We're just fumbling through the grey, trying to find a heart that's not walking away.
-
It's almost as if time stands still for that one moment.
There's a silence present that's not really a silence, more of a terrible heady tension, and it vibrates in strong, hard waves through the air as Derek stares.
It feels like preconceived artifice, like the thrilling cliff-hanger of your favourite novel, but at the same time, the utter realness of the situation, the utter anguish of it all, barks against Derek's head.
Isaac stands in the immobile in the doorway, eyes wide and stunned, with his mouth forming a small moue of confusion and disbelief and whatever the fuck else etching itself in the frown on his face.
His little boy blinks twice and Derek can see the tears forming in his eyes and the feeling it gives him, just knowing that this time he's the one causing his son's pain, that hurts.
It's a wild feeling, dangerous and wounding, like a feral wolf baring its fangs in warning as clear, viscous saliva drips from its muzzle.
It happens in a second, in just one tiny, insubstantial second but it's more than enough. Isaac's arms fall slack and Benji the Penguin plummets the short distance to the ground, dropping heavily on an unsuspecting Wolf, causing his paws to slide uselessly in his surprise on the dark stained wood flooring, before it finally makes contact with the ground.
Wolf yelps in surprise, swings his head around to yap at Isaac in question but Isaac is already fleeing from the scene. Derek can hear the heavy pitter-patter of his bare feet on the floor as his son runs down the corridor, Wolf hot at his heels.
Derek heaves up and off the bed as soon as Isaac turns, completely determined to run after him and only he only remembers that he's stark naked when the sheets slide off of his skin.
He's running on autopilot really, and he stumbles off the bed, looking around wildly for his clothes before he pulls on his black sweatpants in despairing haste and moves towards the door.
Fuck.
At the very edge of his vision Derek can see Stiles hastily pulling on his clothes but Derek's already out of the door.
His world is crashing and burning around his ears, he can hear the door of Isaac's room being slammed shut and so he immediately heads in his direction.
He crashes his way down the hall, his pulse thunders relentlessly in his ears and he can already hear Isaac's cries begin to echo through the apartment, like the ghosts of something past.
Derek's mind instantly compares this situation to that one inconspicuous January Thursday, the one night that started this all off; where his son's miserable cries were the only thing Derek's mind could process.
His heart lurches and claws at his throat and he knows he's fucked up everything.
Tears smart painfully in the back of his eyes but he trundles on even then, even when he feels sick to his stomach with worry.
He finds Wolf pawing uselessly at Isaac's closed door; he hesitates for a tiny fraction of a second, utterly afraid of what he'll see before he takes a deep breath, straightens his shaking shoulders and opens the door with purpose.
What he sees once he opens the door has him stumbling back a halfstep, his heart implodes and it sends shockwaves and fragments of hurt spearing and lashing and biting at his flesh.
His Isaac, his little Isaac, leans heavily against the side of his bed, as if he can't even summon up the energy the climb up, and instead he kneels where he despairingly collapsed with his back to his father and an arm braced on the bed, his head pushed towards his chest, eyes shut tightly as he cries and Derek can see the weighty tremors wracking his body.
Wolf whines pitifully and shoves past Derek's frozen feet, where he stands watching his son with a detached sort of pain whilst the pup rushes against Isaac's side, snuffling worriedly into his side.
Derek moves then and his legs feel like they're weighted down by lead, but he moves anyway. He traverses the sea of navy carpeting between him and his son and he moves.
He kneels awkwardly by the side of his son; his heart rate beats wildly in his chest as he reaches out a hand.
"Isaac?" Derek's hand barely touches his son's shoulders before Isaac is flinching and shouting and scrambling up on the bed away from Derek.
The hurt from that flares in Derek's heart, it's sharp and blinding but he forces himself to push that away, forces himself to bury it until its nothing more than a dull throb because what's important now is his son.
Isaac curls himself into a ball in the furthest corner of his bed, his small body heaving with the force of his sons, Derek licks his lips, tastes the salt of his own tears, and he reaches for him.
Isaac struggles as soon as he feels his father's searching hands, he twists and turns from Derek's grip: his face pushed into his covers and his fists grappling at the material.
