain balance with deeply questionable success. The other is pecking at something that does not appear to be food.
D3r watches them closely.
Avery shifts slightly against him, unconsciously adjusting his position. His head presses a little more firmly into D3r’s shoulder.
D3r stills.
(Physical contact sustained during rest can increase oxytocin levels, reinforcing bonding behavior. This is observed across multiple species.)
He tries not to think about it too hard.
Avery makes a small sound, not quite a word, more like a content warble, and his hand drifts slightly where it had been resting near D3r’s arm. His fingers brush lightly against fabric, then settle again.
D3r’s attention flickers back to him, there is a faint smear of dirt still near Avery’s sleeve that D3r missed earlier.
He brushes it away carefully.
Avery doesn’t wake.
His breathing stays slow and even, head tilted just slightly toward D3r in a way that suggests he has no intention of moving any time soon.
D3r looks out across the clearing again.
The forest line is quiet. The mines sit somewhere beyond it, unseen but present in the way certain things always are. The memory of standing there earlier—of not being fully present, of facing something he does not remember walking toward—lingers faintly in the back of his mind.
(Parasomnias, including sleepwalking, can be triggered by stress, disrupted sleep cycles, or unresolved cognitive processes. External stimuli may influence directionality of movement.)
He does not like that last possibility.
His gaze shifts down slightly, Avery’s head is still resting against him, his light is steady.
Alive. Present. Here.
D3r’s hand shifts almost imperceptibly, settling more securely at Avery’s side.
(Anchoring behaviors can reduce stress responses in both individuals involved in physical contact.)
That might be true, or it might just be that Avery fits there.
The chicks chirp again.
D3r glances toward the coop.
They are fine.
Everything, for this moment, is fine.
+---+---+
By the time the sun has shifted high enough to start casting shorter shadows, Avery is no longer asleep.
Avery is, in fact, very active.
D3r sits a little ways off in the shade now, journal open again but largely ignored, because Avery has dragged an armor stand out into the clearing and is currently “warming up” which appears to involve a concerning amount of momentum and absolutely no regard for self-preservation.
The armor stand has a carved pumpkin for a head.
D3r does not know how Avery did it.
He watched him place it there. It was an ordinary pumpkin. A neutral pumpkin. A pumpkin with no discernible personality.
And yet now—it looks smug. Not in an abstract way, in a very specific, deeply punchable way.
The carved slits of the eyes angle just enough, the mouth curves just enough, that it seems to be watching Avery with mild, insufferable amusement.
(Apophenia: the human tendency to perceive meaningful patterns, such as faces or expressions, in random or ambiguous stimuli.)
D3r narrows his eyes at it. The pumpkin continues to look smug.
Avery, meanwhile, is completely unfazed.
“Alright,” he says to himself, rolling his shoulders, sword in hand. “Let’s not die to a fruit today.”
He lunges forward.
The first strike is clean—fast, controlled, aimed for where a real opponent’s center mass would be. The second follows immediately, angled differently, momentum carrying him into a spin that looks far too fluid for something he claims is “mostly instinct.”
D3r watches closely.
Avery fights like he lives—fast, adaptive, and slightly reckless in a way that somehow works because he compensates mid-motion instead of planning ahead.
Avery ducks low, swings upward, then abruptly lets the blade he'd attached to the arm of the armor stand pass through his side as he steps into it, reforming a split second later without breaking stride.
D3r’s jaw tightens, even though he knows that Avery is fine and used to it, it's still not the easiest thing to watch.
Avery doesn’t even pause. He pivots, strikes again, then kicks lightly at the stand to send it wobbling.
The pumpkin head tilts still looking smug as ever.
“Don’t look at me like that,” Avery mutters at it.
D3r almost says something but choses not to.
Instead, he watches as Avery resets his stance and goes again, movements a little looser now, more fluid. The earlier tension from the night has burned off into motion, into something that looks a lot like relief.
There is something… impressive about it.
Avery is not trained in the way D3r was. There’s no formal structure, no drilled sequences of movement passed down and refined over time.
But he adapts.
Every motion adjusts to the one before it. Every misstep becomes part of the next strike. It’s chaotic, but it’s effective.
The pumpkin tilts again as the stand wobbles under another hit.
Still smug.
“I do not understand how you achieved that expression,” he says finally.
Avery pauses mid-swing. “…What expression.”
D3r gestures subtly with the end of his charcoal toward the pumpkin. “That.”
