(KAI) Season three if it were fluffy and made no god-damn sense. Minus Peter and the alpha pack.
Total Damages
1
A long time before he finds them cowering on the porch, Derek senses Erica and Boyd- returning and not without their tails tucked between their legs. After sending Isaac inside, he stands at the door, waiting for them. They stand together, shivering, clothing wrecked, and neither say anything nor make eye contact.
But the gesture of terrified subservience does nothing for him; he crosses and uncrosses his arms, takes a deep breath, and then lets out a low growl.
It isn't meant to be threatening, but it's too much for the returners, and Boyd takes a half-step in front of Erica, claws drawing and breath locking up in his lungs. The alpha takes another deep breath, and it ends in a humoring smile.
"It's okay. I understand," he says softly, almost gently, with resignation. "Please come back."
Never minding that they are back, but Derek wants them to know that he wants them, and not just to pad his pack and his wound-fresh alpha inheritance. He wants them. Bone-deep aching is tugging him down to the earth; it has been entirely too long a day. Week, month, so on. There are too many heavy things in his mind- Scott and Stiles, for one, and Gerard Argent for another. Jackson. He realized with a start, that he wishes they were all there. Scott and Stiles and Jackson and his young lady.
Erica peers from behind Boyd's large shoulder, eyes wet with relief. It's overwhelming, and it comes with a feeling. He felt it before, while Isaac had kept near and looked to him with intensity. Derek understood, suddenly, that the intensity had been devotion, and the relief in Erica's lovely eyes is devotion, and the tired, shameless droop in Boyd's shoulders is a confession of weakness that is coming, too, from devotion. It sweeps over him, the feeling, like a tangible thing, disturbing in its strength. He hears and feels Isaac creeping at the door frame, watching and anxious.
It's a dynamic he almost remembers; it is nothing like the ragtag mess that he had attempted to cultivate in the musty dimness of the train depot. It reminds him… of Mom. And Laura. With a grunt of disbelief, Derek lets himself sink to the creaking wood floor of the blackened porch.
Boyd and Erica fall to him, and Isaac slinks to them, head down, to curl against Derek's back, arms tucked in, cheek turned. Pack. Pack is happening. Like it had been before; before the fire and before the world had ended.
He understands now how his mother must have felt, how his sister must have struggled. This feeling of devotion, hadn't he given it to them the same way these confused teenagers were giving to him now?
"I don't know what I'm doing," he ground out, pulling Erica and Boyd against his shoulders, fingers firm against the back of their necks. The blonde tumbles against him shamelessly, sighing and purring, while Boyd kneels and becomes steadily more relaxed- muscle group by muscle group. They don't comment. The admittance is enough.