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Derek doesn’t cry when she is hauled in for questioning.
“Is it true that you’ve been punched by Laurent Hale once when you were at school, earning him a suspension?”
“Is it true that the relationship between the two of you was…strained?”
“Your friends say you never wanted to leave Beacon Hills but that it was him who dragged you to New York. Against your wishes.”
Silence.
A pair of eyes fixed on the steel table. Manacled hands clasped tight. Dirt under the long, unpainted nails. Lips turned down. Frown held between dark brows that are set in near-perfect arches, though clearly never groomed. Not any more. Leather jacket swishing lightly with the rise and fall of breasts.
John has noticed she’s back in town a few days back. Apart from the fact that he is the sheriff and it’s his job to be observant, she is impossible to miss. But he didn’t know the first time they would actually talk would be when he read her the Miranda Rights while she looked at him with stony eyes and a carefully blank face.
Derek Hale.
Suspected murderer.
For a brief time, suspected arsonist, before her big brother nearly pummeled Deputy Torres to death for even suggesting she might have been the one to light the matches.
Well, Laurent Hale did have a reputation.
He was big, muscular, lacrosse captain and the darling of school – inky hair and light eyes, a playful smirk and cigarette clenched between a pair of luscious lips. A thing of beauty like all the Hales whose number has dwindled to one, now. And a half if you consider the shadow of a man, the mockery of a living thing in the hospital. And like all Hales, Laurent was an enigma. Even in his brutal murder six years after his family’s massacre.
“Did Laurent ever beat you up at home too? And maybe you were angry at him? Maybe it was more than beating? You can tell us, you know?”
John hates Deputy McWilliams from the bottom of his heart right now even though he is only doing his job. Hates the entire fucking system. Because Derek’s knuckles have gone white.
Finally, a reaction. A stone statue coming to life.
Long eyelashes flutter up.
John curses as a flush bloom high on the cheekbones of the young, over-eager deputy and strides inside the room to shoo him away. They cannot even break a twenty-two-year-old girl who has just been discovered to have buried the body of her last, fully-alive blood relation at the backyard of the charred remains of her family home, where she apparently took shelter after waltzing back to Beacon Hills after six long years!
“Derek,” he starts, splaying his palms on the table, trying to chase away the image of a blanketed figure huddled in the back of an ambulance, wailing into the chest of her brother, clutching him like a life-line. “I remember you used to be a good kid, you know. That you never used to be the trouble-maker. Straight-A student, if a little quiet for your mother’s liking. And your mother did worry. Did you know we were…well, I won’t go so far as to say we were friends. But I knew Talia and she was crazy proud of each of you.”
He looks deep into the vortex of anger that are the eyes of the girl across the table and softens his tone.
“Whatever happened to you?”
Derek doesn’t cry even then.
…
There’s something going on in this town. But it may be the sin of the fathers eating at the sons, for the town did let a good family die, let the bastards who set the fire get away, casting aspersions instead on the victims it left in its wake.
Or victim. Singular.
No one thought Laurent Hale, in spite of his ‘bad boy’ reputation, to be the one who could be responsible for something as ugly as setting his own house on fire.
Derek Hale on the other hand – the recluse and the nerd – the girl who is beautiful as sin, the most striking even in a family full of breathtakingly gorgeous people, the one who never had a boyfriend, or a girlfriend, except for that one time no one talks about when a fourteen-year-old boy went missing and the last person he was seen with was Derek.
Well, she was another matter.
John understands how it’s too easy to place the blame on the person who won’t turn round and try to assert their innocence. He also understands why her brother nearly killed that deputy with bare hands. Because she was all he had. And the way he gathered her close the moment he had leapt out of his still-moving Camaro, the way he turned his back on the still-burning house, the way his arms encircled her, gripping her in a way that must have left bruises…John knew that these two…they would kill for each other.
He was the least surprised one when the post-mortem report came back.