Avery turns, looks at the stand, stares at the pumpkin.
“…Oh my Void,” he says, delighted. “It does look smug.”
“It was not smug before.”
“I know,” Avery says, walking over and squinting at it. “I didn’t even carve it differently. I just—put it on there.”
He tilts his head, the pumpkin somehow looks more smug.
“Okay, that’s a little unsettling,” Avery admits.
D3r nods once. “Correct.”
Avery grins suddenly.
“I love him,” he decides. “He’s my enemy now.”
He taps the pumpkin lightly with the flat of his blade.
“I’m going to defeat you,” he informs it, sounding more serious than D3r had heard before.
The pumpkin continues to look deeply unconcerned.
Avery steps back into position, rolling his shoulders again.
“Round two,” Avery grins before lunging forward.
+---+---+
D3r does not sleep.
He had tried.
He had laid down, closed his eyes, kept his breathing steady and even in the way he knows encourages rest. He had catalogued the sounds of the base—the faint crackle of dying embers, the quiet shifting of wood as it cooled, the distant, soft rustle of their animals outside settling into the night.
He had listened to Avery’s breathing.
That part had almost worked.
Avery is asleep in D3r’s bed, curled on his side, wrapped in one of D3r’s extra cloaks like it had always belonged on him. The fabric pools around him, dark and heavy, and Avery’s light seeps faintly through it in slow pulses, soft enough that it barely lights the room.
His pickaxe rests beside him.
D3r had placed it there without thinking, wanting comforts close.
Avery sleeps like someone who is finally safe.
It should make this easier, but it does not, because the world feels wrong.
It is subtle at first. Not a sound. Not a movement. Just the quiet, pervasive sense that something is not aligned the way it should be, like a structure built slightly off-center so the weight never quite settles evenly.
D3r opens his eyes.
He does not know when he closed them.
He sits up slowly, careful not to disturb Avery. The cloak shifts slightly with the movement but Avery does not wake, only presses his face further into the fabric like he’s chasing warmth.
D3r stands and crosses the room quietly before moving to the window.
The glass reflects faint shapes from inside—the bed, the low glow of Avery’s core, his own outline standing still and upright. Beyond it, the night stretches out across the clearing and into the forest, the trees black against the sky.
D3r looks outside and sees Avery standing just beyond the edge of the trees.
D3r does not react.
He does not start. He does not step forward. He does not speak.
He simply watches.
The figure stands where the forest begins, half-shadowed by the trees. The shape is right. The posture is right. Even the faint suggestion of a core at the center of the chest is right.
But it is wrong. The way it stands is wrong, too still.
Avery never stands that still.
Even when he is quiet, there is always motion—subtle shifts, small movements, a kind of restless energy that keeps him from ever being entirely static.
This figure does not move.
It stands like something placed there.
Then, slowly—it lifts one arm and beckons.
Not casually.
Not the loose, familiar motion Avery uses when he’s calling D3r over to look at something or dragging him into a conversation.
This is precise.
Deliberate.
The hand lifts too smoothly, the motion uninterrupted by hesitation or adjustment. The fingers curl inward slowly, one by one, in a pattern that repeats exactly the same way each time.
Come here.
D3r’s grip tightens slightly on the window frame.
Behind him, Avery shifts in his sleep.
D3r does not look back, he knows where Avery is, he knows what is in the bed, he does not need to verify. He can feel Avery’s presence behind him in the room, steady and real in a way the figure outside is not.
D3r blinks and for a fraction of a second, the sky changes. There are two moons, one sits where it should, pale and thinning. The other hangs just slightly offset, wrong in position, wrong in phase, like a reflection that has forgotten what it is supposed to mirror.
The stars—
The stars are gone.
Not all of them. Just enough that the sky looks incomplete, like something has been erased and the absence has not been filled.
Then D3r blinks again, the sky is normal. Back to having one moon and the stars in their proper places.
The figure in the trees is closer.
It has not walked.
It has not made a sound.
It is simply Closer.
D3r does not move.
The figure tilts its head.
That is new.
The motion is slow, almost curious, but it bends too far, the angle unnatural for a neck that despite not being constrained by bone and muscle still has human limits. The core at its center flickers slightly, but not like Avery’s does. There is no warmth to it. No rhythm.
Just light.
It smiles.
Avery smiles often.
This is not that.