Derek doesn't want to hurt his son anymore than he already has, he knows he should stop, give Isaac some time and some space but the selfish part of him needs to have Isaac close, he needs to wrap his son in his arms, huddle him against his warmth, kiss his curls, tell him he loves him and just apologise.
Derek needs to apologise, for today and so many other things, until he's blue in the face and his voice is nothing more than a weary rasp.
So he reaches for his son and he tries to pet his hair, to calm him down, and eventually he gently grasps his arms and pulls him from the bed and towards him.
Words fall from Derek's lips like curses, like pleadings. Whispers of "Isaac, please," and "I'm sorry, Daddy's so sorry," float around the room without Derek's permission but they're lost anyway, underneath Isaac's enraged shouts of "No, no, let me go! Go away!"
Isaac struggles against Derek's hold with his mouth scrunched up and fury in his eyes, he's hitting Derek too. His tiny fists are nothing to Derek's musculature and yet Derek bears each of his son's punches as if they held the weight of the most powerful creature on earth.
Derek doesn't think he's ever seen Isaac this upset, never this tumultuous mix of anger and sadness and betrayal and it's all his fault.
He wonders if there's any way back from this, any way that he and his son can come away from this as solidly intact as they were before.
"I hate you!" Isaac screams in Derek's face, he's blushing furiously with an intense sort of sadness and he punctuates the statement with a firm kick to his father's stomach.
Derek doesn't even register it though, his mind solely focused on those three words because Isaac has never, ever said those words to Derek before, he's never had an occasion to.
Derek is sure that the surprise on Isaac's face, as soon as the words finish their angry tumble from his mouth, is the same surprise that's reflected on his own face.
They stare at each other for a long time, Derek with a slack numbness that spreads venom in his lungs, and Isaac with a fierce determination in holding on to his anger despite the fact that Derek can see his lip begin to tremble.
His entire expression collapses in on itself as he begins to sob again, and Derek isn't entirely sure whether it's because of what he said to his father or what his father did but it hurts all the same. He falls limp in Derek's hold, like he can't even bring himself to struggle anymore, like the fight has been drained from him, and Derek hates that, hates the powerlessness and the vulnerability that seeps from his son so he puts him down on the bed, he can't fathom wanting to hold power over his son like that.
Isaac instantly pushes himself back into the corner, he hides in his face in the crook of his arm as he sobs, and Derek doesn't know what to do, he stares dumbly at the shaking mass of his son.
Stiles falls to the floor beside him, he'd forgotten all about Stiles actually and his presence now just brings in a whole other wave of guilt flooding through his system. Stiles' eyes are wet and wide and he's sniffling even as he pushes Derek's mobile phone into his hand.
"You, you need to call someone Derek," he tells him, his eyes raking Derek's face with worry. "Please call someone."
Derek ends up walking out of the room, in the morning darkness of the hallway with bare feet on the cold tiles and his phone pressed tightly to his ear.
"What?" Erica sounds groggy and muffled down the line; Derek can hear her shifting in her sheets, "Derek?"
The thing is though; Derek doesn't know what to say, he hasn't really thought beyond pressing his speed dial and having Erica's voice on the other end of the phone.
His breath catches in his throat and he leans back against the wall next to Isaac's door, he can hear him crying still.
"Hello?" Erica sounds much more alert now, worry lacing her every word, if he concentrates enough, Derek can hear Boyd's nonsensical murmurings in the background. "Derek, for crying out loud. Say something! Are you alright?"
"Erica," Derek says eventually. "It's Isaac. I- He won't stop crying. I fucked up and he won't stop crying, I don't, I don't know what to do. I need you."
Derek has a hand fisted in his hair, pulling tightly against his scalp to try to diffuse the pain that leeches out from him in waves; it's all he can do to not collapse.
"I'm coming," she sounds panicked now and Derek hates that he's the one who did this to her, the one who's worrying her, he just doesn't understand how his life has completely flipped in the space of a few hours.
The Derek that was in bed with Stiles this very same morning? He seems like a completely different person, and that seems like it was a whole different world not just mere minutes ago; had there really been such little time lapse?
"Derek? Are you still there?" Erica yells down the phone. "I'm coming okay? I'm coming."
-
Derek eventually make his way back into the room, he kneels by the side of Isaac bed watching helplessly as his little boy cries from where he's tucked in against the wall next to his bed, as far away from Derek as he can possibly be.
