To Build a Home

Chapter 10

Stiles returned to find Isaac in Derek’s arms and both of them half-asleep in bed, Isaac bathed and wearing Stiles’ old grey Beacon Hills lacrosse t-shirt, sleeves reaching the toddler’s wrists and hem falling to his ankles. Stiles smiled at the thought as he walked over and sat on the edge of the bed.

“I couldn’t get him to wear anything else,” Derek explained tiredly, Stiles just noticing how bloodshot his husband’s eyes were from stress and lack of sleep.

“Why don’t you get to bed? I can do Isaac’s meds,” Stiles offered as he began to take items out of the paper pharmacy bag.

“It’s okay, I can sit with him,” Derek said as he shifted Isaac and sat up, yawn escaping.

“You’re exhausted. Take a hot shower and get some sleep.”

“You’re tired, too.”

“I can go another hour or so. It’s fine,” Stiles assured him as he lifted Isaac and grabbed a packet of medication so that they could do his treatment in the rocking chair. Derek rose slowly from the bed and let out a muffled thanks as he shuffled out of the room.

“Snowmans!” Isaac smiled sleepily as he shoved Snowmen at Night from the book basket in Stiles’ face, which he promptly slid between the arm rest and padding so that he could maneuver Isaac and himself into the chair.

“I shouldn’t have yelled at you before,” Derek admitted as he paused in the doorway, back to Stiles while he prepped Isaac’s nebulizer. “I wanted to enjoy some family time, too.”

“It’s okay. I get it,” Stiles sighed, unsure if he was ready for this conversation. He could sense that Derek hadn’t moved but continued to get Isaac’s treatment started anyway.

“I just thought that we were doing so well, you know?” Derek asked, voice low. “He hadn’t had an attack in a good three weeks and he was barely wheezing and we’d gotten him off of the steroids.”

“Der,” Stiles sighed. “It’s okay. We’re getting back on track,” Stiles assured him as he pulled the book out to keep Isaac occupied and turned the machine on.

“I should have been home.”

“Look, I know that I’ve been really hard on you recently about being on top of Isaac’s asthma and allergies but this isn’t your fault. He probably just caught a cold from one of the kids at school and-”

“I can be a better father. A better husband.”

“You’re a great father and husband, Derek. Nothing that you did caused this.”

“But it’s not just this time, Stiles,” Derek sighed before he disappeared from the doorway.

x

“You let him play in the leaves?!” Stiles had asked through his Bluetooth as he rushed home from work the first Thursday of November, eyes scanning the rearview and side mirrors to see if it was safe to change lanes.

“I didn’t think it would be a big deal,” Derek explained as he held a wheezing and whimpering Isaac in his lap.

“Leaves are full of mold and pollen, not to mention ticks. Oh, God. Did you check him-”

“I’m trying to get his nebulizer together. Just…just give me a second, okay? One thing at a time,” Derek sighed, overwhelming guilt weighing down on his shoulders. He didn’t want to admit that he was having trouble remembering how to put the medicine into the reservoir because Stiles was usually the one to do it, so he used the directions on the box of albuterol sulfate to aid him until he finally got all of the pieces in place and turned the machine on.

“How bad is he?” Stiles finally asked, allowing himself to calm down a little once he heard the buzzing of the nebulizer.

“He asked me for a treatment.”

Stiles exhaled heavily. “I’ll be home in two.”

x

“I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking,” Derek had said as he pushed a hand through his hair and sighed. Stiles held Isaac in his lap while he finished his treatment, the toddler feeling well enough again to play happily with his father’s purple tie.

“Yeah, just like you weren’t thinking when you gave him a Capri Sun with strawberries in it,” Stiles said, words hitting Derek right in the heart.

“That was an accident, Stiles! The names on the boxes are similar and I grabbed the wrong one,” he defended, tears filling his eyes as he thought about how he’d never confuse Splash Cooler for Pacific Cooler ever again.

“We can’t afford to have accidents, Derek!” he yelled. “Especially when his peak flow is in the yellow zone. Did you not read the note I left on the kitchen counter? It said ‘no playing outside today’.”

“When I read it I thought that you meant ‘no running’,” Derek argued.

“You could have called me,” Stiles said as he switched the machine off and removed the mask from Isaac’s face.

“I did call you!”

“Yeah, panicking . By then it was a little late, Derek.”

“I said that I was sorry.”

“Isaac’s the one you should be apologizing to, not me,” Stiles said as he lifted the toddler from the bed and exited the room to give him a bath.

Derek leaned over the master bedroom’s bathroom sink less than a minute later, elbows locked as he tried to slow his breathing down. He looked at himself in the mirror for a moment before the shame took over and forced him to drop his head. It didn’t matter how many late night hours he secretly spent pouring over forums full of parents of children with food allergies or articles titled “Managing Your Child’s Asthma”; he was the reason Isaac had gone into anaphylactic shock three weeks ago and the cause of his attack that day.

“I can be better,” he whispered to himself, his heart aching so much that the feeling radiated throughout his entire chest. It was like he couldn’t breathe and it made him wonder if this, on a larger scale, was what Isaac felt like everyday.