Derek stands outside the door, waiting, unwavered.
It's been two days.
He lifts his hand and knocks loudly instead of using the buzzer.
"Chris," he calls through the heavy barrier. The name sounds strange spoken in his voice, but he cannot imagine using anything else.
No reply comes back to him, so he allows his senses to flare wide and picks among the noise of the apartment building until he finds what he's after.
"I can hear your heartbeat," he says, like admonishing a child. He hears it, and it's slower than it should be.
Still nothing, and Derek sighs inwardly. He stares at the white painted door and lets the pulse in his chest guide him.
"Please, let me in."
Faintly, "Go away!" carries back to him, audible only to a werewolf's hearing.
Derek scowls and pushes annoyance into his tone. "Open the door, or I break it down!" It sounds convincingly like a threat.
From inside he hears a whispered "...fucking," and the faltering sound of footsteps. The deadbolt slides, but the door doesn't open.
Derek does the honors himself. Grief billows out in a cloud, black and acrid. It's a fist to his chest, and he almost staggers back as it soaks through him. Chris is on the floor, leaning against the wall and pointedly not looking at him. As Derek moves closer, the alcohol on Chris's breath blends with his anguish, and the gasoline fumes of it sting Derek's eyes, burn down his throat. He swallows and kneels, fighting to control his expression.
Chris blinks slowly and then turns cool, lifeless eyes on him. "I don't want you here."
Rum. Vodka. Peaty scotch.
Derek scowls at him. "I didn't ask." He wrinkles his face. "You need a shower."
Chris gives him a sharp look that flares briefly with defiance. "I didn't ask."
Derek smirks despite himself and stands, offering Argent a hand up off the floor. Chris rolls his eyes as he takes it.
"Why are you here?" Chris rasps at him, weariness pulling at his frame. He sounds more lost than angry.
"If you answered your phone, I wouldn't be." Derek inclines his head toward the hall. "Go take a shower," he says, more gently this time, and turns toward the kitchen.
"If I don't?" Chris says to his back.
Derek pauses. "I'll hose you down in the parking lot. It's only November." He doesn't look, but he hears Chris snort and walk away.
Some of the tightness in his muscles eases as Derek rifles through the fridge and kitchen. He finds a pound of bacon and a carton of eggs, pans and a baking sheet in a cabinet. Everyone loves bacon, he thinks, and puts all of it in the oven. He's halfway through cracking the eggs when he hears a squelch of skin on wet tile and a heavy thud.
Shit.
He darts for the bathroom door, heart suddenly pounding hard. "Chris!"
"Fine," Chris growls.
Derek frowns at the door and wrestles with the wisdom of going in and checking anyway. "Are you—"
"I said I'm fine!" Another burst of defiance and anger.
Derek can't decide if that's good or not. He thinks it's good, that it means there's a spark of life that still glitters, so he leaves it alone.
When Chris emerges, the apartment smells like bacon, which is better than cloying sorrow. Derek glances over from the pan of eggs, nearly done.
Chris Argent has never looked so small. The sweats and t-shirt seem to dangle from his frame, and he looks sickly pale. Human. Thin and breakable, thin and broken.
"When's the last time you ate?" Derek asks as he transfers the eggs to a plate.
"Not hungry," Chris answers, his voice gone toneless again, but he watches the tray of bacon coming out of the oven anyway.
Derek hides a grin. "Go sit." Wolves can be clever too.
Chris lowers himself into the couch like his bones are made of glass, and he stares at the plate when Derek hands it to him.
"I said I wasn't hungry."
"Yeah? Well, I didn't ask."
Chris throws him a glare. "Your bedside manner sucks."
Derek sits a respectable distance away and watches expectantly as Chris takes a bite.
"But the bacon's decent," Chris adds after a second.
Derek huffs a laugh and leans forward, propping his elbows on his knees, waiting for the internal pull to tell him what comes next.
Silence settles, and for someone not hungry, Argent manages to eat an impressive amount. He sets the plate on the coffee table methodically, like there is an art to placing plates on tables. And then he stares, down at the table, up at the photos and art on the wall. His gaze locks on the last archery medal Allison won before she quit competition. He takes a breath as though to speak, but only his expression changes.
He swallows as tears rise to his eyes and tries again. "You know, she…" But his throat closes, and whatever he wanted to share gets lost as he folds in on himself.
The air fills with sorrow as Chris buries his head in his hands. He shakes on every breath, and the muscles in his arms flex with tension as he fights. He rakes his fingers over his hair and beats a fist once against his knee, shaking his head as he tries so hard to keep it in. An inhale cracks with a sob. Derek stares hard at the floor so he won't witness the tears when they finally come. And they will. He's lost the battle often enough to know. The dam breaches quietly, but he can tell by the scent of salt. The urge to make it go away burns in Derek's chest like a coal.
Grief lives in the body as well as the mind.
He isn't sure what will happen, if anything, but he can't not try, either.
Derek reaches slowly, carefully, and touches Chris's shoulder briefly before setting his hand on the back of his neck. It's the flick of a switch to open the places in himself where pain gathers, and the siphon starts.