“But it can still be her,” Stiles whines during the dinner-time. “I mean, she did bury his body in their backyard which is supremely creepy, not to mention…”
“Stiles.”
Stiles smells vinegary. Angry and frustrated. His brilliant son is lying to him. John just knows it in his bones. But he doesn’t know why he is obsessed with Derek Hale all of a sudden. He doesn’t want Stiles anywhere near that girl the same way a parent would draw back a child from the edge of a precipice or the jagged edges of a broken window.
“Leave her alone,” he says, pointing the fork at him, his tone sharp and final.
Stiles glares at the broccoli he has cooked himself mutinously and doesn’t say goodnight when he stomps upstairs. John sighs and rubs his face.
Well, he is not winning any ‘father of the year’ award anyway. Why bother trying?
…
He underlines the name of Keith Argent twice, a substitute English teacher in BHH during the time of the Hale-house fire. There's been a rumour of him being discovered in a compromising position with a student but nothing was proved. The ones to spread the rumour were also students, who (coincidentally or otherwise) received less than stellar grading from the same teacher a few days back. There was a revenge angle and how better to ruin the reputation of a young teacher than by accusing him of statutory rape.
The rumours also said that the student in question, the one who was at the receiving end of Mr. Argent’s attention, was none other than Derek Hale.
John doesn’t remember Derek at that time because he had his hands full with a ten-year-old who was still raging against the whole world for the loss of a mother, a role John could never ever fulfill. On the bad days, he doubts very much he has been able to fulfill the role of a father either.
Derek had both, at that time, (and how it smarts to think he has to add the rejoinder!) and John cannot help the brief flare of anger against Talia and Benjamin, that they could be so blind, good people though they were.
John sighs and puts down Derek’s mugshot back on the table. Those heartbreaker eyes are hidden behind some sort of weird lens flare and John’s body gives an involuntary shudder thinking of the real deal, that stared at him, unblinking, when he haltingly confessed to Derek, after releasing her from the holding cell, how her brother’s death had been established as an animal attack.
Derek didn't respond beyond a tired sigh and a "Am I free to leave now?"
To which John had to retort in an authoritative tone how she was not supposed to leave the town etc. and he was again subjected to one of the thousand yards stare again, followed by another sigh and a quiet exit. One would have thought there would be hysteria, some yelling or at the very least some furious grumbling about police harassment.
But all John got was a world-weary sigh.
He wondered, not for the first time, what would make Derek crack.
He wishes he had a picture of Keith Argent lying around to see for himself.
…
Turns out, Derek does react and it's through more murder and mayhem. And yet again, something tells John it may be not quite true and that, for some reason, Stiles is lying again.
What is even more disappointing is that Scott is right with him this time: the one kid who is the worst liar in the history of mankind. And it’s tearing Melissa apart. John can see it in the tired pull around her eyes. The way her smiles drop the moment people look away. The way her hands fall pensively across her lap.
John has never been in love with Melissa. No matter how much Stiles and Scott wanted it. It never felt right from either end. They are more of fellow soldiers. Now, about to be fallen soldiers, if both their sons keep it up like that.
And Stiles has stopped mentioning Derek Hale’s name every five minutes.
John is not…disappointed. He is relieved. Yes, he is certainly relieved that his son has finally seen the light.
He hopes…well, he doesn’t know what he hopes.
He wonders where someone as conspicuous as Derek can hide when there's an ABP in her name. Because Beacon Hills is a small place and the sheriff’s department has not much else to do but to hunt down the fugitive. Because of the thrill of a chase. Because Derek Hale is a name that is still uttered in hushed whispers, like a cautionary tale, and the deputies are humans after all.
Then he realizes a girl like Derek can hide anywhere.
Doors open when a girl like Derek smiles, showing two bunny teeth that make her look even younger.
“Hello, sheriff,” she says, from where she is lounging on Stiles’ bed (Stiles’ bed!!!), her hands clasped behind her head.