This time he doesn't try to reach out to him, he merely watches with a severe numbness as Isaac works through the aftershocks of his crying, with Wolf tucked into the curve of his belly, mewling softly at the back of his throat and snuffling his muzzle beneath Isaac's arm.
Derek is so aloof to everything that he flinches when Stiles puts his hand on Derek's shoulder, it's out of surprise rather than anything else, he just forgot that the world's still ticking on despite the bubble of misery he'd created for himself, he'd forgotten for a little while that other people were affected by this also.
He looks up just in time to catch the look of hurt flickering across Stiles' face and he feels terrible, none of this is Stiles' fault, if anything it's Derek's for being so careless and for being so damn stupid as to hide his relationship from his son.
He catches Stiles' hand as it begins to slide away from his shoulder and he squeezes it in reassurance, smiling sadly up at him. Stiles bites his lip and he ducks in, like he's thinking of placing a kiss on Derek's lips, just as he would any other time, but then he seems to remember precisely why they're in their current predicament.
Stiles straightens up and take a deep, cleansing breath before he squeezes Derek's shoulder and slinks away to lean against the far wall.
They're like that for a long time; Isaac and Wolf sprawled on the bed, Derek kneeled on the floor and Stiles leaning heavily against the wall. The air is fraught with tension and Derek doesn't know how else to make this better, he isn't sure that he can make this better.
Moving back to Beacon Hills was supposed to be a new beginning, one without pain and hurt and betrayal and it was. That's what makes it even harder because it was until Derek fucked it up. It's his fault and he almost welcomes the guilt that churns in his veins because he knew that the choices he was making were inapt and illogical.
He's an analyst, it's in his blood to work out the variables, to weigh out the good and the bad and yet he still chose the worse choice.
His son's words blur together with his guilt and their combined misery in his mind, his head is pounding, a headache building up behind his eyes fast and sharp, nausea convulsing within the acid of his stomach.
Derek's so loaded with nervous worry that he doesn't even realise when Erica and Boyd stumble into the room.
They're both clearly just out of bed, and it shocks Derek a little to realise that it's still early in the morning, Boyd's in a pair of pyjama pants and a hoodie hastily zipped up over his bare chest and Erica's round bump protrudes from beneath her plaid button-up, hair wild and tumbling over her shoulders.
Derek hadn't even heard the door open, neither had Stiles, if his startled expression is anything to go by. He stands up straight from the wall he succumbed to in his desperation, looking pallid and worried, eyes darting from Derek to the Boyd and Erica and back again.
There's a tense few seconds as Boyd and Erica stand in the threshold taking stock of the entire scenery, surprise all over their faces.
Boyd snaps out of it first and he rushes into the room and places a hand, heavy with consolation, on Derek's shoulder for a brief second before he's moving to lean over him and grasp Isaac.
Isaac visibly tenses and his cries sharpen as soon as Boyd's hands are on him but he relaxes instantly when Boyd's murmurs quietly in his ear, letting his body go limp as Boyd fits his hands under both him and Wolf.
Recognising that his Uncle is not in fact his father, Isaac lets himself be hefted up by Boyd and he moulds himself to his shape, curling into him and whimpering his cries.
Derek feels like he has been through a thousand wars, it pains him to think how Isaac doesn't want anything to do with him anymore, when all he wants is to bring his son close to his chest and whisper his apologies.
Wordlessly, Boyd carries Isaac and Wolf out of the room, pausing briefly by Erica as she kisses on of Isaac's red cheeks.
Derek slowly rises and turns, rooted to his spot, as he watches them leave.
Erica stands in the threshold of the bedroom, watching Boyd and Isaac's progress down the corridor with a fist clutched to her chest, channelling Isaac's pain, and the other on the curve of her bump.
Derek swallows hard when he hears the almost-soundless click of the kitchen door closing shut, he hates himself for putting him in this situation, and he's standing desolate and desperate when Erica turns back towards him.
Her brown eyes focus on Derek and surprise ripples through her face as her eyes sweep up his form; he'd completely forgotten his state of dress, naked for all but a pair of dark sweatpants.
Her brows furrow in confusion, but Derek can see the calculation in her eyes, he can see the facts slotting neatly into one cohesive, logical narrative in her mind as he stands before her, his skin bearing the marks made by Stiles' mouth.
