LIHIM

AO3 link -https://archiveofourown.org/works/84232626/chapters/229791193#workskin

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CHAPTER 3 - Survivor’s Guilt

(Tw for panic attack and implied suicide attempt)

Avery emptily wanders around the cathedral; he seems to have an instinctive sense of the contents and location of every room despite having never seen it before.

Soon enough, he stands in front of a bathroom mirror in a grand bedroom he assumes is his. Swirling golden tentacles and swan wings line the yellow lights and cascade down the sides of the mirror.

There is a stranger in the reflection, and it is undeniably himself.

If he squints, his hair is in its usual loose curls, his face still rounds off into a soft oval, and he’s even got his modest stubble that he was never confident enough to let grow into anything more.

But it's an artist’s rendition.

His hair is carved out to be longer than it was, into whatever homogenized jelly that makes up his new body; his jaw no longer lacks the surety of bone nor the hand he used to feel for it, and his stubble is out of place in his carefully sculpted face, stuck on for recognition at the last minute like an art project.

Avery can’t help but think of the ridiculous green fluorescent poltergeists from the movies. He feels like he died, sent to haunt a reality with a sense of humor.

It’s hilarious.

He begins to cry.

Crumbling down to the cold tile in choked sobs, Avery’s thoughts begin to consume him.

What of his old life? What of his family? His parents live not too far away.

His father is a heroic man; would he have rushed outside to defend against the dancers, or would his mother have convinced him to stay and let them pass?

He needs to find them, to help them.

But once more, a crushing apathy drops upon his shoulders like tungsten chains, and he cannot bring himself to stand

“Your duties are here; you cannot help them.” A voice undeniably his own whispers in his ear.

He continues to cry; his breath quickens. The more he tries to breathe or think, the heavier the chains lie upon him, crushing his lungs under their weight.

“Your duties are here.”

He crawls helplessly along the tile and hoists himself onto the ledge of the bathtub, as if climbing onto a higher surface would provide him any relief. It doesn’t.

Before he knows it, he is inside the spacious bathtub, big enough to accommodate him with ample room to move, yet small enough to knock against his shoulders and knees; his heavy embroidered vestments fold upon his arms like a moving blanket. The physical sensation actually seems to lift the weight off of him.

It’s better, but it isn’t enough, though. Avery wishes he could tear down the shower curtains, the ceiling. He wants to bury himself, like he was under his house.

Water.

Water’s got weight to it. And there’s a faucet right there. The drain plug is right next to his head. He reaches for the faucet handle.

It wasn’t until he felt the first droplet on his forehead that he came back to his senses.

“You good?”

It’s Derek.

“Yeah.” Avery’s sniffles and torn voice betray him. Derek peers into the tub; his helmet is off, and he doesn’t look all too great himself.

“Mind if I join you? ” His voice is flat and exhausted.

Avery sniffs and wipes his eyes; such an odd request, to be in the bathtub.

“I’ll… I’ll take off my armor so it doesn’t jab you,” he reassures, a little embarrassed.

Avery chuckles. “Yeah, of course, man.” He sits up and leaves room for Derek to sit.

Avery watches as Derek removes his armor. He’s far frailer than Avery initially thought. Beneath the armor, the bulk of the plates makes him look so grizzly.

He’s down to a padded tunic and a pair of oversized pants. He sits carefully next to Avery; his grace seems to indicate he has far more experience cramming himself into a bathtub in times of stress than Avery does.

“Do you still have that infinite knowledge thing, Derek?” He asks.

Derek nods.

“Is there any possibility we can get out of this? Go back to normal?”

Derek sighs and tries to loosen his hair a bit more, taking some time to consider the factors. Some of his locs fell around the frame of his face. Avery hadn’t seen him without his helmet until then. He thought he was beautiful.

Derek sighed and put his hands on his head. “Not a chance.”

“There’s no one? Nothing that could save us?”