The expression stretches too wide, the shape of it correct but the intention behind it hollow. It does not reach the eyes. It does not change anything else about the face. It is simply a smile placed where one should be.
The hand lifts again, the same precise motion, the same slow curl of fingers.
Come here.
D3r remains perfectly still.
The figure’s head tilts the other way. The smile does not change.
It lifts its other hand.
Now both hands are raised, both moving in that same measured, identical beckoning motion, over and over again with mechanical precision.
Come here.
Come here.
Come here.
The air outside the window seems thicker now, like the space between D3r and the trees has stretched into something deeper than distance should allow.
D3r’s reflection in the glass shifts slightly. For a moment, it looks like he is not alone in it.
He does not look at the reflection again.
He does not look away from the thing in the trees.
Behind him, Avery breathes.
Slow. Even. Real.
D3r anchors to that.
He does not step toward the window. He does not open it. He does not answer.
The figure continues to beckon.
The smile remains fixed.
And somewhere in the quiet space between what is real and what is trying very hard to be, the night holds its breath and waits to see if he will make a mistake.
The thing in the trees does not stop.
It keeps that same slow, precise motion—both hands lifting, fingers curling inward in perfect repetition. The rhythm does not change. It does not falter. It does not get impatient.
Come here.
Come here.
Come here.
D3r does not move, he just watches.
The figure tilts its head again, that same unnatural angle, like something testing the limits of a shape it doesn’t quite understand. The smile stretches just slightly wider, not changing in expression so much as… expanding.
Then its mouth opens.
Not wide.
Not exaggerated.
Just enough.
The lips move but D3r cannot hear anything.
The glass between them reflects only silence, the thick stillness of the night pressing against it like a barrier. But the movement is unmistakable.
It is speaking.
Calling.
The shape of the mouth is familiar. The way it forms the sounds—slow, careful, like someone trying to replicate speech from memory instead of instinct.
Avery.
No.
Not Avery.
Not his Avery.
But it looks like him.
The mouth moves again.
A shape that could be a name.
Could be his name.
D3r’s hand tightens against the window frame.
The figure pauses, hands lowering, no longer beckoning towards him.
For the first time since D3r noticed it, the thing simply stands there, perfectly still, head tilted, smile fixed.
Watching him.
Not waiting.
Not expecting.
Just—
Knowing.
The expression does not change, but something about it shifts. Not in the face itself, but in the way it holds the expression, like the meaning behind it has altered slightly.
It looks like it knows something he doesn’t.
The thought lands cold.
D3r does not blink.
He does not look away.
The moment stretches.
Then—
It is gone.
Not turning.
Not stepping back into the trees.
Just gone.
The space it occupied is empty, the forest line still and silent as if nothing had ever stood there at all.
The night resumes, the wind moves again, the trees rustle softly.
The sky holds one moon and the stars remain where they should be.
D3r stands at the window for several seconds longer.
He doesn't immediately move or relax, instead he watches the tree line as if expecting the figure to reappear the moment he looks away.
It does not.
Behind him, Avery shifts in his sleep and makes another sleepy little noise, more of a trilling sound this time.
That is what breaks the moment.
D3r turns and crosses the room quietly, each step measured, controlled. The base feels different now—not unsafe, but no longer entirely separate from whatever stands beyond the trees.
Avery is still curled on his side, wrapped in the cloak, his light faint and steady. His hand has drifted slightly, resting near where the pickaxe lies beside him.
Unaware.
D3r sits on the edge of the bed and for just a moment he simply looks at Avery.
He carefully reaches out, hand slow and gentle.
His hand rests against Avery’s side, then slides slightly, guiding him closer without waking him. Avery responds instinctively, shifting into the contact, pressing into the warmth like it’s the most natural thing in the world.
D3r lies down beside him.
He pulls the cloak slightly tighter around Avery, then settles behind him, one arm braced around his middle—not trapping, not restricting, just there.
Anchoring.
Avery exhales softly in his sleep, his light pulsing once, then steadying again.
D3r does not close his eyes, instead he turns his head slightly.
From here, he can still see the window.
The glass reflects the dim interior of the room—the bed, the faint green glow, his own still shape behind Avery.
And beyond it—
The forest.
Still.
Quiet.
Empty.
D3r watches it.
He does not move.
He does not look away.
And he does not let go of Avery.
Not while the memory of that smile lingers in the back of his mind, and not while the night feels like something that might change again the moment he stops paying attention.