Cam's off the swim team.
That's the buzz at school today: BHH's best swimmer is being booted off the swim team. Has been, actually. It's a done deal. Game over.
Stiles can't say he feels sorry for the guy. He'd be doing fist pumps, actually, if not for the rest of the story. Because no one can just be happy that the unapologetic asshole is finally getting some payback, oh no. No, they're talking about Derek.
About Cam pushing Derek into the pool. They're, like, best friends, says everybody. He wasn't trying to hurt him, obviously. Derek's on the swim team, remember? He came third in that swim meet, remember? But this kid overreacted and dived into the water after him, can you believe it? Because he's, like, totally in love with Derek. And now Cam's off the team.
Stiles is not in love with Derek, first of all. That is such bullshit.
"That is such bullshit," Stiles tells Scott in P.E., ducking to avoid Jackson's dodgeball. "You weren't there. You didn't see him. Cam knew he didn't want to swim, okay. He's an asshole, not an idiot." He fakes left, sprints right. It takes a couple minutes to regroup with Scott again.
"Maybe—" Scott starts, pausing to sidestep an incoming attack. It hits Taylor instead. She shrugs, puts her hands up, and weaves through the mass of sixth graders to find a quiet corner to read in. (Taylor's cool, but quiet, and kind of intimidating. Stiles would totally be friends with her if he could figure out a non-stalkerish way of introducing himself. Short of "Isaac is crazy in love with you," he's got nothing. And he's not gonna throw his second-best friend under the bus like that.) "Maybe," he tries again, "he was drunk or something. They've been best friends since forever, right? So he wouldn't just—"
"You wouldn't just," Stiles corrects. "But you're not a giant asshole."
"Thanks," Scott says.
"Anytime, man. Anyway, they were best friends before." Stiles widens his eyes to emphasize what he means by that. "Now they're just people. Because Cam's—"
"A giant asshole?" Scott asks innocently.
"The giantest." Stiles reconsiders. "Most giant. Whatever. He didn't even invite Derek to the stupid party, how about that?"
"So he was punishing him for crashing," Scott suggests. Frowns. "How'd Cam know he'd freeze up? He came third—"
"At last years meet, I know," Stiles interrupts impatiently. "So maybe he didn't. But he didn't go in after Derek when he didn't come back up. What about that?"
They get separated again. When Scott finds Stiles minutes later, he says, "I don't know. Maybe he was going to go in after him, and you just beat him to it."
"Dude, I was across the room. Plus I had to put down my pizza. Cam had plenty of time." He ducks again, does a cool accidental sideways roll like some kind of dodge ball ninja. "Did you see that? Did that look as awesome as it felt?"
Scott laughs. "You mean how you fell on your butt just now?"
"And rolled out of the way like a friggin' ninja!"
"That wasn't an accident?"
"Yeah it was an accident," Stiles grouches. "It was still awesome."
"Stiles, some people—"
"One sec—" Stiles ducks again. Jackson scores a direct shot anyway. "Damnit."
"Some people are saying—" Scott tries again. Coach Palmer blows her whistle. "If you are out, please sit quietly on the side!"
"Sorry dude. Catch you later," Stiles says.
"StilessomepeoplearesayingthatyouandDerekaretogetherliketogethertogetheryou'renotareyouareyouokay?" Scott says at record speed. Which is probably why Stiles almost maybe heard Scott say that people think he and Derek are together.
Like together together.
"What?" he demands.
Coach blows her whistle again. Stiles leaves the game, mind going a million miles a minute.
He's not in love with Derek. And he's definitely not dating Derek.
He would know that, okay. Derek doesn't even like guys.
Plus, he's eleven. Derek's seventeen.
People can't actually think—
Can they?
No one even knows about Stiles maybe sorta not-even-for-sure being bi, so.
So stupid joke, Scott. Hahahaha not funny.
"You happy now?"
"…What?" Derek asks. It's ten minutes into Chem class, and Cam finally acknowledges Derek's existence with an angry sort of smile he's never used on Derek before.
"Your lover's mom got me kicked off the swim team," Cam snaps. "You happy now? You done punishing me for your shitty life? Which by the way, bro, is not my fucking fault!"
"I didn't—what?" Derek is stuck on the 'lover' thing. He thinks of Lisa, actually. She's the only girl he thought he loved, ever, even if she did turn out to be a lesbian who hates him for some reason he still can't understand.
"It is not my fault that someone fucked you over for a year, okay? I'm not even sorry, dude! I didn't do anything, and everyone was saying you just ran to get away from your freaky family—"
"What?" Derek asks, so shocked he forgets to whisper.