Fully clothed (thank fuck!!!) except for her boots that are discarded in the corner because her mother has taught her manners.
Then she sits up, dark hair cascading down the dark leather that requires some vigorous cleaning, pulls her knees close and regards him calmly.
“Since my son is smart and not bullied easily," he says, crossing his arms, trying to stare her down, "I assume you're not the killer on the lose and it’s an ‘I’m sorry I made you a fugitive’ thing? Because I know my son and his inability to say 'sorry' the normal way?”
Pink lips quirk upward a tiny, tiny bit making John groan inwardly.
Seriously. Anywhere!
“No,” Derek replies.
“And I should just take your word for it and not arrest you right now.”
“You can,” she says, unflappable as ever. “But that won’t stop the killer.”
“So you know the killer?”
Derek sighs and stands up. God, she is tall, five ten to be exact, making her the same height as John. Her jeans have dark smudges which may or may not be blood. And she is so slender…her cheeks even more sunken, like she hasn't had a good meal in her for a long time.
She probably hasn’t, John realizes with a start.
“If I did, you’d be the first person to know,” she says. “I promise.”
She looks earnest and serious and John just cannot handle it.
“Why?” he asks faintly.
“Because you didn’t believe I killed Laurent. Even for even a single moment.”
Jesus Christ, the sheer gall of this girl!
Suddenly, she cocks her head.
“Stiles is here,” she informs. “I’ll let him do the explaining. I need to be…somewhere else.”
She climbs the window with a feline grace and drops down to the ground. John is still gaping at the empty air when Stiles skids into the room.
“Dude, you know what I fi-oh, dad, heeeeeeey…”
“Stiles…”
“I can explain!”
“Then better start explaining why Derek Hale is your go-to person to take the fall for all the crimes in Beacon Hills when clearly you don’t believe she has done any wrong. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have had a fugitive lurking in your bedroom.”
“Hey, the lurking is all her,” Stiles flails. “She is a master lurker. I’ve got nothing to do with that!”
John tries his best unimpressed look.
“Well.” Stiles scratches the back of his head. “She may not be the killer after all.”
John sighs.
“I’m sure we went through this,” he says, pinching the bridge of his nose, “and I’ll say it again. But stay away from that girl. I mean it, Stiles.”
The thing is, this time John is not sure it’s entirely for Stiles’ benefit.
…
Monkey’s Paw.
John remembers the story and remembers how it used to give him the goosebumps, knowing if someone offered to grant him wishes, back when Claudia’s grave was still fresh, he would have chosen to take it up on a heartbeat.
So, he shivers a little at the twisted kind of wish-fulfillment when he finally meets Keith Argent.
On the cold slab of the hospital morgue. His throat torn out brutally.
He guesses the guy could have been handsome once. Blond hair, green eyes, athletic built. Argents are a good-looking bunch too, though not quite as otherworldly as the Hales.
And John knows there must be some sort of history there. That goes beyond a substitute school teacher suddenly setting a house on fire.
Then, he remembers Derek’s tired face and sunken cheeks, the dirty and disheveled hair and the look in her eyes that can stop a man in his track and make his hands shake; can make a hardened deputy blush…and he doesn’t feel the least bit sorry. Or least bit curious.
He is just plain angry that there’s nothing to take from a dead man.
Because this dead man stole something from Derek Hale six years back. John is now absolutely certain of it. Took something far more precious than her virginity, probably.
He is furious that he cannot fix it.
…
“I’m not yours to fix,” Derek says, coiled tight like a cobra about to strike. “There’s nothing to be fixed. Don’t you dare to pity me.”
And where were you when they took my home from me, my family, my everything…burnt my world to ashes when the entire town looked on! Where the fuck have you all been…?
“No, of course not,” John says, resisting the urge to hang his head. “But I want to do something right this time.”
“And you think it’s right to move in with you?” she asks incredulously, one eyebrow climbing high on the alabaster forehead.
