Kings of the Moonlight

Born to Die

Sometimes love is not enough, and the road gets tough I don't know why.

-

Derek feels wholly uncomfortable waiting for the Sheriff in his office; it isn't that the chair is uncomfortable, but instead the reason for why he's waiting is what's making him so fidgety. He's been spending so much time in police quarters lately that he's beginning to develop a Pavlovian trepidation when waiting for police officers.

It had taken a full three days but Laura had finally harassed Derek into going to the police station despite his many, many excuses. Coils of worry and fear and trepidation and something had been encircling his entire body ever since he found out about Kate's disappearance.

He's pretty much kept himself and Isaac in the house like hermits since Laura came by with the news, that is until she'd had enough of running errands for him and told him to 'grow the fuck up' and get out of the house, promising she'd drop-kick Kate before she had any hope in hell of going near him.

Derek, long tired of examining the photographs, trinkets and certificates that are scattered around the office, is now entertaining himself by pulling faces in his discomfort.

He's been enclosed in the room for a near ten minutes when the door opens. Derek stands up quickly, willing to get the meeting over as quickly as possible but the person who walks in however does not look old enough to be the sheriff; in fact he does not look old enough to be working for a police department at all. But that's just hyperbole on Derek's part; the other man looks to be in his early twenties, with a clear complexion, light-coloured moles dotting the side of his face and dark eyelashes fanning out across the top of his cheeks.

He's probably about the same height as Derek; perhaps an inch or two shorter though Derek can't be completely certain as the man is hunched over fiddling with the tops of two clear plastic lunch-boxes in his grasp. He closes the door with his foot and instantly launches into a conversation.

"So," he says. "Okay I think I've got a lead on the missing pop tarts because even though Scott was the last one over to my apartment, Jackson tagged along with Danny the day before that and he's just so evil to do this to me ..."

Derek stands there with his hand outstretched in total awkwardness. But he doesn't want to be that guy, the one who just stares at the stranger until he notices him, so he politely clears his throat in the hopes of getting his attention.

If Derek had been hoping for a reaction, he's certainly in for a show. The man's eyes flicker up to Derek, registering his face before he flails uncontrollably, taking wide steps backwards. He swears loudly and gives a full body shudder as he holds the lunch-boxes in front of him like some sort of weak defence. In his intense floundering he moves backwards into the corner of the room; his face rife with comical panic. Derek holds his hands in front of his body, taking a small step backwards himself in reaction to the man's floundering.

There's a long tense silence wherein both men stare at each other, eyes wide, frozen in place.

"You-," the strangers says, eyes narrowing. "You're not my dad."

"No. Uh," Derek slowly drops his hands and hazards. "And you're not the Sheriff, are you?"

The other man manoeuvres an unimpressed look at Derek, "Do I look old enough to be the Sheriff?" The man pauses, looks at Derek with his eyes narrowed. "Are you a criminal?"

Derek's eyebrows rise infinitesimally, "What?"

The other man rearranges the boxes in his hold and waves a hand in front of his own features, pulling a face.

"You know," he says. "You've got the whole eyebrow thing going on with the cheekbones and the stubble."

Derek stares at him, said eyebrows knitting in confusion at the other man.