"Mr. Hale," Harris says, endlessly exasperated. "As much as I sympathize with your recent… trauma, this is still a chemistry classroom, not group therapy."
"What?" Derek asks again. He can feel his ears going pink, his cheeks heating. Harris is an asshole, he knows. Harris has never not been an asshole. Derek is pretty sure he was born that way. The doctor probably looked at the little screaming bloody thing and said, "Congratulations, it's an asshole! No, no, don't worry. I'm sure we can do something about the horns and clawed hooves in plastic surgery."
The joke is Cam's, of course, but the sentiment is universally accepted.
"Was your hearing damaged, or is there a language boundary I'm unaware of?" Harris snipes. Derek sinks low in his seat, humiliated. "Because I think I'm making myself very clear. Am I not making myself clear?"
"Dude, what the fuck is your problem?" Cam snaps at Harris. Derek straightens slightly, ridiculously grateful to him. See, okay, they're gonna be fine. Cam is maybe an asshole, but he still has Derek's back.
"Yes, dude," Harris mocks. "What is my problem? If only this class found the material as riveting as they do this human interest story, we would have no problem."
"You're punishing Derek for being interesting?" Cam clarifies. Harris sighs.
"Yes, that must be it. Congratulations, Mr. Lahey. The next word from either of you will land you both in detention."
Cam flips the bird under his desk. Derek, encouraged by Cam's defense, says boldly, "But Cam didn't—"
"Detention, Mr. Hale," Harris snaps. "And Mr. Lahey. But that shouldn't be a problem for you."
"Why's that?" Cam demands.
"You're off the swim team," Harris says calmly. "As you must know by now."
"Why are you off the—?" Derek says.
"Like you don't know!" Cam snaps. "Jesus fu—"
"Gentlemen," Harris says with dangerous patience. "Break up on your own time, please."
"I didn't," Derek whispers, desperate for Cam to understand. He'll go to Principal Yukimura or Coach Lahey or whoever, he'll explain that it was a joke, that he just froze up, that's not Cam's fault. "Cam—"
"Mr. Hale, you have my sympathies," Harris says, sounding less sympathetic than her, "but unless you have a sudden cognitive functioning impairment, you must understand how difficult it is to teach chemistry to thirty-two easily distracted teenagers without the scene devolving into an insipid forty-five minute romantic drama."
"Not with me it won't," Cam says, dragging his desk as far from Derek's as he can without colliding with Greenberg in the next row.
"Cam, I swear, I didn't know!"
"Like that matters," Cam says bitterly. "You know how my dad is, you fucking—"
"Mr. Lahey, get out of my classroom and go tell the principal why this fascinating conversation is more important to you than the education of thirty-one of your peers."
"Fine," Cam snaps, storming out. "I hope you and your kid lover are very happy together."
"What?" Harris and Derek ask at once.
"Not you," Cam laughs at Harris. "You," he tells Derek. "And the Stilinski kid."
"What?" Derek repeats, completely bewildered.
"Your creepy little kid brother who everyone thinks you're fucking," Cam clarifies. "Have fun with that."
He slams the door on his way out, and the class explodes into thirty separate conversations. Derek sinks lower in his seat, wishes he was invisible. His face, he's pretty sure, is clown-nose red and headlight-bright.
There's no turning the subject back to Chemistry now, but Harris makes a valiant effort and kicks Derek out too.
Derek's actually grateful, sprinting for a stall in the boys' bathroom, slamming the door and locking it so hurriedly it rattles, and half-sobbing silently into his arm.
He's never gonna be finished crying, because everything is never gonna finish getting even fucking worse than ever.
He seriously considers never leaving this cold, stinking little stall ever again. He can just live in here. He can just wait to die in here.
People believe rumors like that. He knows what they were saying about him before, and most of that wasn't true either, and people just believe it, and that's it.
And from Cam! Everyone knows that Cam is Derek's best friend. If Cam says it, who's gonna say different?
And what are people supposed to think? Some little kid risking his life to save Derek's, what other explanation is there? Even Derek doesn't understand it.
So he stays, shivering, in that little stall, waiting for the day to end, so he can slip away to—where?
Mom doesn't want him. Mom will probably believe—
And he can't go to Peter, not when—
And if he goes to the Stilinskis, that'll just prove—People will say that proves—
He palms at his eyes with cheap one-ply toilet paper, blows his nose as quietly as he can.
"Someone in there?"
Shit.