It's different, nothing like he expects. It's a fine web underneath his skin, tightening. And suddenly he can't catch his breath. His bones feel like ice, skin like fire. But it's the not breathing that shocks him the most.
Chris gasps and lifts his head, tracks of tears still on his reddened face. They stare at one another, and for just a moment Chris's gaze looks clear. The anguish carved into his face smooths.
Derek slides his hand off, and they both jolt when the connection severs. Chris keeps staring at him, indecipherable expressions passing over his features. He touches the back of his neck where Derek's hand had been.
That—he may have gone too far with that.
"Do you have a duffle bag?" Derek asks suddenly.
Chris blinks dumbly at him.
"Suitcase?" Like maybe the word got lost in translation.
A frown creases Chris's face but he nods his head in the direction of the hallway. "Hall closet. Why?"
"Because," Derek says as he gets up. "I'm packing you some clothes."
He doesn't stay long enough for Chris to ask him anything further. He's never been in Argent's room and doesn't know where he keeps everything, but he's invaded the man's privacy and personal space about as much as you can already. What's a few drawers?
He packs more than he thinks is necessary, because he's not sure how long this is going to take. The funeral's in a few days. At least until then.
Christ.
He should've gotten Mrs. McCall to do this. Except…
He zips the bag shut.
Except he's the one who's done this before.
He walks back into the living room, the bag dangling from one hand. "C'mon," Derek says, looking down at Chris, on the couch where he left him.
"Where?"
"I have a spare room."
The look in Chris's eyes hardens for a second, and he almost appears like himself. "And if I don't want to go?"
Derek sighs in annoyance, fronting most of it. "I'm not leaving you here by yourself."
Argent's eyes cloud and he looks away, blinks slowly at the coffee table. "Maybe you should."
Derek sets the bag down softly and moves closer. He kneels without touching. "Maybe," he stresses the word, and it makes Chris look at him. "I've lost enough people as it is."
A spark of something flashes through those dull blue eyes, and Chris looks away.
He can't make him leave. But Derek has spent too long in a house of ghosts to think it's wise for him to stay. Eventually, Chris nods, a slight and weary gesture, and Derek touches his shoulder as he stands. He's going to take the guest bedroom upstairs for himself, he thinks, to save Argent the effort of the staircase.
When the grief knocks him awake in the middle of the night, he pads downstairs on a hunter's feet to find Chris sobbing at the edge of the bed, twisting the sheets in his fists, trying to stop himself and failing. It makes Derek's stomach twist, and he moves slowly across the cavern of the loft. He sits on the floor in a shard of moonlight, close enough to touch, and makes no comment. He breathes deeply, so Chris can hear it, and stares out the window, offering the solidity of his presence, if nothing else. He never liked it when people saw him cry; you do not abandon pack in pain.
Argent's cries taper, and he sniffs once, loudly, before speaking. "Can you do it again?" he asks.
Before Derek can ask what he means, Chris swings his wrist into Derek's field of vision. It takes a second to realize what he's asking, and then Derek takes his forearm lightly in his hand.
He opens, and black threads form as he siphons the pain into himself. It spreads with a cracked yawning, spreading and burrowing in. Chris's breathing shutters. It's different from before, more hollowing than burning. Chris sighs and then wrenches away.
Startled, Derek turns to look up at him in confusion. "Sorry, I thought you—"
"I did." Chris rubs at his wrist.
They frown at one another, and then Argent gets up and heads toward the bathroom.
He wants to tell him that it's okay. A few seconds of incomplete grief are allowed.
Maybe it would help. Maybe it would get him clipped in the jaw.
A moment of quiet and stillness lingers. And then a small thing with sharp claws scratches at the back of Derek's mind, and he gets up, shadowing Argent's path. He stops halfway and focuses his senses, listening. He picks through the creaks and sluicing of the pipes, the rumble of the furnace, and narrows down to a heartbeat. His mouth goes dry as he listens, and he swallows hard. But the beat is steady, and after a minute he lets himself relax, tuck away his darker worries.
Chris comes back to find him marooned in the middle of the loft and offers a bemused look before glancing back toward the bathroom. With a tub and Derek's straight razor on a shelf. And then he understands.
His expression becomes flat stone, but Derek refuses to feel guilty and lifts his chin a little—a challenge to Chris to make him try.
"I offered my wife prescription drugs," Chris says, his voice dusty and raw. He locks eyes with Derek. "But it wasn't her style."
Derek's lips compress, and he puffs out an exhale. "Just . . . being careful," he says. "I did a lot of dumb things."
Chris nods and takes a step toward the rumpled bed. "Sorry I woke you," he mutters.
The words might bend space with their gravity.
Derek lifts one shoulder in a shrug that Chris can't see. "Sleep if you can," he offers quietly, then disappears.
It's an invasion of privacy to listen like he does, but he isn't sure what else to do. Has no clue, actually, how to help and has been running on instinct since he stepped into the elevator and punched the number for Argent's floor.
Derek stares at the ceiling until the sound of Chris's breathing tells him he's asleep. And then he lets his mind wander. Thinks of the arrow girl they're going to bury. Who was not his friend, but was no longer his enemy.