Derek can predict the utter onslaught of her temper even before she swings her head to the side and locks her gaze to where Stiles is standing and understanding marks her face.
Stiles leans against the far wall of the room, palms flat against the paint and his knuckles tucked firmly in the small of his back, his shirt buttoned up all wrong, his hair is tousled in disarray, he's sporting kiss-swollen lips and crimson bruises staining the pale colour of his throat.
Erica's expression turns livid in the space of a single heartbeat; her eyes grow sharp and unforgiving, her voice hard and her eyebrows furrow.
"What did you do?" Erica hisses, and she takes a carefully controlled step into the room and she stands tall and angry, like Vesuvius trembling in imminent danger, ready to explode.
Derek doesn't know what to do or what to say but his expression pleads for her to be calm.
"Erica-." he begins feebly, his voice cracking under the pressure of her gaze, he searches his mind desperately for a way to explain, for a way to make it okay.
"Isaac saw?" She frowns in disbelief. "That's why he's upset, Derek? Because he saw you fucking his nanny?"
Stiles flinches at the sharp bite of her words and reverts his gaze to the ground, curling in on himself with cheeks blazing in embarrassment; it wasn't like that, it isn't like that, and Derek's mind isn't working fast enough to pour all of the love, the friendship, the companionship that Stiles offers him into words.
There's a long, tense second in which Derek doesn't answer and his face grows more panicked, his cheeks flooding in heat because he feels like a damned fool, being scolded because he was lying to his best friend, to the people he loves and now it's backfiring in a spectacular way.
Erica barks out a humourless laughter.
"You're un-fucking-believable, Derek," she says and she presses her lips in a grave line, shaking her head in disappointment.
She stares Derek down so much so that he wants to crawl into the inside of his skin and never see the light of day again, he meets he gaze though, he figures that she deserves that much because this is Erica, his best friend and he might have messed up everything in his life but he'll at least try to correct those mistakes now.
Erica grits her teeth, the hard line of her jaw protruding as she curls her lip and looks away from Derek. Her gaze hops all over Isaac's room and lands on Stiles, she starts a bit, like she'd forgotten why she was so angry in the first place, before her face clenches in anger, "Get out."
Stiles eyes fly up wide and startled as they lock with Erica's callous stare, he opens his mouth to say something, anything, but nothing other than silence leaves his mouth.
He stares helplessly at Erica, his chest heaving and eyes glossed with unshed tears, his bottom lips is completely ravaged from his worrying it at it, Derek just wants to go to him, to hold him and comfort him but he's pretty sure that Erica would have a conniption if he did, so he bears down on the urge for now.
Erica fully turns to Stiles after several long moments of his stasis and she fumes, "Are you deaf, Stiles?"
"It's not his fault-" Derek begins to say, his hands twitching towards them uselessly because he loves them both, but he'll absolutely not let Erica place the blame on Stiles.
He can feel the salted tear tracks cooling on his face and Derek is sure that he looks ravished and desolate, but he continues anyway, "Erica, it's not his fault."
"Don't," she warns, turning her fury onto him. "There is absolutely nothing that you could possibly say to make this better."
Derek stills and subdues instantly, there is venom infused in her voice that Derek dares not mess with; he hasn't seen this particular expression on Erica's face for years now, this mixture of anger and treachery.
She looks enraged, like the fury itself took root in her heart to spew hatred and vitriol from her gaze, spitting fiery trails of words everywhere she goes.
She turns back to Stiles and she enunciates her command only once more, "Get. Out."
Stiles' gaze lock with Derek for the briefest of seconds, Derek nods imperceptibly, it's better that he deals with Erica alone for now, and Stiles scampers out of the room.
The long silence pulsing in and around Isaac's bedroom is broken only by the quiet sound of the front door opening and closing.
Erica points a single finger in Derek's direction.
"Go get dressed and make yourself decent," she says, her voice low and still. "Or so help me god, Derek, I will rip out your spleen."
She turns on her heel and marches off to the kitchen and Derek can hear how her voice softens as she opens the door to the kitchen, before silence descends once again.