He's not gonna do a fake voice like some kind of stupid comedy movie. He just stays completely silent, and doesn't move, and hopes.
"You alright?" the voice continues. It's a friendly voice, kind of familiar. It takes a few seconds for Derek to place it.
Drew Santos.
If anyone'll doubt this stupid rumor, it's Drew Santos. Right?
"I'm fine," Derek says. He's really, really not, but he's not about to cry in front of Drew Santos.
"Derek Hale?" Drew says, coming closer to the door. Derek's heart jumps, despite himself. He's always liked Drew. And Drew knows who he, Derek Hale, is!
It takes about three seconds to remember why.
He's on the way home when a conversation about him turns the corner.
"—playing the victim," Jessica is saying. "All, like, Bambi-eyed, like he had no idea he just ruined Cam's life."
"I heard about kids like that," Ben says, looking disgusted. "They get bad-touched and they go all cold and broken and then they start hurting kids themselves. That's how it works."
"It's not," Derek says. He can't stop himself. They all turn to stare at him. "I wouldn't." He's felt cold, he's felt broken, but not like that. He wouldn't do that. The thought makes his eyes itch, bile rising in his throat.
"I saw a show like that," Patrick agrees, eyeing Derek nervously. "This kid comes back, right? And his parents are over the moon, the press is going crazy, everyone's celebrating. 'Cause he was this poster child, you know? America's kid." He takes a careful step back, continues. "And he kept crying, fucking with everyone's head, acting all traumatized, right? And everyone feels kind of sick when they look at him, but they figure it's just—y'know, thinking about what happened, it's creepy. But then years later they find all these dead animals buried in his backyard. And—wait, no, listen! And then they find a piece of a body. Just a piece. Like an ear or something. Wrapped in foil in his freezer. True story, I swear."
"Holy shit," Em says, horrified. "That is so fucked up."
"You said you saw it on a show," Derek says, except he doesn't, because he's curling over himself, hands on his thighs, gagging, as Ben says, "What was he doing with the ear? Do you think he… y'know…"
"Ewwwww!" Jess squeals, cringing at the thought. "Oh my god, what is wrong with you?"
Standing over Derek as he gags, Ben spits, "Overacting much? I thought sociopaths were supposed to be good liars."
"I thought I heard he's—" Patrick says, past fear and onto morbid fascination. "Y'know. With the Stilinski kid."
"Jesus," Em says, glaring at Derek. "He's like ten, you fucking pedo."
"I'm not a—" Derek's nearly vomiting again, breakfast and half his stomach lining by the feel of it. "I wouldn't," he repeats. "I barely even know him," he lies, regretting it immediately when Jess says,
"Oh really. I saw him dive in after you at Cam's party. I thought it was creepy, how he was just standing there next to you like—like a trained dog. Like fucking Stockholm Syndrome, I swear." Her eyes go wide. "Lisa told me he was a sociopath like a year ago. When she dumped him, and everyone started saying she was a lesbian? She caught him writing 'dyke' on her locker. Oh my god, he probably started the rumor in the first place to get back at her." She glares at him boldly. "People were fucking awful to her. She almost killed herself because of you."
"What?" Derek says, completely lost.
"Right," Jessica says, rolling her eyes. "'cause you don't know that either, huh?"
"Lisa's not gay?" Everyone at school had taken it as fact, and Derek along with them.
Just like, Derek realizes, dread flooding his gut, everyone's going to be sure that Derek really is—That he really does—
That he's—
"You dated her, moron," Jess says. "You slept to—" Her eyes narrow. "Holy shit. If you hurt her—" Her hands ball into fists; she steps closer to him, shaking with righteous anger and adrenaline. He lurches back instinctively, and she says, "I swear to god, I'll kill you."
"I didn't!" Derek says, absolutely believing her. "I'm not a—I wouldn't, I wouldn't do that! Any of it!"
"She is my best friend," Jess hisses. Derek takes a few steps backwards, meets a wall. He startles so bad he nearly pisses himself.
"Why'd the Stilinski kid try to pull him out, anyway?" Patrick asks. Turns to Derek. "You can swim, right?"
"He's on the fucking swim team, dude," Ben says. "You absolute dumb-ass."
"I just—" Derek's eyes dart from one hostile face to the next. He's trapped, he realizes (chained to the wall screaming for hours for her to stop for someone to make her stop), terror mounting. "I didn't ask him to help, he just did. He should've—" His voice cracks, goes too high and breaks. He swipes at his eyes, swallows hard, clears his throat. "He should've let me drown," he says, half-serious, half desperate for someone to shout, "No he shouldn't have!" But no one disagrees. A few of them even nod. Ben sneers a little at the thought. Jess rolls her eyes, spits, "Please."
