Chapter 32: The Ex II
If anyone wondered, there was nothing remotely interesting about the interior roof in Derek's car. Didn't even have a pattern so she could count stuff. This was disappointing as it was more or less her entire field of view, unless she brought her eyes all the way to the side to glare at the driver's seat. Shortly after Derek stuffed her in the car, she'd heard a screech that could only come from the kanima and next thing she knew, they were on the road.
"So was it or wasn't it the girl?" Joe asked from her prone position in the backseat while Derek drove like a madman. Derek refused to answer. He had refused to answer any of her questions, insults or threats. He had the window open, obviously on the trail of the kanima. Joe's body slid forwards when he braked, but he pulled a soccer-mom and held her in place so she didn't tumble off the seats.
"Was-"
"Shut up," he bit out and she strained her eyes to the side to see if he had his listening face on. He did. From the awkward angle, she could just barely see how his eyes flickered to her when he said: "Please."
Well, at least he said please. Whatever he heard, he didn't share it with her, but he did stop the car so that meant they were close. And she was incapacitated in the backseat of what now felt like a very flimsy structure. And her nose itched like crazy.
Derek made an annoyed sound and he turned around to face her. Face her as much as he could with her laying on her back only able to move her eyes. "What happened to your clothes?"
At least she didn't have to worry about any bodily clues giving her away. "I fell."
"You fell?" For some reason he still did not sound like he believed her.
"Repeatedly."
"I didn't feel-"
"I landed soft, okay?" Joe snapped and wriggled her nose, trying to scratch the incessant itch. "That was my day, why don't we go back to discussing yours? Specifically how you were willing to kill a sixteen-year-old an hour ago? At our house?"
He made an impatient sound. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but you were the one trying to blow its head off at the pool just a few days ago."
"That was before I knew it was a person!"
"So you just thought there was a random reptillian monster running around?"
For a few seconds Joe could only blink, still stretching out her face to scratch that damned itch. "Yes! How is that less realistic than anything else going on? I'm sorry, I'm still not entirely sure where to draw the line here! "
"There's no random monsters," Derek said with what she assumed was a sarcastic roll of his eyes that she couldn't see. Again that pause, as if he'd stopped breathing to listen instead. "It's close."
"Wait, you're just gonna leave me here?" she asked, as the thought just ocurred to her when Derek unbuckled his seatbelt. As much as she hated how helpless she sounded, it did not change the fact that she was, essentially, helpless.
"If it shows up you can just try to reason with it, seeing as it's just an innocent sixteen-year-old after all."
"You're an ass."
"So you've said," Derek muttered and his shadow fell over her as he leaned into the backseat. His face hovered over hers with an indescribable expression. Indescribable as in it was probably the closest she had seen him to genuine joy. His bright eyes roamed her face and for a second she worried he would take advantage of her paralysis and she flinched when she felt his fingers touch her cheek.
Instead of leaning in for, say, a kiss, Derek lightly scratched the side of her nose.
"You had an itch," he simply said to answer the obvious question shining in her eyes. His lip twitched in amusement. "Stay here."
"Mentally, I'm giving you the finger right now!" Joe shouted, knowing he heard her even though he both closed and locked the doors as he got out. She had not planned to spend most of the day immobilized like this! Assholes, both he and Jimmy!
Forty-six cars passed wherever Derek parked, as she counted every time headlights lit up the interior. She kept expecting the snake-like head of the kanima to appear in the windows, tail flickering and teeth glinting. It never did. To pass the time, she tried to recall all the words of some rap song they kept playing on the radio.
"...excuse me, you're a hell of a guy you know, mmmmthing for American guys, I mean mmm mmmm' eyes, I can tell you're-" She froze at the sound of approaching footsteps, but it was just Derek who threw himself in the car. He did that thing where he put the hand on the back of the passenger headrest when he reversed. "Did you get it?" The tightly flexed jaw told her everything. "You didn't get it."
Without a word, he span the car around and got on the road again.
"You know, based on the blood revenge laws of the Amazonian tribes, the girl is well within her rights to target you since you're the closest living relative of her attacker," Joe said conversationally as Derek drove them somewhere else.
