Kings of the Moonlight

Only Love

Give me shelter, or show me heart. Come on love, come on love and watch me fall apart. Watch me fall apart.

-

The quiet tap-tap-tapping of manicured fingers on the keys of the sleek dark keyboard, placed on the gleaming service desk, is the only sound to echo against the walls of the waiting room in the clinical centre. The noise resonates against the polished white interiors and bounces high into the domed ceiling only to return with a clashing clamour - attacking Derek's ears in a cacophony of silence.

Positioned in front of the monitor screen is Doctor Morrell's assistant, Callie, a silver-haired siren with dark brown eyes and a smattering of freckles across her young face. Her attention is enraptured by the artificial glow of the screen, and her repetitive tapping rhythm is broken only by the decisive clicks of her computer mouse.

Sitting beside Derek is Isaac. His son is intently playing with the Rubik's cube Laura had given to him when they had all piled into Laura's car to head earlier that morning.

It's been a little under two weeks since Derek had made the phone call to Dr Morell's office; he'd dismissed Stiles' this Friday but Derek can clearly recall the worried look that Stiles directed towards him. 

He had hesitated on the threshold before he left for the night, asking for the thousandth time, "Are you sure that you're going to be okay? I can totally come over tomorrow morning, if you want." 

Derek does want that, he wants to be able to be able to have an honest talk with Stiles about all of this. But he knows how unfair it would be to drag Stiles into his mess.

Stiles has been in Derek's employment for about a fortnight, and he tentatively considers him a burgeoning friend, but Stiles already has so much on his own conscience with dealing with Isaac's hostility, that Derek can't possibly bear to add to it.

So he had nodded and told him that he'd be okay, with a casual standoffishness and a careful detachment that definitely did not go unnoticed by Stiles, he'd averted his gaze from Derek and quietly returned his goodnight. 

The previous night hadn't been easy for Derek on a number of accounts. He had curled on his side with his back plastered to the back of the couch with the television on mute as he tried not to think of the sad look on Stiles' face and how the dynamic between them had shifted ever so slightly.

Derek had shut his eyes tightly, pretending not to be worried about his son despite the fact that he had rushed into Isaac's room every single time he thought he heard him, so much as, whimper in distress; all but sprinting into Isaac's darkened room.

Derek had spent the entire morning utterly and completely disconnected from reality, jolting around Laura's watchful presence. She had perched on the barstool at the counter to observe him quietly, and Derek remembers the way he'd lost himself in his thoughts and forgotten all about her presence until he turned around and startled.

He had sent the dish he was holding to the ground and watched it splinter into a thousand shards on the cold tile of the floor.

Her hands had jerked towards him but he had snapped at her, telling her to back off and watching helplessly as she'd recoiled away from him.

He'd felt terrible about it, but he also fervently wished that he didn't need to have to rely on her. However, with the camaro out of commission for the time being, he had to.

The car had been sent away for repairs to the damage Kate had inflicted on the metal work. Derek is glad of this at least; he doesn't relish the feeling of flinching every time he sees the long thin absence of metal alongside the car, and he shivers just thinking of Kate's fury, waves of agitation rippling on the surface of his skin and manifesting in prickly goose bumps.