Derek panics, eyes darting for an escape (but there's no escape there's never an escape he's chained to the wall he's never getting away).
And then he stops panicking.
Takes a long breath.
Because he's not chained to this wall, and Jessica fucking Bartlett won't kill him because she'll never do anything to spoil her perfect transcript, and they're just stupid fucking teenagers, and he knows trapped, and this isn't trapped.
"Get the fuck away from me," he snarls at Jessica, because she's nearest, because she's not her, even if she's got the blonde hair and the body, she's a child and she can't break him. She doesn't even know what broken means. "You don't know a fucking thing about me." Now she's the one taking a step back. He can taste the fear under her tongue, he's high on it. He lets a grin slip out, teeth finding the light square by square. "Yeah, that's right, I'm psycho," he says, enjoying this, the power of this, of watching them cower. "I'll keep you quiet," he says calmly, straightening. "Or I'll let you scream. Either way, they'll never find you. Just like they never found me." He lets the smile fade, leans in further.
"They'll stop looking. You remember that, don't you? You remember when they stopped looking for me?"
He's steel. He's fire. He could tear all their throats out.
With his teeth.
"One day," he says, pleasantly, "maybe you'll get lucky. Maybe you'll get away. Maybe I'll let you get away. Just to watch you come home and realize that no one's looking for you. That no one cares. That everyone thinks you're a monster."
He gently strokes a lock of Jessica's hair behind her ear. His hands are very, very still. He's very, very calm.
"Maybe," he says, "you'll realize that they're right."
And he smiles at her, thinks of sharp fangs in place of teeth. He strokes her cheek very, very gently, and lets his hand fall. She stumbles backwards, terrified, turns and runs.
"Please," he tells the others. He's outside of himself, watching them shiver. "Go ahead. Tell me what you think I've done." He's huge, towering over them, towering over himself. He could kill them all. They'd be dead before they even started screaming.
That wouldn't be any fun, though. The thought of it is suddenly tantalizing. Hearing them scream. Standing over them, the fear in their eyes, the simple strength radiating through him. He'd be a completely different person from the thing on the floor. He'd never be that thing ever again. He'd be strong. He'd be powerful.
He'd be her.
No.
No, no, no, he wouldn't. He wouldn't do any of that, he wouldn't hurt anyone.
But he could.
He has her in him now. He can taste her in the back of his throat, the pit of his stomach. The furious high of her.
He remembers something she said once, something finally fits in place, and he goes hollow.
She was him, once, then.
Before him, Unbroken him.
Normal, naïve, stupid.
He could turn into her. Maybe he already is her. Touching Jessica like that, enjoying her fear.
He takes a step back, thinks, Wait. Thinks, I didn't mean that. Any of that.
But he had. He'd meant every word.
Horror pierces his high like a pin to a balloon, and he's small and shaky again, he's just Derek again.
Sweetie again. That thing again.
He's close, he's achingly close to bursting into tears. He still has some pride, so he turns and runs.
If he breaks into sobs and keeps running blindly, well, who's to know?
Julie opens the door and sweeps Derek into her arms without a second thought. "Is this okay?" she says, and he says, "They're saying I—" and shudders against her. "They all think I—"
"Come inside," she says, and gets him a box of tissues. He sits on the couch, head in his hands, and she holds him, and he says, "I wouldn't. I swear. You know I w-wouldn't. Right?"
"Sweetie," she says, lighting a cigarette, "I don't know what you're talking about. What happened?"
Derek stiffens, jerks away from her; she actually lets him go. He could've left, she would've let him leave if he really wanted, but the truth is—
"Derek!" There's no cigarette. There's no her. Just Julie, looking shaken, but making no move to touch him again. "I'm sorry. I didn't think—"
And Derek hates himself for seeing her in Julie, of all people. Hates how she looks like his mom now, nervous and too tentative, like if she touches him, he'll shatter. He hates how he can never just breathe anymore, can never just be touched anymore, howshe comes through everyone else's skin. He wants to be held like somebody's son, like his mother won't hold him anymore, he wants to be able to tell the difference, to be normal, to be okay.
He wants to know, he needs to be sure that she knows he would never—
"Sorry," he says. "You're not her. I know you're not her."