She had no idea how he was tracking the thing. He shouldn't be able to catch a scent while driving, at least not to her understanding of his powers, but Derek was doing something to concentrate at least.
"It's not the girl."
"What?"
"It's not Lydia."
"Then who is it?"
Derek tore around to snarl at her. "I don't know!" He thumped the passenger seat when she only raised her eyebrows. "Ask your cousin!"
"I'm sorry, I seem to be all tied up at the moment!" Joe shouted in direction of the ceiling, as that was where she was still stuck. "A state you so recklessly put- DAMN IT, DEREK!"
He'd stopped the car and rushed out before she was done yelling at him. Grumbling, she slumped back with her head, the only moving part of her body. Wherever they were, not a lot of cars were coming this way. She thought she heard music, this sort of steady deep bass, but it was too muted to make out any specific songs. Could they be near a party? Party meant people.
Joe tried shouting for help, but either the car was soundproof or there just weren't any party people around. She tried the Kill Bill-shtick where she talked to her big toe trying to wiggle it. Nope. She tried flexing every muscle in her body, any she could think of, and she thought she was doing it, but not getting any response so it was impossible to tell.
Until her fingers tingled.
It was hard to tell, but it could not have been as long as the last time she was paralyzed. Starting with the fingers, she wiggled them, gritting her teeth at the effort. Joint by joint, her fingers trembled at first, them moved with deliberation. She didn't know if the venom was older, more diluted or if she was building a resistance, but it was leaving her system a lot faster than before. She still panted at the effort of getting her arms working.
"Come on," Joe grunted and willed her lower arms to get up from where they laid like dead fish on her stomach. "Come on!"
It was slow, but it was movement! Joe's breath came in short bursts, it was like trying to swim through syrup or as if an invisible force was holding all of the cells in her arm down. By the time she got her upper arms functioning, she heard screaming.
With a loud moan, she lifted her arms and grabbed hold of the seats and pulled herself to sitting. Legs were still long gone, but her torso was at least semi-operational. She got the door open and it let in the screams at intensified volume. A lot of them, panicked, running, this wild chaos you get when people are just trying to get away. Probably had something to do with those approaching sirens.
No sign of Derek.
Joe collapsed out of the car and hit the wet concrete with a smack. She was not sure how it worked with Derek when either of them were paralyzed. He had probably been fighting the kanima earlier that night and she had felt absolutely nothing. That could also just mean he was good at dodging blows.
Running footsteps came towards her, but unless Derek had changed into six inch heels, it wasn't him. A pair of long legs in fishnet stockings passed by a few feet from the car. She called for help, but no one heard through all the chaos. More people followed, but all moved too quickly or too panicked to notice Joe sprawled out on the ground hidden halfway behind the car door. She pulled her legs out after her, flopping down like a stranded mermaid.
"Help!" she tried calling, but it drowned out by the stampede. All were dressed up, more or less, but some were explicitly dressed down and were shirtless or in really skimpy outfits. Joe frowned at the sight until she realized they were just a few buildings down from Beacon Hills' one and only gay bar. A lot of the patrons were underage and probably worried about getting out if the police were involved. Or something truly terrifying had happened.
God, she hoped Derek hadn't actually killed someone.
She pulled herself along the concrete, barely avoiding getting trampled, until she could see several ambulances and police cars parked in front of the main entrance to The Jungle. The flashing lights of the emergency vehicles went in tune with the neon strobe lights. Several stretchers were loaded up and the police had their hands full calming people down.
"Wait is that- oh my god! Joe!"
A familiar voice rang out and next thing she knew, Alex, of all people, leaned down next to her. The alcohol on her breath hit Joe in the face as Alex tried to help her stand up. "Joe! Oh god, are you okay? Can we get some help please?!"
"Alex?" Joe's brows furrowed while the sweat still poured off of her. Alex signalled to the EMTs that they needed help while getting Joe over to the curb where she could sort of sit down. "What-" She was about to ask what Alex was doing at a gay bar in Beacon Hills, but the answer was kind of obvious. "What happened?"