She is sitting on a crate, elbows on knees, glaring up. Even then she has a presence that fills the entire place. Exuding power like an invisible aura.
“Stiles is your friend, I’m sure he will…”
“Stiles is underage and I used to be a person of interest,” she grits out. “Your son is a stupid moron with the self-preservation instinct of a lemming. And your son’s best friend is an even sorrier case.”
The fact that it’s Derek who raises all the objections instead of jumping to take up his offer is what hardens his resolve.
“It’s gonna be a temporary arrangement,” John marches on. He doesn’t know what he is doing but after Stiles blurted out over the dinner how Derek Hale is squatting in an abandoned railway station of all places…he just couldn’t take it anymore. “Unless you find an apartment or something.”
“Why do you care?” Derek narrows her eyes at him.
Why now?
John has to look away before answering.
“Everyone needs to atone.”
…
Stiles, contrary to what John thought, was not happy with the arrangement. Well, to speak the truth, he lived to be contrary, so John is not that much worried. He knows Stiles doesn’t really want Derek dead as he loves to proclaim all the time. Loudly and vociferously.
John returns home to find teenagers invading his living room, taking over the kitchen. To the smell of pizza and sound of…not laughter because for a young bunch these kids are more serious than his deputies…but the sound of life.
John’s inside was dead for a long time.
Derek is sitting at some distance from the others, wearing her patented grumpy expression, with a book open on her lap. She looks up when John steps inside. She doesn’t smile but her shoulders are loose.
“I’m sorry,” she says, rising to her feet. “They invited themselves. I swear I had nothing to do with it.”
“I invited them,” Stiles says, skidding to a halt in front of John. “For…um…homework.”
John may have been practicing his unimpressed stare at the bathroom mirror.
“Son,” he intones resignedly, “someone should really teach you to lie better.”
This time, Derek smiles.
…
When Derek kisses him on a rain-soaked Sunday, her long fingers cradling his head, her warm, slender body shoved between the ‘V’ of his legs as he is sitting at the breakfast table, he can smell the warmth of her skin like something alive and something separate…a different entity.
And he says, “No.”
Derek stops immediately but doesn’t step away. She straightens up and bites her lip, regarding him with those serious eyes. Her hands settled on his shoulders and he should shake himself free of them, should shove her away for his own sanity.
But Derek’s eyes are like mirror and he can see himself reflected in them and it’s not really him that he sees.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers. “I thought…”
Then, a rueful shake of head and a self-deprecating smile.
“I don’t know what I thought.”
Then she steps back and before John can call her back, tell her to eat the waffles he made for her because she loves them more than pancakes, she is gone.
It’s like she has never been there.
Stiles reports two days later that her meager belonging (a duffel bag full of clothes and a pair of shoes, toiletries that included one electronic toothbrush and a nail-cutter) are gone.
His tone is full of accusation.
John feels too tired to correct him.
Well, he is not wrong anyway.
…
Something is wrong with the town.
John sees Derek hauling Scott’s unconscious body into Stile’s jeep like the boy weighs nothing.
He finds Stiles hiding even more things than he cares to know of.
John’s deputies are murdered in the station and no one gets apprehended.
He feels useless.
He wishes Derek comes back home. He wishes he could take it away. The pain that seems to be her constant companion, making her eyes hard but her shoulders droop. He wants to make her waffles and hear her snipping with Stiles over dinner.
John doesn’t wish Stiles to stay away from Derek anymore. He has seen her slip the last piece of bacon on to his plate when Stiles is not looking.
Derek loves bacon more than her leather jacket.
…
Stiles has stopped talking with Scott and when John asks him about it, all he gets are an angry shrug and a tightening of the jaw.
“Dad, how do you define rape?” he asks one day, tearing the lettuce leaves listlessly with his hands.
John chokes on his salad. “Do you…has anyone…what…”
“No, dad!” Stiles assures quickly, alarmed. Then, he goes on, quiet and subdued, “it’s just that…I think if someone uses your body without your consent…that’s pretty much…”
He bites his lips, not meeting John’s eyes.