Her eyes widen. "It's okay," she says. "You don't have to be sorry for that. You never have to apologize to me for that. Derek." Her eyes are too bright. Derek feels like shit. He's making her cry. He's turning her into his mom, and pretty soon she'll send him away too. His stomach twists, and he says, "I should be able to tell the difference. Why can't I tell— " He slides down the wall, sits in the floor, hugging his knees to his chest, head hooked in his arm, and takes deep breaths. God, he cries at everything now. He feels like he's been crying non-stop for a year. He feels like this is who he is now, like he'll always be crying and screaming and sick and angry and scared and hyper-sensitive and broken (Or he'll be—No, he can't won't think about that, he's not he never will be). Like he'll push everyone away until everyone looks at him like they're afraid of him. Until he's the weird guy who never talks to anybody and lives alone and has no friends and who pretty much everyone thinks is actually a serial killer or something. (Until he really is a—Shut up shut up shut up shut the fuck up! )
"Derek, listen to me." Julie sits down next to him on the floor. "I know you've been through terrible things. But you stayed strong. You held on. Someone did the most terrible things to you, but you survived. You got out."
He can't handle this, her talking about this. She doesn't know anything about it. She's guessing, she doesn't know, and she thinks he's just some victim, some survivor, she thinks he's innocent and naïve and sweet and if she just keeps hugging him and saying the right things then everything will be okay.
"But to get through those terrible things," Julie says, like she's some kind of expert, "your brain learned to interpret signals in a new way. For eight months your brain associated touch with danger. And now you're out, and you know I'd never hurt you, but instinct is stronger than logic." She's a good person, but she doesn't know anything about it. "No one can expect you to just forget the past year and go on like nothing's changed, because your instincts have changed. You're just trying to stay safe, Derek, and you should never apologize for that."
She looks at him, trying to gauge his response, and Derek tries to look like it helped, like her speech helped. She thinks he's some Lifetime sob story, she thinks he's fixable.
And he can't bring himself to correct her.
He's gonna go to Hell for this.
"You're gonna go to Hell for this," Derek swore, eyes filling again.
"Is that right," she said lazily, like she was bored. Her touch was gentle this time, careful, like she was a teenager herself, like—like she didn't want to hurt him. And that was worse, because if he didn't keep up the screaming, if he wasn't furious at her, if he didn't remember how much he hated her, then…
Then it had to be his fault, didn't it? All of it. She wouldn't do that for no reason, wouldn't look at him like he was disgusting for no reason, what if she was right?
He wasn't the kind of Christian who was raised on threats of Hell and eternal damnation and pain and fire. He was the liberal kind, whatever that meant, raised on God's love and turn the other cheek and Don't Be An Asshole, and the most severe precautions against Satan or whatever were the parental controls his mother put on all the home computers.
But he'd seen the other kind on TV. The preachers shouting about the wrath of God, and the pit of fire where sinners burned forever. He used to laugh at them, how crazy they sounded. Laura would launch into speeches about how radical Christians were the reason the entire religion got treated as a joke. Ash would demonstrate the "do not" column of the chart of appropriate behavior by saying if anyone was going to Hell, it was them, because they were all pedophiles, to which Alice said, "Asher Hale!" and Ash said, "Sorry, Mom. It's true though."
But after her, the liberal version wasn't enough, unless turning the other cheek meant angling his head so he could vomit without drowning in it later and forgiving his enemies meant denial and basking in God's love meant pretending he liked it so it wasn't hell and pretending he didn't like it so he could keep telling himself this wasn't his own sick fault. He needed threats and warnings and righteous anger and the knowledge that God would punish her even if no one on Earth ever did.
Sometimes he overflowed with anger and scratched and bit and kicked her, sometimes he swore he hated her, swore she was going to Hell, and she dug her fingernails into his burns, where his skin was blistered and numb, and said, "Is that right. What's that like?"
And when he said fire, and pain, and no escape, she grabbed a handful of his hair and pulled, dragged his head back till he was sobbing and gasping for air, and said, "Sounds like we're already there, Sweetie."
She set him on fire in new places, had him screaming like he'd never screamed before, until he lost his voice completely, had a panic attack, and blacked out.
Without his voice he could hear every sound she made, every sound for miles, maybe. Without his voice he was completely, completely alone, and without his voice she kept going, kept hurting him worse than ever before, trying to make him scream, and she kept going till he blacked out, kept going while he was unconscious, so he came to with bruises he couldn't remember getting, with blood on his teeth from his own shredded tongue, pain-paralyzed and barely breathing.
Without his voice, she got bored, and she left him, sweat-sticky and tear-stained and swimming in his own filth for what felt like forever, starving and desperate for her, needing her, torn between dread crawling low in his stomach while he waited to die and absolute terror at the thought of her coming back.
She came back what felt like days later. He woke up clean, his head cradled against her chest and a bottle of water tipped to his lips. He drank until he choked and vomited most of it, which had him whimpering, trying to explain that he didn't mean to do that, that he didn't want her to be angry. But she wasn't. She held him like a mother and she cleaned him up again and rocked him to sleep like a kid, and he woke up untied, her fingers tracing patterns in his hair, on his back, and she was talking, but it wasn't like she'd ever talked to him before. She sounded far away, sounded tired and scared, sounded almost like she was crying. She said, "I swore I'd never be like this," but she wasn't talking to him at all. She said, "I think I made a mistake. I don't think he's like the others," and then she was quiet, like she was listening, and then she said, "I don't know what I'm doing anymore. This doesn't feel justified anymore." And then she listened again, and then she said, "What if he's like you? What if I can't tell the difference anymore? What if I'm just broken?" and then she was crying, quietly, trembling around him, and then she said, "I want to let him go. I'm gonna let him go. I'm not—" voice getting louder, more insistent. "I'm not like him. I'm not. I don't just h-hurt—" Her voice cracked— "kids. I'm nothing like him. I just wanted—" She stopped, stilled. "I know. I don't c-care, I can't—N-no, you listen. It doesn't matter. I can't be like this. I'm turning into him, do you understand that? He's not—sometimes I don't even think he touched me on purpose. Sometimes I think it really was an accident and I'm just too fucked up to tell the difference. Chris—" and then she was listening again. "No, I know. I know. You do it, then. Okay. Good." She hung up the phone, took a deep breath, and blew her nose. Then she lit a cigarette.
But she didn't burn him. She just ran her fingers through his hair and sucked down lungfuls of smoke.
Cam would be fine by now. Derek's sure of it. He'd shrug it off, brag about it, his crazy eight-month sexcapade, he'd show off the burn like a hero, graciously accepting your awe at how strong and brave he is—
Julie tries that, skips pity for praise, like if she just says it enough, Derek'll suddenly buy it, suddenly feel like anything but a fuck-up who got fucked, like the reason Stiles almost died, and for what? He's just a child, some stupid suicidal child, and Derek is just a fucked-up teenager who gets off thinking about being burned, breaking, just a broken kid with no friends his own age, with no friends at all, really. What is Stiles to him, what is he to Stiles, that makes him worth saving?
Julie half-holds him; he can get away if he needs to without hurting her. He needs to get away from this family before he hurts them, before he drags them down to Hell with him. Mom never believed in Hell, but she believed in falling from grace. Derek's fallen so far he's back on the other side, but he's still there in all the ways that matter. He thinks about Stiles struggling to carry him back to the surface, he thinks about what they're all saying, what he is now. He's broken but he's not that kind of broken. He doesn't think so, anyway. Would he know? Would he be able to tell? He's broken and fucked up and useless and lost, he's half-trapped in his head and half-trapped with her. How the fuck does he know anything? He's going to ruin this family, this stupid Christmas card family, this normal family, the same way he ruined his own. He won't mean to, but one day he'll open his eyes and they'll be broken and he'll be the reason why, the natural disaster, the fire tearing through, burning and destroying his father's house, he'll be the bottle in his dad's fist, the lines on his Mom's face, the empty space of Laura and Caleb and Ash pushed into their own separate corners. He won't mean to but what he means doesn't matter. He's never had any control over anything but that's no excuse. If he was less of a selfish dick he'd leave them alone while they still like each other, while Julie hasn't turned mechanical and John isn't a barely-functioning alcoholic, while Stiles isn't self-destructing for him. He can already see it, the places where they're turning into his family, where his pollution is sinking through their skin, wearing them into something gray and stiff and resigned to the zombie's half-life of knowing Derek, of trying to cure Derek's disease without dying.
If he had a spine, if he had a heart or a soul bigger than his giant sucking black hole of need, he'd leave them alone. Do one of those hero's break-ups, those "I love you, but being with me puts you in danger" scenes. But he can't manage it, can't get the words out, won't even try. Julie half-holds him and he swallows down a shudder at the touch, keeps very very quiet and very very still and tries not to fuck everything up again.
"Derek," Julie says. Here we go, another motivational speech. She's a good person. She keeps trying to help, but it doesn't help, the words, Derek doesn't buy a second of it, but she keeps trying to convince him he's more than a stupid broken teenage fuck-up. Maybe she believes it. He can believe that, that she believes it. It makes his head spin, thinking about how she wouldn't like him if she knew him, if she really knew him. No one would.
He's not worth saving, or he would've been saved a long time ago. God or the cops or someone or something would've saved him if he deserved saving. But he wasn't, and he definitely isn't now. So she says, "Derek," and he thinks, Stop trying. God, stop trying already. Stop letting me ruin you, Stiles could've died!I should've died!
She says, "Derek," and he says, "Why'd he save me?"
"What?" she says, momentarily lost.
"Stiles," he says, irrationally impatient. "Why'd he dive in after me?" She still looks sympathetic. She has to understand. She doesn't understand what he's going to do to them. "He could've died," he says. "He doesn't even know me."None of you do. "He's not anything to me. I'm not anything to him. They're wrong. You know they're wrong." (Does she? Does anyone? He's never looked at Stiles like that, never looked at anyone like that, but he was someone new today, he was her, who knows what the fuck he'll become oh god oh god what if he hurts Stiles—) He pushes all of that away and demands, "So why didn't he just let me drown?"
"Derek," she says, and his chest tightens. She sounds like his mother, looking at him from the doorway of that fucking hospital room, all shocked and horrified and uncertain. He really, really hates his name, hates the way people say his name now, like they're in pain, like he's hurting them by breathing. Or removed, mechanical, two distant syllables that mean nothing much to anyone, like the weather. Or disgusted, they should be disgusted, he's turning into her, she broke him and rebuilt him into her. "Of course they're wrong," Julie says, and he thinks reflexively, How do you know? You don't know me at all. How do you know I'm not Patrick's sociopath, putting on a good show and going home to murder cats? "Of course," she repeats. She's doing that thing where she thinks if she says it enough, he'll stop contradicting her. He'll start believing her. But he won't. He knows better. "Stiles cares about you. So do John and I. Your friend was reckless—"
"No, Stiles was reckless," Derek interrupts, trying not to think very hard about whether or not he can still call Cam his friend. "He could have died," he repeats. Why isn't she more upset about this?
"He's stronger than you think," she says, like that's enough, okay then, my kid's suicidal but he's got a spine like you wouldn't believe, so it's fine. Derek's mother—back when she could actually look him in the eye, anyway—would never be so blasé about his near-death. She chewed him out for nearly passing out in that swim meet last year, just trying to do his best. (He just wanted to be good at something, really good at something. He wasn't funny like Cam or smart like Caleb, he didn't have a point of view on everything like Laura, he wasn't musical like his dad, or creative like Ash. He was just there, quiet, behind them. He just wanted to have a thing. Swimming was his chance to be good at something, so he gave it his all, so he nearly passed out and Mom went ballistic and ranted for twenty minutes about understanding your own limits, about staying safe.) He didn't like it, but that's what mothers do, right? They worry and warn and keep you safe, right?
Try to keep you safe, anyway.
Right?
(He tries very hard not to think about how he has a thing now. Derek Hale. He was gone for eight months, and now he's back. And now he's broken. Now he's dangerous.)
"Stiles protects the people he cares about," Julie says, like that's it, it's that simple. She looks, she sounds proud. She wouldn't be so proud if he drowned, if they had to pull him out—
Awful pictures fill Derek's head, details from the morbid crime procedural shows Ash loves so much. And Stiles. It's stupid, it's stupid that he cares so much about some little kid, that the thought of him gone, dragged up waterlogged and gone, makes him sick and dizzy and furious. It isn't like that, it isn't, (It won't be, it won't, he'll kill himself if he has to but he won't hurt this family, they're good people ) but Stiles is a good kid. Stupid kid, but a good kid. Smart, too.
He's stuck on the thought like a skipping record, a shiver he can't shake. He pushes away from her, skin crawling worse than ever. He stands with his back to the wall, stubbornly repeats, "He could've died." His head is spinning. He feels like he just woke up with his hands locked behind him, head screaming, vaguely panicked and not sure why, just an overwhelming sense of wrong. But he's not trapped, and Julie won't hurt him, and having a spine won't hurt him, not now, (not her spine, he won't ever use that, he'll shove it down, the her in him, he'll keep it under control for them, but this spine, his spine) so he spits, "He's your child. He's your child and he could've died. Don't act all proud of him for being stupid and suicidal, he's your child! He doesn't even—"
"Shut up."
Too late, Derek sees Stiles and John in the doorway. Stiles is shaking, glaring. Derek has seen Stiles angry before—at the station, by the dumpster, at Cam's house, at the hospital—but never at him. His stomach twists painfully as Stiles steps between Derek and his mother, glaring, hands knotted into fists.
"Don't you dare talk to her like that."
"Genim," Julie says. She sounds even closer to tears than she did when Derek pushed her away. He feels nauseous, evil, out of control. He's so fucking sick of crying and watching people cry, but it's all his fault, and now he's fucking up the one good thing he has left.
"Genim, it's okay," Julie says.
"No it isn't," Stiles says, still attempting to shield his mother with his body. "No one gets to talk to you like that."
"Stiles," John tries, but Stiles won't budge, won't back down. And why should he? Julie's his mother. She's a good person, and she's his mother. And she's been sick, Derek suddenly remembers. Stiles said she's been sick, that she's in remission. Caleb did his thesis on the connection between stress and cancer and oh god Derek is actually killing her.
He bolts, skids past John and runs, half-blind with tears and terror. He just runs, no destination, no plan, just anywhere-but-here, just not-here not-here not-here, until he stops running and just cries, of fucking course he cries, because that's all he knows how to do anymore, and John catches up to him, and John says, "I'm putting my hand on your shoulder, alright?" and Derek lets him, lets him fold Derek into a hug, unfold again, and talk.
"Stiles protects the people he cares about," John says, and Derek wants to shout, He's eleven!He's your son! He's not old enough to go to war for anyone! You're his parents! Stop caring about me, stop being proud of your little hero, keep your child safe!
But he already screwed up twice today. He's already ruined two sides of the only good thing he has left. So he stays quiet.
He stays quiet, just dizzy, everything simultaneously dull and overwhelming, terrifying and exhausting.
"I don't think even my wife could change that," John says. And Derek gives up, gives up on protecting Stiles from himself. Stiles has a spine like you wouldn't believe but Derek can barely stand, and he's tired of pretending he can stand on his own. He's tired of fighting them, he's just tired.
"Stiles hates me now," he says dully, resigned.
"I don't think so," John says.
Amazing how the only thing Derek gets from that is that John doesn't know. He isn't sure. Derek thinks about that, about Stiles hating him. It's stupid that he cares so much, but he cares so much. He feels punched in the stomach, the way you keep touching the bruise as it goes faint, reminding yourself of the fist that caused it. The way you don't need a reminder, because your back is on fire and you're vomiting over old vomit, vomiting up blood.
"He protects the people he cares about," John repeats, like some weird Stilinski mantra. And of course he cares about his mother. That makes sense, it's his mother. But Derek isn't Stiles' anything.
Definitely not now.
His eyes are raw and red and he's been crying for nine months and he's so tired of everything and nothing is ever going to get better, and he's going to turn into her and go to Hell, unless he kills himself first, and people who kill themselves go to Hell, and if he kills himself he'll kill this whole family along with him because they won't just let him go, they'll follow him down. Stiles'll play poker with the actual devil if he has to, probably. If he doesn't hate Derek enough not to care.
Derek is stuck, trapped, (on the floor with his arms locked behind him and his own blood high in his throat) exhausted, he's just exhausted.
John's perceptive, or maybe Derek's just a bad liar, or maybe he's not even pretending to be slightly okay anymore, maybe he's just obvious, because John puts a hand on Derek's shoulder and says, "It's getting dark. Let's go home."
Derek thinks a while about what home means, now, and then he just gives up on thinking.
They go home.
Home means the Stilinski house, means apologizing to Julie, means Stiles' eventual conditional forgiveness. Derek collapses his spine and sleeps because he knows how to sleep, still, even if he still wakes up screaming. (Even if he wakes up half-remembering his own eyes looking down at him from her face, wakes up horrified and half-hard and trembling.)
"At least you woke up," Julie says, bleary-eyed but impossibly calm at some impossible hour some impossible morning. Derek stares up at the ceiling light and blinks his eyes clear and forces her out of his head.
At least I woke up.
"I wouldn't have hurt you if I knew you," she says, stroking his back, gently rubbing antibacterial cream on his burn with her thumb.
"I know," he lies, and tries not to spoil her mood by screaming.
"I thought you were just another creep," she says. "But you're not, are you."
"N-no," he says, and hopes that's the right answer.
"No," she repeats, so he guesses it is. "You really are a sweetheart, aren't you."
He assumes that's rhetorical; just in case he's wrong, he fakes sleep.
"I have a brother like you," she says. "If someone hurt him, I'd kill them. You have anyone looking out for you like that?"
He doesn't say anything, concentrates on keeping his breaths even.
"No, I guess not," she says, and strokes his cheek. Derek's skin crawls. "That's okay, sweetie."
She says, "It's probably safer this way."