-
Derek heads into his room, throws on the first shirt that he sees before he rushes to the bathroom and splashes water on his face, hardly even noticing the scalding temperature of it, he presses his fingers to his eyelids until colours burst in the darkness.
He stands there for a long time, just thinking, breathing and trying to stave off the oncoming panic. He shakes his head, wipes his face off with a towel and reaches for his toothbrush instead.
There's plenty of time to panic later, he thinks, but right now his son needs him.
Derek finishes up the bathroom quickly, he doesn't bother to shave and instead he makes his contrite way to the kitchen. He pauses at the closed door though, despite his body screaming at him to barge in, he doesn't want to startle Isaac, so he takes a deep breath and he knocks lightly on the door.
He gently pushes it open when he doesn't hear anything but he finds the kitchen completely empty, tranquil, silent and untouched. Derek tries to ignore the uncomfortable way that his heart wrenches and instead he forces his shaking legs to make their way down the hall and around the corner to his son's room.
The door is open and the soft morning light spills over the threshold, Erica's the only one in the room though, leaning over Isaac's messy bed folding clothes to put in Isaac's small suitcase.
"What are you doing?" Derek asks when he comes to a stop in the middle of the room, toes digging into the carpet. "Where's Isaac?"
Erica turns to look at him over her shoulder then, she doesn't look all that angry any more, just sad and a little bit disappointed, "In my car. We're taking him for the weekend."
"No," a flash of indignation courses along Derek. "You can't do that."
"Derek," Erica says, she sighs and turns towards him. "I know you want him near but you-. He doesn't want to see you right now, he told me he doesn't want to see you; he needs space, so you're going to do this, for him."
She turns back and begins to pack away Isaac's things with an eerie calmness, though Derek can see the strained composure in the stiff line of her shoulders and the clinical detachment to her movements.
Erica's always been better at him in high pressured situations, she has that ability to be calm and fierce and tolerable whereas he tends to go blazing in with no consideration for the consequences. It's why they've always worked so well, with Boyd being the rational stasis that drives their trio to triumph.
But as much as Derek understands their dynamic and why it makes them successful as friends, at times like this it grates on his every nerve, how Erica is able to be so unruffled about this.
"How long?" Erica asks quietly, she stops in her ministrations but she doesn't turn to look at him.
Derek takes a deep breath, this is what he's been dreading, "Just a little while after Isaac got lost."
He sees Erica straighten up, he can see her set her shoulders and tip her head back, and he knows she's probably holding back tears but he doesn't move to comfort her.
"That was months ago, Derek."
"I know," he says and he wishes he didn't have to talk to her back. "I know, okay? But I didn't know how to tell you, and we wanted to be together for at least a little while before we told everyone. It wasn't because I don't trust you."
Erica huffs a bitter laugh, "Don't give me that bullshit."
Derek can see the tension rolling into her body, "It's not bullshit. You know that. I trust you with my life."
"But not with this," she says her hands going up to her face, to wipe away her tears.
"Erica-"
"You're supposed to put yourself first, Derek," Erica cries, and she rounds on him with her blonde curls flying wildly in a frizzy mess and tears stinging her eyes. "It's why you moved back to Beacon Hills in the first place. This? This is not putting yourself first. You just barely got away from Kate the fucking psycho and now you're fucking your son's nanny?"
"That's not what it is," Derek says resolutely. "It's more than that."
"So what, you're not sleeping together?" she tips her head to the side in faux-inquisitiveness.
"We are but-"
Erica scoffs disbelievingly; she rolls her eyes and crosses her arms tightly across her chest as Derek continues.
"We are, but that's not what our relationship is about," Derek tells her firmly. "I'm in love with him, Erica."
"Love?" She asks, and she widens her eyes sardonically, just as he juts out his chin defensively.
She just shakes her head, "No, Derek. This is isn't love. This is you latching on the very first person that gives you slightest bit of attention after the disaster that is your life."
Erica was always able to find the most effective ways to cut Derek down, and this time it's no different, the words splinter in his mind and jar at the insides of his skull.
He looks away from her, too angry to even breathe because he knows that isn't true. He loves Stiles, he knows he does, but the niggling doubt of his self-worth just harks and throbs in the space between his lungs.
"That's not fair," Derek says. He tips his head back, closes his eyes tightly for a brief second and bites down savagely at his bottom lip. "I know what I'm doing."