“Son,” he says, putting his fork down. “If anyone you know…”
“It’s someone you know too,” Stiles says, sounding angry and frustrated. “And I wouldn’t mind if, hypothetically, you know them even better. And by better, I mean biblically.”
“What?”
“Well, I won’t lie, hell even I can see the appeal, but she has eyes only for you.” Stiles shakes his head. “And I can see the appeal from that side too. I know it should weird me out but strangely, it feels like…well, it feels right.”
“I’ve got no idea what you’re talking about!”
“I’m talking about Derek, OK?” Stiles looks up and meets his eyes defiantly.
Well, shit!
“Because both of you are protectors at heart even if it kills you.”
John stares at his son who states back at him.
“Stiles,” he says, gentling his voice like he is talking to a spooked animal. “Are you trying to tell me something?”
Stiles makes this noise that is part laughter and part groan and he scrubs his face with both hands.
“Well, duh!” he says. “I thought I’d never do it. Because I didn’t want you involved, ever. I made Derek promise…”
“Promise what?”
“But you need to know because fuck, we are floundering around and we need some level-headedness. Maybe it wouldn’t have happened if I got you involved earlier because you wouldn’t have allowed Scott to be this much of a douchebag. You would have come up with a solution faster, one that doesn’t involve Derek getting…well…she was…”
Stiles is hyperventilating by the end of his rant and John trips over the legs of his chair in his haste to get to his son.
“Shh,…it’s OK…shhh…”
“No, it’s not OK,” Stiles mumbles, with his face pressed against his shoulder. “You should have seen her face!”
“It’s OK, tell me from the beginning,” John soothes. “Tell me, Stiles. I’ll make sure Derek’s OK. Just don’t lie to me anymore.”
“I won’t,” Stiles sniffles and it sounds like a promise.
…
John holds the greasy paper bag like an offering when Derek slides the metal door open. Now that he knows, the flaring of nostrils is such a tell-tale sign and John suddenly remembers the flared nostrils just before Derek leaned into him. Or even before that, whenever he walked into the living room with Derek hogging the single couch, or very rarely in the kitchen, cooking.
Derek likes the way he smells.
Though this time it may be the waffles, smothered in chocolate sauce.
“I’ve heard it’s customary to bring a gift for the alpha,” he says casually, rocking back on his heels, a tad unsure, because Derek is her unreadable self again, and not exactly welcoming.
Silver-hazel eyes widen for a fraction before narrowing to a slit.
“You shouldn’t really trust half of whatever comes out of your son’s mouth,” she comments.
“So you’re not a werewolf then?”
Derek chuckles low and ushers him inside.
“I never said that,” she throws over her shoulder.
Realizing that is as much of a welcome as he'd get, John steps inside the loft.
It’s Spartan and industrial-looking. It somehow fits Derek. He occupies a stiff-backed chair by a huge desk, the one piece of furniture dominating the centre of the room.
“I always wondered about the incident when your brother hit you…”
“I was about to wolf out,” she explains, returning with two paper plates and napkins and plastic forks. Derek seems to have squatting down to an art form. "In the middle of the school cafeteria, in broad daylight. Stiles must have told you how pain is one of the things that can bring us back when we lose control?"
John pauses, balking a little. Stiles, his son, is around Derek a lot of time. Around Scott and God only knows how many other werewolves...
"Do you...does it happen often? You losing control..."
"No, it doesn't. Back then, I was younger, not very good at control and some boys were picking at me. Teasing me about Page.”
“Page?”
“My boyfriend who died because of me.” She shrugs, carefully casual, and takes a bite of the waffle. “We were fourteen and stupid. My uncle Peter convinced me to have him bitten by an alpha to turn him into a werewolf. The bite didn’t take. I tried to take his pain…as much as I could…but I…”
She looks away for a bit, out of the huge window from where dirty afternoon sunlight is seeping through.