"I don't know!" Alex' voice was fast and hard, but the alcohol still mangled her speech. "People started dropping on the dance floor and next thing we know, we're being hoarded out and the police show up! Hey! Can we get some HELP?"
Alex kept talking while an EMT came to check on Joe. "I didn't see nothing because I was in the booth with Madds-"
Joe tried not to make a face.
"-but Raja, one of the bartenders, said he saw some guys with those UV-contact lenses fighting and then one of the girls says something about a dinosaur. It's a mess, babe, I think someone's been handing out bad drugs."
"Miss, can you feel this?" the EMT prompted and Joe had to look at him pinching her calf before shaking her head. "All right. Hey, Dave, got another one over here!" He moved on to check her eyes, tongue and other signs of overdosing she knew of. "Did you take anything tonight?"
"Uhh, no," Joe said and it was technically true. She felt Alex' eyes on her and tried to elaborate. "J-just had a Diet Coke to drink." With the state of her clothes, she wondered if they would even believe she had been at the club. Seemed like they had bigger issues to worry about than her wardrobe at the moment though.
"All right, stay here, the police are gonna want to talk to you. Don't worry, just routine," the EMT said as he was called away to the next patient. "You got someone to take you to the hospital?"
Joe started to say no, but her mouth shut as her eyes widened at the sight of Scott, of all people, bounding down the steps from the Jungle. He went straight for one of the stretchers and leaned over to talk to whoever was being taken to the hospital in an ambulance. "Uhh..."
"I'm sorry, but we have to save the ambulances for our most critical patients." The EMT moved on to someone completely paralyzed, but told Joe to take a cab if necessary. Alex leaned in the second the EMT was out of earshot.
"You got anything on you?" she hissed and Joe blinked, still paying more attention to Scott. "You just lied to that guy. You took something, right? You want me to get rid of it?"
"Nothing on me," Joe said breathlessly and watched Scott run from the ambulance to Stiles' Jeep. "Scott!"
He turned around in a frenzy and spotted her in the midst of wandering policemen, EMTs and clubbers. Scott gave her a quick once-over, looking genuinly surprised to see her, and shrugged as to ask what she was doing here. She shrugged back, finding it hard to non-verbally communicate that Derek had drugged and kidnapped her. Scott hesitated and shrugged again, now apologetic which he mostly conveyed through his distraught expression. He seemed antzy to get back to the Jeep.
Alex had turned at Joe's shout. "Is that Scott? Isn't he still in high school?"
"He's, uh, that age where you kind of wants to explore..." Joe started, but trailed off at Scott's confused look even from this far away. "He should probably just go, now that I think of it."Alex made a face at Joe, but at least Scott heard her and gave her a praying hand gesture in thanks before he took off. Still no Derek.
"Hey." Alex tucked a messy curl behind Joe's ear and she almost flinched at the sudden contact, focusing back on Alex instead of everything else. "Are you sure you're okay? You're acting spazzy."
Her warm hand against Joe's cheek made her confused. It was warm, but not hot and Alex' lips were less than ten inches away from Joe's. She could see every glittering pore on Alex' skin and the scars after various facial piercings she had regretted over the years. Her breath smelled of whiskey, Alex' drink of choice. It was as familiar as it was unfamiliar. The aftermath of the intense day must be messing with her emotions, Joe thought. Hard to tell one thing apart from the other.
And Alex had a girlfriend, which was also a valid point.
"Yeah, I'm fine," Joe said and pulled away from Alex' hand. Was her heart beating hard or was it just her imagination? She had never thought about her heartbeat so much since after meeting Derek Hale. Joe cleared her throat. "Where's, uh, Maddy?"
As if suddenly remembering she was there with her girlfriend, Alex looked around. "She was DJ-ing, I think she's being questioned by the cops since she was one of the only sober ones in there." She sighed and sat down next to Joe on the curb with her legs splayed out. "I'm sorry, I should have called before coming here, this town's too small. I just didn't think you'd be at a gay bar-"
"Why, because I'm not gay?" Joe asked, unable to mask the resentment.
"No," Alex insisted in the direction of her own knees visible through her ripped jeans. "Because you don't like going out. At all. And besides," Alex sighed drunkenly, "you're with that guy Derek now."
That guy Derek...
Joe grimaced and turned around. As suspected, the Camaro was long gone. Not a stickler for large crowds that guy Derek. She and Alex sat in silence for a while in the midst of the chaos. An unfortunate byproduct of dating someone from within your friend group, is that if you break up, you either have to leave said friend group or learn to live with seeing your ex more often than comfortably. Joe had sort of gone for a mix of those two. She was fine seeing Alex a few times a year during reunions or special gatherings, but they hadn't been just the two of them since that final argument where Joe took her stuff and left for Aunt Mel's.
"So, uh, Maddy," Joe started and tried to sound disinterested, "she's a DJ?"
Alex blinked, probably feeling the aftermath of the booze pulling her down into fatigue. "Yeah, she does gigs all over the state. Pretty good paycheck for a part-time thing." She pulled in a breath. "And Derek, what does he do?"
"Uh..." He did not, as far as she knew, have a day job. Guy lived in an abanoned railroad depot. Joe racked her brain for a fitting profession for Derek. "Modelling?"
"Nice," Alex made a face, "if you're into that kind of thing, I guess. You two, uh, been together long?"
Now Joe made a face. By now she had to keep the lie going because the alternative was just humiliating. "No. Just, uh, a few months. You and, uh, Maddy?"
The answer came after some hesitation of Alex' side. It was somehow worse than Joe had expected it to be. "A while."
It ended up being Maddy who drove Joe to the hospital, as she was sober whereas Alex definitely was not. Joe perched awkwardly in the backseat, as much as she could perch with her legs only somewhat working, while Alex lounged in the passenger seat. Conversation was kept to a minimum and Joe tried to not overhear the few things that was said. Maddy complained about a car following them, but Joe couldn't turn around to determine if it was a sportscar, a Jeep or an SUV. As Maddy mentioned this for the third time, Alex sighed and checked herself.
"Just a car, Madds. Nothing to be paranoid over."
When they reached the ER, it was clear Maddy had no intention of getting out and Joe tried to avoid hearing the exact words exchanged between Alex and Maddy.
"Thanks, guys, I can just..." Joe intercepted and pointed her thumb towards the entrance to the ER.
Alex turned around in her seat. "You can barely walk, Joe. Hold on, I'll come with you."
From what Joe could hear through the intense whispered discussion that followed, Maddy was not staying to help Alex' drugged up ex-girlfriend walk up some stairs. If Alex insisted on doing so, she could take a bus back to Berkeley.
After Alex helped Joe out of the car, she supported her on the sidewalk while they watched Maddy speed away. "Sorry 'bout that," Alex said quietly and hoisted Joe's arm further up on her shoulder. "Think the club-thing kind of spooked her. Got some steps coming, you ready?"
"I'm paralyzed, not blind," Joe muttered, but steeled herself for the short steps up to the ER. The ambulances from the club had arrived before them and rushed the stretchers inside on the ramp. Alex helped her inside the waiting area and got her seated in a chair. When Alex took the seat next to her, Joe sighed. "My aunt's working here, so you don't have to stay if-"
Alex shrugged and got comfortable. "I gotta wait 'till the morning for Madds to realize she was overreacting and offer to come pick me up anyway."
Joe raised her eyebrows at that, but said nothing. As Alex had a degree in psychotherapy, she was eerily good at reading people. By the rate the ER was processing new patients, Joe would be back to normal long before they could do any tests on her. Unfortunately, with her name on file as a patron of the Jungle, she could not just ditch the hospital either — it would look suspicious.
"Are you trying to give me a heart attack?" Aunt Melissa cut through the waiting crowd in the ER and hugged Joe while she still sat in the chair. "Front desk tells me that my niece is here half-paralyzed? Jesus Christ, Joe! Were you at the club? Did you take anything?" Her eyes flickered to Alex, who in many ways looked more out of it than Joe did. "Hi, Alex. Didn't know you were back in town."
As concerned as Aunt Melissa was, she repeated the same steps the EMT had and checked for physical signs of drug use. At the repeated question if Joe had taken anything, she shook her head, because it was technically the truth, right? Derek had been the one to practically inject her with the venom...and then left her at the Jungle before she could even walk. Not that she blamed him, with the police presence it would only be a matter of time before the Argents showed up. Had he seen her leave with Alex?
Or, God forbid, had he been injured or paralyzed himself?
Aunt Melissa got Joe processed, took her blood and got one of the doctors to look at her. He ordered an overnight stay at the hospital, which unfortunately was in a multiple patient room with flimsy curtains between the beds to provide some semblance of privacy.
"Looks like the paralysis is leaving the body on its own," Aunt Melissa said and flipped through Joe's charts. "Rate seem to vary from person to person. Yours is going a bit faster than the guys'. The tox report's gonna tell us more, but with the backlog, it won't be in before a couple of days."
The lights were off in the room and the sound of the other occupants breathing or shifting in their sleep echoed over the empty floor. Alex snored softly from where she laid splayed out in a chair next to Joe's bed.
Aunt Melissa surreptiously tilted her head towards Alex, as if to ask what was up with that. Joe shook her head, not wanting to talk about it now. Not to mention, she did not know what was up with that. Maybe Alex wasn't as petty as she thought? Or she had been drunk enough to be sympathetic and not drunk enough to be mean. Fine balance when it came to Alex.
Despite the fatigue lingering in her veins after the venom had evaporated or whatever it did, Joe could not sleep. Like most people, she wasn't a fan of hospitals. Even if Aunt Mel had claimed she was pulling strings to void most of the bill, it seemed excessive to spend the night just because of some major paralysis. Hey, look at that, now she was thinking like the rest of the idiots aware of the supernatural happenings in Beacon Hills. It was easier to blame the hospital than her own mind that would not stop racing. She was trying to make sense of too many things where she had less than half the clues.
Unable to lie down, she slipped out of bed quietly to avoid waking up Alex. Instead of hospital gowns, she was in a pair of Aunt Mel's sweats due to the state of her own clothes. Her shoes stood by the bed, waiting for her when she was released. She padded out of the room in her cotton socks and tried to open the door as little as possible to not wake any of the other residents. It was quiet in the hall, but the lights were on at least and she headed for the handicap bathroom, wincing at the pins and needles tingling in her calves. At least the toilet handles came in handy, no pun intended, and she was able to use it with those as her only assistance.
As she washed her hands, peering at her sullen face in the mirror, someone knocked on the door.
"Just a minute," she croaked out and dried off her hands. Her hair looked like an actual bird's nest and it would take some serious conditioner to get it back to its normal state.
Another knock.
"I said, just a minute!" Joe repeated a little louder. Tired, and a little malicious, she took her time in studying herself, picking out stray leaves still entwined in her dark strands.
A heavier knock.
"Oh my God, I said-" Joe opened the door and froze. Before she had the chance to say anything, Derek pushed himself inside the bathroom. She blinked at the empty space in the door and then at him. "Did you just listen to me p-"
"No," he said to cut her off. Derek shut the door Joe was still holding and locked it.
"Umm..." The locked door worried her, but not as much as the red pattern crawling from his hands to his elbows. Dried blood stains. "That's not sanitary, dude."
Derek caught where she was looking and with a tired growl, he pulled up the sleeves of his sweater and Joe found herself for the first time attracted to a pair of forearms. Suppressing that thought, easier to do when dead tired, she watched Derek stalk over to the sink and almost slam on the faucet.
Something had gotten to him. Still muddled with the lack of sleep, she leaned against the changing station on the other side of the room. Derek focused on the task at hand and she studied him in the mirror; the deep furrow between his brows and the increasingly darker five o'clock shadow growing on his face. He lathered up his hands with soap, scrubbing as far up as the elbow, before trying to rinse. The water colored the porcelain pink.
"Did you kill anyone?" Joe finally asked. She should be more freaked out at Derek trapping her in a handicap bathroom in her defuddled state, but did not have the energy. She resisted adding the word 'else' onto her statement.
"Tried," Derek said and he glanced at her in the mirror. "Failed." He continued scrubbing his skin, to the effect where her own arms were starting to twinge. Whatever indication she made, he caught onto it and slowed his movements. "Sorry." Before Joe could reply, he sighed and leaned one forearm on the mirror over the sink, resting his head on it. "I'm sorry."
He was not apologizing for the harsh scrubbing transferring to her. Seeing as this was the first time Derek had apologized for anything, Joe kept quiet and just stared with big eyes. With gentler movements, Derek resumed cleaning his hands without looking at her.
"You get that this thing's dangerous, right?" he asked.
"You're dangerous," Joe pointed out and instantly regretted it when she saw his shoulders flex. She hadn't meant it like that, just on the general basis that all werewolves were inherently dangerous. "I'm sorry, I-"
Derek shook his head and she shut up. He wiped his hands and chucked the used paper into the bin before leaning forwards on the sink. "I thought I had it." She saw his hands tighten around the edge, the way his muscles flexed, how she knew he could tear the whole contraption off the wall if he wanted. "Did you talk to Scott?"
Joe shook her head.
His head still hung over the sink as he sighed. Finally, he pushed himself off and turned to look at her properly. He did not keep her fixed in his stare, rather shifting his eyes. "Are you okay?"
"What are you gonna do if I say no?" Joe asked before thinking and watched Derek's eyes go straight to her face, to gauge how serious she was. The tension built and she huffed while crossing her arms. "I really don't appreciate being kidnapped."
"I was only trying to keep you safe," Derek murmured softly somewhere in the direction of Joe's left elbow. His brows pulled together. "I thought that if I could keep you out of the way while I foug-"
"And I don't appreciate you trying to fight my cousin all the time," Joe cut him off. "Or killing his friends! Or making my decisions for me!" The last part slipped out and she grimaced at the dark scowl he made. "If I'm stupid enough to go running after some giant snake monster, let me! And I'll let you know if I need help."
"Really?" he asked, eyes finally landing on her face instead of everywhere else. He did not sound like he believed her. "You would?"
The intensity made her bravado falter. "I mean, maybe."
He took a step towards her with a rimrod back. "Do you promise that you'll let me know if you need help? Scream, shout, call, whatever?" When Joe only retreated instead of answering, he pushed on: "Do - you - promise?"
He looked like he just barely managed to hold himself from grabbing and shaking her. Whatever had happened tonight had left him more thrown off his game than she'd seen him.
Joe bit her lip. "Do you have a choice here, Derek?"
At his confused expression, she shook her head, a lump pushing up her throat, not knowing how to explain.
"Why are you trying to keep me safe?" she asked and blamed the adrenaline crash for the tears that sprang. Tears that gave Derek that unmistkeable male expression of wishing he could sink into the ground. "Are you doing it because you care about me or because you feel like you have to? Or worse, because you literally can't help it?"
Joe tried to draw a breath. "I guess it's your instincts or whatever, but can you ignore them? If you tried? Do you have a choice about the way you-"
feel about me? She snapped her mouth shut before she could finish her question. It made her sound soppy and melodramatic and like a lovestruck girl. Leave feelings out of it.
"It's complicated," Derek said and Joe used both hands to wipe tears away from her face. That wasn't a 'yes'. His brows furrowed as if he was trying to grasp some impossible concept. "Do you want me to ignore them?"
"I want you to do things because you want to. Not because you feel like you have to." Joe huffed and pushed the wayward curls out of her face. "I know I'm not like you and maybe there's some things I don't know or can't know because of that, but I don't think it's fair for you to keep running after me because of some stupid story."
The tears ruined the effect of her speech and she sniffed heavily and wiped at her eyes with the sleeve of Aunt Mel's sweatshirt. Derek kept quiet for a while. Joe just felt sorry for him. He kept running after her, saving her, helping her, all because of some unnatural connection he felt between them. It was not fair for him. He deserved a choice.
"If you didn't insist on jumping headfirst into every dangerous situation you can find, I wouldn't have to keep running after you," he said after a while, the hint of an uncertain smile on his lips. It disappeared as quickly as it came, leaving Joe to wonder if she imagined it. The hard expression that replaced it was in stark contrast. "If you want me to back off, say so."
"I want," Joe said again, wondering if they were speaking two different languages, "you to make decisions for yourself."
Derek's eyes flickered to the side. "I need a yes or no, Joe."
"What?"
"Do you want me to back off, yes or no?" he asked and she got the impression he was paying more attention to her body language than her words. They were definitely not speaking the same language. Even worse, she did not have the answer to that question.
"I don't know, it's complicated..."
"Because of Alex?"
"What? How would this be about Alex?"
"I didn't mean Alex specifically," he said and the pace he used indicated he was not sure how to phrase it. "Is it because you like girls?"
Talk about ignoring the issue here. Joe couldn't help herself and let out a short laugh that burst the tense bubble left by her earlier words.
"I'm not gay, Derek." She laughed further at his dumbfounded, or maybe even relieved, expression. "If it isn't obvious, I just like people, okay? I'm not picky about gender or stuff like that." Or even species, as it turns out. "Relax, you know I think you're hot."
Again, a twitch in his jaw, barely detectable if you weren't paying attention. For a while they sat there on each side of the bathroom, her leaning against the changing station and him on the sink. His brows furrowed as his head tilted to the side.
"Why do you smell of chamomile?"
If he could smell the chamomile, he could definitely smell whatever nerves that question brought up. "I, uh, I'm trying to quit coffee."
"I don't need to listen to your heartbeat to know you're lying about that."
There were more ways to lie. She cleared her throat and pushed off from the wall, gesturing vaguely to the empty space between them. "Is this real, Derek? This mate thing. How does it work? Are there rules? Is it permanent?" Joe ran her fingers close to her scalp, tangling them in her messy curls. "Why us? Like, why did this happen?"
By now, his sigh was as expected as it was familiar. "I don't have the answers to all of that." At some point, he'd crossed his arms, but now he held one hand out to her, sleeve still rolled up. "You tell me if it's real."
Hard to say if it was a challenge or an olive branch. Keeping her arms folded, she looked at his hand. A part of her wondered how it could be calloused when he had supernatural healing ability. Another part of her wondered what would happen if she took that hand in hers. The feeling from the coffee shop almost made her skin tingle just at the memory. She'd touched him after that — hell, just earlier this evening she'd tried to fight him and even if he didn't have the werewolf strength it would have been a futile battle. But those touches had been fleeting and accidental or she'd been too occupied with something else to notice. If she took his hand now, what would she feel?
By the time she was halfway to sorting out her thoughts, he dropped his hand to fold it back along with its twin over his chest, time obviously up. He looked at the floor. "You should get some rest, you're exhausted."
"There's been a lot going on lately," she said as an excuse and still stared at the empty spot his hand had been. Joe cleared her throat and rubbed her cheeks to get rid of the remaining tears. Satisfied she looked semi-presentable, she shuffled over to the door and unlocked it slowly. "I just want there to be a choice, Derek. For both of us."
Derek made no move to stop her or any indication he'd heard her; he just stood with his sleeves rolled up, staring into the floor. "Just," he waited for Joe to pause and turn around, "promise me you'll call if you need help."
"Dude," she said, because she saw the annoyance in his eyes when she did that and right now she would do anything to cut the tension, "you can literally feel if I get hurt, right?"
Nothing but open honesty in his bright eyes as he glanced at her. "I'd prefer it not to come to that."
"Fine, but since I'm currently without a working phone thanks to someone," she half-smiled at his disgruntled look, at least it was better than the worry. Joe slipped out the door with a larger grin, "I'll howl if I need you."
I guess no one was thinking we'd seen the last of Alex, so here she is again. Not a 100% happy with the flow in the middle here, but I'm done trying to rewrite it.
Keep in mind that both Joe and Derek are under a lot stress now, so I'm hoping neither are acting OOC.
As for the guest-reviewer who asked if Joe had met Lydia: No, but she knew who she was because of when Lydia ran away from the hospital. This was more a case of "Dude, you're trying to kill some random girl at our house." and not "Dude, you're trying to kill my friend!" Not saying Joe acted rationally, but again, was Derek?
Hope you enjoyed it nevertheless and I'm always looking forward to hearing your thoughts on the chapter so please leave a review! Stay safe and healthy, guys!