"Do you?"
"I love him, Erica."
"Does he love you?" Erica bites back, face lively with anger and Derek's chest constricts with the utter disbelief in her face.
"Yes."
That in itself makes her pause and she searches Derek's face, her own expression turning to one of recognition as she sees the truth in him; Derek can practically see the way that her mind works, the way that she's re-evaluating the last few months in her head; the way that she's attributing the change in both Stiles and Derek to their secret tryst.
He thinks he spies grudging acceptance in her expression but he doesn't dwell on it, he doesn't want to be crushed with the disappointment if it turns out that she resolutely hates the idea of Stiles and Derek together.
Derek knows that Erica's like a lit fuse, she burns bright and heady at first, fast and dangerous like a comet through space but she always calms down, after, she'll always pulls back from her anger to work out through the problem.
"This still doesn't make it okay," Erica says. "You might genuinely be in love with each other but you still lied to me, to everyone."
Derek doesn't say anything in reply but it doesn't matter anyway because Erica is on a roll, her voice is drained and tired as she speaks to him.
"What did you think Derek?" she asks. "That this was going to turn out with a big happy ending all packaged up in a fucking bow for you to keep? This isn't a fairytale; you're not going to be riding off into the fucking moonlight together, okay? This is going to be hard and heartbreaking, mostly because you lied to us."
The verbal silence that ensues is punctuated by the sharp, teary inhales of both Derek and Erica. They face each other and there's so much raw pain hanging in a precarious balance in the stale air between them that Derek can feel the distance between them like a physical ache.
"You know," Erica's voice cuts through the quiet, worn down with fatigue and helplessness. "I actually though that for once in your life you'd use that big brain of yours, but. I- I can't do this again, Derek."
Her voice breaks and she shrugs helplessly at him, tears gathering along her bottom lashes. "I can't."
Derek's heart shrivels into an unrecognisable ball; he's fucked up everything, even more so than he felt possible.
He doesn't want to lose Erica; he can't lose her, not after everything they've been through.
It's at times like this that he feels like he's infecting and hurting everyone aorund him, like poison.
A void opens up deep in his gut and it has the distinct shape of Erica so Derek stares numbly at the ground, mouth tightening against the wounded whimpers clawing their way up his throat as his cheeks re-colour with wretchedness.
Erica takes careful steps forward until she's standing right in front of Derek but he doesn't look up.
He adamantly refuses to look up because he refuses to see the disappointment in her face.
So, he clasps his hands in front of him and keeps quiet.
"I can't watch you do this to yourself all over again," Erica continues. "Destroying yourself because of lies and half-truths, because you don't think you deserve nice things. I'm not going to let it happen. So don't you, Derek James Hale, think for one fucking second that I will let you destroy everything you have built up so far."
Derek's gaze flies to hers in surprise, steely determination makes a home in her expression and she tilts her chin up defiantly.
"I'm going home now with Isaac and Boyd," she says. "I do not want to hear from you this weekend. I want you to have a very long think about what you and Stiles are doing and the hurt you've caused your son. I want you to think about that, Derek, and I want you to sort your shit out."
Her voice is stern and unforgiving, but she wraps her hands around Derek anyway and presses in close, he bump nestled between them as he ducks down and wraps his arms around her in his relief.
"I mean it," she mumbles against his hair. "Come near me and I will kick your ass straight back into the hellhole it came from."
He can't help but laugh at that, it's tired and watery but it's chocked full of gratuitous relief, "I'm sorry."
She tightens her grasp and pushes her forehead against his, locking gazes.
"I love you, Derek but I seriously can't stand you right now," she says. "I'm not mad that you have someone, of course I'm not. I'm mad that you've both been keeping secrets from everyone for all this time. Understand?"
He averts his gaze, nodding gravelly but his heart unclenches a little bit, "I'm sorry."
She kisses his temple firmly before she disentangles herself from him. Derek misses her comfort instantly but he presses his lips together and stands straight.
"I'll see you soon?" He can't quite help the note of hopefulness in his voice.
Erica nods, smiling sadly and she says, "I'll see you on soon."
She leaves him standing alone in his apartment, the heaviness of the front door shutting with a definitive finality that makes him collapse to his son's bed and drop his head in to the palms of his hands.