“He begged me to end it. It was too much. And I did. A murderer at fourteen. And the eyes of my wolf turned blue, you know. Taker of an innocent soul. How poetic, huh?”
She starts to laugh.
“Derek,” John says cautiously, setting down his plate.
“No, it’s OK,” Derek says. “I understand why you said ‘no’. I’m too fucked up. You tried to fix me. It didn’t work, I guess.”
“There’s nothing to fix!” John says, his tone biting in spite of himself. “There’s nothing wrong with you.”
Derek looks over at him incredulously.
“Well, maybe there is,” John concedes. “But you went through a lot. I’ve seen what unbalanced look like or what it entails when someone goes through half of the stuff that you’ve gone through. But you’re incredibly strong. If anything, you’re the one who does the fixing or at least try your hardest, from what I learned from my son.”
Derek glares down at her hands.
“I told you not to believe…”
“Come back home,” he pleads.
“I have a home.”
“Squatting doesn’t count!”
Derek grins. A genuine one.
“The building belongs to me, actually.”
…
There’s an alpha pack in town. Either John is going crazy or the whole world has stopped spinning on its axis.
“Dad, I don’t want you to get involved,” Stiles says from behind him as they enter into the Preserve to the find their den.
“Too bad,” John says. “I’m in it, now. And I’m the town sheriff.”
“Welcome to the battlefield,” Chris Argent smiles at him. All teeth.
Derek simply rolls her eyes and shushes them all.
“How come she’s the one leading us when Chris and I have the military training?” he whispers to Scott, who is just ahead of him.
One of the crazy werewolves leap in front of them from the dark and Derek tackles him, barreling into him head-first and then picking him up and slamming him down on the ground for good measure. She looks back then, one knee still digging into the back of the poor guy.
“Because I’m the alpha,” she smirks with flashing eyes and the hint of fangs.
“Oh my God!” Stiles laments.
…
John kisses Derek on a full-moon night when she is sprawled on the couch, bloody from the fight, saving Stiles from inevitable death by taking the bullet meant for him in her back. It had wolfsbane in it and if the hunter was not already dead, shot by none other than Chris Argent, John would have squeezed the life out of the sonofabitch with bare hands.
He cradles her head in his lap and lets her sleep her pain and exhaustion away. He doesn’t know when he has fallen asleep too, with one hand tangled into her dark tresses. When he wakes up with a jerk as the sound of the front door slamming, Derek is awake and staring up at him.
“You’re too young for me,” John says.
Derek snorts, but doesn’t let on the staring, or move away. She just tilts her head to the side expectantly.
John can do nothing but lean down, taking and taking, the smell of forest that clings to Derek’s skin, the moisture from her lips, the breath that’s warm as honey, and a hand on his cheek.
It’s been a long time and John may be going senile, but the hand, timid and shy, unsure of its welcome, brushing against his cheek, is what makes him tremble and give in.
Derek’s lips part under his. A quick intake of breath. A sharp exhale.
Suddenly, John starts moving away.
“Stiles…” he says, horrified.
“Has gone out and the exact words were, I quote ‘I demand the right to drive the Camaro whenever I want’.”
Derek is moving, up and away, and in a flash, she is standing on the opposite side of the room.
“I’m sorry, John,” she says, eyes hard and unyielding. “I can’t do this one step forward and two steps back. You need to sort yourself out.”
Then, she snatches her jacket from where it’s been hanging from the back of a chair and leaves.
John hugs himself and feels cold…so cold and ancient…but unfortunately, not very wise.
Wise is a beautiful girl who throws herself into danger every other night to save a town which gave her nothing but grief. Wise is the young boy in love with a girl who hunts his kind and is determined to do what is right. Wise is his incredible son, who’s probably disgusted by his father falling for a woman less than half his age, but still gives his blessings because he wants him to be happy.
He is nothing like them.