Derek seems to wince at the thought. “I don’t think the king would even let us fathom the possibility.”

They both look straight ahead at nothing in particular, shoulder to shoulder.

“So it’s just us then.”

“Yeah.”

Avery begins to laugh, the tears well up without fuss now, rolling down lazily down his face. He is too exhausted to sob.

Derek wraps his arm around Avery. The gentle squeeze makes the apathy upon his back melt away more than any weight he could’ve buried himself in. Avery lays his head onto Derek’s shoulder; he does not pull away.

“Why are you here anyway? How’d you know I was in here?”

“I don’t know, why were you trying to take a bath with your clothes on?” Derek said in a deadpan tone that caught Avery off guard. He sighs, “I’m sorry, I guess I just had this feeling that I needed to come check on you.”

“Hm.” Avery figured it was part of the knowledge thing. He picked his head up from Derek’s shoulder. “Well, what now?”

“I guess… nothing?”

Avery scoffed.

Derek stands up from the tub and steps out. “It’s like 3 am right now if my memory serves correctly,” he looks in the mirror, and he’s a little appalled by what he sees

Derek turns back to Avery; his eyes are puffy. “We both look a little worse for wear, and there’s nothing we can do about… all this,” he gestures vaguely and sighs. “I see no reason why we shouldn’t get some rest and figure this out in the morning.”

Avery buries his face in his arms; he doesn’t respond. Derek frowns and kneels in front of the tub.

“Hey.”

Avery looks up.

“I dragged us into this… I promise I’ll get us out.” He extends a hand, Avery takes it, and Derek pulls him up from the bathtub. “I promise.”

Avery gives him a meek nod as he begins to collect his armor.

“Goodnight, Avery. I’ll be in the next room over.”

1. Many of the characters listed aren't canonically trans (some of them are characters I know about for sure, others could just be the result of wikis being misleading)

2. Trans women have wildly different standards for what is "good" transfem rep than everyone else

1: "I don't actually know any"

2: "I'm not sure if she counts, but-"

3: "She's not very prominent, but-"

4: "She deserved better"

Hastur or the king in yellow is also known as the PEACOCK KING which i think is fun to know because that's a really sassy sounding name for him. other nicknames are Johannes van der Berg, the unspeakable one. Him that slept beneath, and the thing in the lake.

I also heard that that his nickname was THE KING ON THE GALLOWS or HE WHO WAS HUNG, THE HUNGED KING. (KING WHAT DID YOU DO??? is this nickname actually canon??????)

YOG-SOTHOTH is his father.

Cthulhu is half-brothers with the king in yellow, sharing that same father. (Canon that they have beef, just not directly said in Lovecraft.)

It is stated in one of lovecraft's books and mythos that SHUB-NIGGURATH is the wife of THE KING IN YELLOW. It is never stated if this relationship was every romantic.

the KING IN YELLOW is to be possibly the father of Ithaqua, Zhar, and Lloigor (it said this on more than one site). Shub-Niggurath being the mother.

King in yellow has to be described as a place rather than a being sometimes.

The king in yellow first ever appearence as a story dates back to 1891. (that's really cool in my opinion.) He shows up in a short story called "Haita of the shepherds.

Many, many people celebrated Pulse. We were told we deserved it. That it was God’s punishment for our sin of loving the same sex. We are sent messages like these I received in 2018:

We in the community often call the victim count 49+ to include the survivors who couldn’t live with the pain.

The event was never officially declared a hate crime or targeted homophobic attack and is rarely listed as one in databases.

At our vigils for those slaughtered, Extremist Christian groups showed up to protest, holding signs like this:

ID: Me kissing a woman I was casually seeing in front of an angry looking man with a “Sodomy is Sin” sign.

Please understand how much more than just a mass shooting this was. We are still to this day harassed and told we deserved it by some.

been seeing a lot of human rocky designs around so i thought i'd try making one myself :]

design thoughts under cut: