here comes midnight with a dead moon in its jaw.

maybe one day he’ll be able to keep up with the mood shift, drift along with the undercurrent of conversation like a gifted swimmer.  thing is, he’s already been taught how to swim by a man that should’ve taught him how to love.  often, isaac wishes it were the other way around; a kiss instead of a fist.  too late for that now.

one second derek is a statue, the next, he’s reminding isaac of the person beneath the hard marble.  it’s fascinating, the way that polished surface sometimes cracks.  his eyes are always greedy for it, those moments few and far between.  maybe that’s why he’s gotten so good at noticing the fine details of something that doesn’t always set his nerves on edge.  derek is unpredictable in acceptance, like a robot trying to unlearn its default programming.

suppose that’s a side effect of losing everyone you love in a house fire.

     ‘ where are we going? ’

not that it even matters.  isaac’s default programming is blind loyalty, no matter how many times he’s had his fingers broken.  he’ll always be two steps behind – until he’s shoved out of an air locker without a parachute, anyway.

he’s never been particularly good at freefalling.

     ‘ i have homework. ’

it sounds like more of a question than a statement.  he doesn’t even know why he’s making the announcement.  that swift longing for any kind of acknowledgement overrules anything as menial as schoolwork.

     ‘ but, uh… that’s not… don’t worry about it. i can do it when we get back. ’

he’s not fond of the stuffing between the before and after when he does care for an answer, these stretchy resin seconds he could unpack unpack unpack but not twitch over in the physical sense if he wanted to. he doesn’t want to.    

and isaac’s right, derek’s not worrying about it. but just for a quick concussed backtrack of everything he knows, just for a resin second, he’s paralyzed as to who in here is the one needing.

’ you’re hungry, ‘  derek imparts,  ’ so we’re grabbing a bite. take your jacket and your cell. ‘  

it’s on isaac to close this door behind their backs, and it’s on him to catch up midway down the unoiled, gutted staircase belly, too, that’s got a mouth doing the only small talk: groan, creak, animal. derek should've had it re-done weeks ago.

the lamps are out on a buzz; all burned bulbs along the row across the street. the night is tired of sponging up so much rain dampness and dehydrated asphalt, he can tell, and it’ll cloudburst soon.

❛   on your left.   ❜ 

the warning is languid and hushed: a door gingerly slid shut so as to avoid an unintentional solicit of unwanted attention. seemingly lacking urgency, the attempt might slink over her in an unfair shade of apathy, coloring her indifferent or facetious when she’s nothing of the sort– 

quite the contrary, actually. kate couldn’t snare the quality of impassivity with a royal flush. maybe not even with every good hand she’s ever scraped together flat on the table. the many nuances that link her joints together are steeped in caring, in watching, in whatever instinct she’s attempted and failed to bury over the years that has her warning a tall, dark, and handsome stranger that a cop’s over shoulder watching him. 

that someone’s watching him besides her. 

werewolf (lone wolf like her? she wonders), on the run for a crime you didn’t commit- or in her case, had a really really good reason for? maybe she relates. maybe she doesn’t relate all that often. maybe that means something.  

@vvulfric liked.

' that hasn't happened in a while. ‘

matter of time until coffee pit stops weren’t sacred anymore, and true that. derek doesn’t even like coffee.

chest ballooning, he rushes exactly two flaying sips to remember why, but: he’s in it for the experience because he’s a street rat, now. in fact, he’s whatever he eavesdrops through the local redneck static; sometimes he’s got three heads, sometimes no solid body, but anything’s a step-up from horns.

he’s not sure which like of his has attracted hers (because timing is timing), but he knows what she is, universally. that makes him remember certain things. think of certain people. 

the plastic cup is smelting to his pretentious pincer clutch, the sky is cartoonish, the sun frying down. feels as uncomfortable as you’d expect from a september this moody.

' care to point out the coincidence in that? ‘

it’s no surprise that he’s surprised. feels like some kind of perpetuity at this point, isaac’s inability to grasp the fine-tuned currents of conversation underlined twice with a crimson marker.  there’s no means of training here, the way he blunders through life like a blind man, hopelessly hapless to read the situation before he dives headfirst.  perhaps he should’ve expected the question returned.  had he been anyone else, perhaps he would have – but he’s isaac lahey, token orphan with a rather profound deficiency in social skills.  

derek understands, of course, in the same way that a parent slaps a child’s hand away from a hotplate; shared responsibility.

     ‘ i, uh… hadn’t thought about it? ‘

a wrong answer, however right its sentiment.  the truth is, he’s been thinking about this breakneck bolting situation since he turned eight years old, eating glass shards instead of birthday cake.  he’s been planning his runaway for over half of his existence.

maybe, some part of derek knows that already.  maybe that’s why the question is so confoundingly confrontational.

when did his focus shift from survival to settlement?

he flutters, bewildered, blinking like honey catches at his eyelashes sticky.  it’s that same slow daze that scott gets during chemistry, or stiles gets when the ball is thrown his way during a game of lacrosse; dumbfounded.  

when was the last time he’d thought about it?  leaving?

     ‘ i mean, i’m kind of… safer. ‘

in a land of tooth and claw, he feels more secure than he’s ever felt before.  figure that one out, therapy.  it really does have something to do with his childhood.

     ‘ – and i don’t exactly have anywhere else to go. ‘

suddenly, his hands have become very interesting, all scar tissue and knuckles turning white.  unlike his creator, isaac hasn’t perfected the art of a steady heartbeat, too used to living like a jackrabbit sprinting between burrows.

     ‘ so, are you saying you still feel responsible for her? or do you mean you feel responsible for all of us? ‘

there’s that wanting.

he hasn’t given much of himself to isaac, but it’s still more than most people, and derek doesn’t know how to go about that any more than he knows what to do with the wanting of his own.

isaac is a good kid. boyd was a good kid, too.

isaac’s face is never boring to look at because it talks, but it’s his fingers derek watches lick over each other through more than one cycle of pretzel—unsettle—change the main knot of high pressure.   

 ’ i’m saying you’re my pack, isaac. ‘  

he’s broken those fingers, time and time and cleanly, too. there’s too much of each to go around not to have. on more than instinct, he knows them by the apartness of the knuckles, but he can’t quite remember touching them without a basic objective in a while. 

it’s, this is where you went wrong, and this is how you don’t punch next time. and that’s not how you make a fist—let me help you out of this grave you dug. 

knowing that feels like sinking, just a bit. 

moving is always a good way out of that. he doesn’t give his back lightly, but now he does, just feeling isaac instead of looking at him until he’s pried his credit card from underneath the empty fruit bowl on the counter and grabbed the car keys.

next to derek’s jacket on the hanger, cora’s is deflated, its zipper already put through it. she should know better, but derek's pretty familiar with how it is, not having gotten to have things for years. 

@vvulfric

      ❝   DEREK DEREK!   I lost my shirts, help.        ❞

currently on twenty unsolicited questions: this again.

looking for loose change on the butt of a joke like this, probably knowing derek knows and a few other-kind knows ahead while they both lounge in the trial-and-poke period. 

and why not.

he doesn’t mind much; elena gives room to skirt, and where she doesn’t—- there’s a multitude of unreliable sources citing derek hale’s founding of the mannequin challenge. not his finest stamp material. fine for using when it suits him, though. 

few chairs to their farther left, a selfieing couple, with blots for heads at this level of derek’s disinterested reference, align as the flash pops and burns his eyes out.

syncing up with elena’s, or anyone’s, differences just hasn’t been a schedule priority for some while there, is all. well — most of it. 

it might’ve been a while since he snickered with gusto, too.

she’s watching and by that imposing just a bit of tightness around them. watching derek’s red hands, it feels like, even though he went meticulous with his last people interaction’s leftovers.

listening. maybe for the pretty jangle in his pocket, even though he only deals in transfer and illiquid and variously executed positions of impersonal space. no keys to need when nowhere is a permanent stay.