…
“I’m sorry,” he says to the closed door of the loft. “I’m sorry, Derek. I’m just…please, open up.”
When there’s no response, even though he knows Derek is in there, since her Camaro is parked right outside, he rests his forehead on the cool metal.
“I fucked up, again, because I just don’t know what to do with the way you look at me…because, see, I’m old and ordinary. I’m scared and human. You, on the other hand…”
John places a palm on the door, splaying his fingers, imagining Derek leaning on the other side.
“Sweetheart, you don’t know how special you are,” he whispers. “I know I shouldn’t want you. You can have the whole wide world if you wanted, kneeling at your feet, but you chose me instead. I don’t understand why.”
The door is yanked open and John nearly falls face-first, but Derek is there, her right hand fisting his jacket, bracing him up effortlessly.
“I told you,” she hisses “Because you cared when no one else did! I could smell the anger on you when all those years ago that deputy suggested I might have set my home on fire. And you didn’t like it when you had to arrest me and you never believed for a second that I murdered Laurent. It was in your eyes and in your heartbeats when you tried to coax the truth out of me.”
She is angry and flushed. Her long hair tied in a pony-tail and her face make-up free as always. She is angry and breathtaking and magnificent.
“I’m sorry,” he says pathetically when she releases him and takes a step back.
“Never mind,” she says, jaw working beneath the pale skin. “It was not a good idea anyway.”
She slams the door on his face.
…
When Derek stumbles into his room through the open window, her abdomen slashed open, nearly incoherent with pain and blood-loss, John sees red.
“You’re not gonna go back to that loft of yours, you hear me?” he seethes after he cleans up her wounds and patches her up and forces her to drink some water. “I’m gonna tear up that bastard who’s done this, werewolf or no and you,” he jabs a finger towards Derek. “You’re gonna stay right here, with us, or help me God.”
“OK,” Derek says, small and subdued.
“And if you try to…wait, what?”
“I said, OK?” Derek says, glaring at the wall.
“Derek.” John sits down on the bed beside her and cups her face, turning it gently towards him.
Her eyes are too big in her gaunt face and her tears are like drops of emerald, still sticking to her long lashes.
“Derek.” John curls on her, uselessly petting her face with both hands, heart shattering into million pieces.
She takes one of his hands and places it on her heart, slotting their fingers together. They fall asleep curled around each other. Like teenagers. John doesn’t mind a single bit.
…
They make love to each other on a lazy afternoon. Stiles is out with Scott. Beacon Hills relatively calm both on human and supernatural fronts with the alpha pack chased away and the crime rate in the town an all-time low thanks to a bunch of werewolf vigilantes.
The sun is gentle, throwing patterns across their skin through the curtain. John is gentle with Derek too and Derek is eager, impatient. But then she stretches luxuriously like spilled silk on his bed and John cannot tear his eyes away, cannot keep his hands from moving and touching, cannot keep the wonder from his eyes.
Derek won’t stop shaking afterward, her face buried into John’s shoulder and he holds her close, as tightly as he can dare without her ribs breaking.
He smoothes his hand down her back, whispers into her ears how precious she is, how beautiful, how incredibly good, rains kisses on her dark head, but she shakes and shake and shakes. So he gets up and dresses her, wraps her up in a blanket and then lies on top. She is an alpha werewolf. She can take his weight.
Derek…won’t meet his eyes.
She is also an alpha werewolf who doesn’t believe in showing weakness.
John gently guides her face upward so that she is forced to look into his eyes.
“Why are you crying?” she asks, voice scratchy and rough, reaching up to wipe the tears from his cheek.
“Because I love you so much,” he says, truthfully, “that my heart almost cannot bear it.”
Derek wraps her arms around his neck and kisses him sweetly on his lips, on his nose, on his forehead where it wrinkles, on his fucking eyelids.
And then.
“It’s OK,” she says, when they are lying side by side, facing each other. “I’m scared too.”