kate bishop (![[info]](https://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} hawkeyetwo) wrote in ![[info]](https://www.insanejournal.com/img/community.gif){kind=small} momadness_log,@ 2021-11-30 20:18:00 |
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What: Sleeping and confessions
When: 11/17, backdated
Where: Derek and Steve’s room
Warning: High, CW: Discussions of trauma
Status: Completed via Gdoc
Kate knocked on the door to Steve and Derek’s rooms, after having visited Derek’s old room a few times and never found him there. She hadn’t heard that this move was official, but it wouldn’t surprise her. It was weird that her best friend in this world was living with Steve Rogers, but it was kind of awesome. Kate was incredibly intimidated by Captain America, but that wasn’t going to stop her from hanging around her BFF. Right?
Besides, she had stuff floating around in her head and her chest, and she wanted to get his opinion. (Blessing?) And talk to him about what she’d realized about sleep. About how she
Several long moments passed before there was even the hint of movement behind the door. There was bump, a mild, muttered curse, and then a grumpy and obviously exhausted Derek was there. He peered at Kate through one partially cracked eye, and then his hand shot out to her wrist so he could all but yank her inside and push the door closed against the offending hallway light. To say he looked like death would have been a kindness.
He was halfway back to the bed before he realized what he was doing and stopped, letting go of her wrist and turning to look at her. A couple of sniffs accompanied his grunted, "What's wrong? Smell anxious."
The door opened and it was dark in the room. Kate hadn’t really been expecting that. Derek wrapped a hand around her and pulled her inside. Her heartbeat sped up a little as she took him in. The dark room, the sickness in him. She had no idea what kind of sickness it was, just that her friend looked like death warmed over. “Nothing, I… I had things to talk to you about, but you look… what’s wrong? Are you okay? Where’s Steve? Why isn’t he taking care of you?”
"I'm just tired," he snapped with just the barest hint of a growl rumbling in an undertone. In the next second, though, Derek's face fell, and he came slouching back over to Kate, where he drew her far more gently into a hug and just sort of folded himself around her. "Sorry, it's just—it's been a long few days. I'm okay. Do you—Can we lie down while you're here? I'm just so tired."
Kate was caught off guard by the tone. She took a half step back, feeling guilty that she was here, guilty to force her company on him if he wasn't feeling well. But then he came back to her and wrapped his arms around her, and she did the same. "Do you want to talk about it?" she asked, holding him tight. Then she nodded. "Of course. That's actually what I came here to talk to you about. Go on, lay down. We can cuddle."
He was far more careful with her now as he walked with her back to the bed with its (thankfully) freshly laundered sheets. They still smelled enough like him and Steve for it to be calming, but it wasn't quite the same as having his boyfriend there. It took him a few seconds to burrow back into the familiar softness before he opened his arms to her like someone more than half his age might. The weird jangling making strident music along his nerves didn't calm until she was lying next to him, pressed all along his side, and his arms were around her. "I'm sorry," he murmured again. "I'm so sorry. I think I know what's wrong with me, but I don't know what to do about it. But you go first. You came to me to talk about something."
Kate toed her shoes off before climbing into Derek's bed with him. She snuggled in against him, feeling the familiar warmth of a body she loved next to hers, the safety of strong, secure arms around her. Her eyes instantly fell closed and her breathing slowed. "It's okay," she spoke gently, "I just... I wanted to let you know... I don't know. It's stupid. I fell asleep next to someone, and I slept better than I've slept in months. Not since Scott was taken." She curled a little closer to him, almost on instinct. "I think that's what I needed. Not to exhaust myself with ridiculous amounts of working out, not to drink alcohol until I black out. I need a body next to me."
While one hand stayed steadily at her waist, the other moved over her arm and back and against her hair and then repeated all of it on a loop. Derek caught himself taking a sniff before he could help himself. His senses pulled up an old memory. Chlorine, fear, a sudden numbness that stole over his entire body. Falling into clear blue water, being sure he was about to die, to drown. Derek's eyes had drifted closed as the scene unfurled in his mind, and they snapped open as the realization struck him right in the middle of his furrowed brow. "Stiles?" The shock of it sat on his chest, not sure which direction to go. "You were… You were with Stiles?"
Kate blinked, surprised that he'd come out with it. She turned her face up toward his, the shock reading on it. Though, of course he would know. He could smell it on her, right? That she'd spent the night with Scott and Stiles? ...was that all he knew? Stiles and Scott were from his world--they were all friends, right? She didn't understand why he seemed so upset over it. Shouldn't he be glad that she'd gotten her first night's sleep in months? "Yeah. Stiles and I are friends. We were watching a movie with Scott last night, and... well, it was really boring, so I fell asleep."
"But that's—" A muscle was working its way furiously in Derek's jaw, and his mouth was suddenly crowded with overlarge teeth. Distantly, he couldn't remember the last time he'd shifted since the last full moon, but that took a backseat to the acrid bile rising from the back of his throat. He swallowed it back, face twisting into a grimace. "That's all, right? You just slept?" Derek turned to her, the hand on her arm tightening as desperation fit itself over his features. His gaze flit over her face like it would tell him before her words would. "Tell me you just slept with them."
"That's... what?" Kate frowned a little at the feel of his hand tightening on her arm. Something was really wrong, and she didn't know what it was. He was acting so strange. She shook her head, and her heartbeat sped up a bit in her confusion and nerves. "Derek, we just slept. It was the best sleep I've ever had. What did you think I'd do with both of those boys in the same bed?" After, however... the hallway... with Stiles. She wasn't about to tell him about that now.
He would have been fine—everything would have been fine, if her heart hadn't tripped over itself at the end. His restraint snapped in an instant. Derek's world shifted red. Claw-tipped fingers dug into her skin but didn't break it, and he lunged in closer until his face was buried in the side of her neck. The breaths he pulled in were as deep as they were desperate. His voice came out cracked and broken, equal parts growling and begging. "You can't be like her. Please, don't be like her."
"Ow, Derek, what--" Kate frowned, feeling his claws, feeling him shake against her. She wasn't afraid, though she could have (maybe should have) been. "I'm not like her," she insisted, though she had no idea who her was. "Talk to me," she added, "tell me what's going on."
"Kate," he ground out, but he wasn't saying her name. "Argent's sister. She was—" A high, broken down whine came from the back of his throat, and for a moment Derek could only breathe into the shadowed hollow of the side of her neck as memories flooded his mind. He was shaking, trembling as her smile filled his mind, the way she always called him 'sweetie' in a voice that was heaven at the time and hell in all the years that followed. "She was your age when she started talking to me. When she slept with me. I was only a couple of years younger than-than Stiles. I know you're not her, I know you're not her. But, Kate, please, you can't be like her. She ruined my fucking life."
Kate had never heard Derek say her name like that before. But then she realized he wasn’t talking about her, he was talking about another Kate. Argent? The archer? She paused, listening, her arms tightening around him as the way he was trembling scared her. Her heart was still thundering as she thought about what he was saying. “...I… I’m so sorry, Derek. I’m not… you know I’m not like her. I’m not.” She shook her head. “Derek, I’m not. Even if I--if something were to happen… you know me. I’m not going to ruin anyone’s life.”
Every intelligent part of his brain was screaming at him to get over this, but his intelligence wasn't what was in charge now. His claws pressed into her tender skin, enough to make red marks, but not enough to break it. So careful. So, so careful, even as he shuddered and shivered and felt hot tears making a mess of his face and falling against her throat.
He was trapped in the past, in the smoke of a fire recently pulled out, in the imagined screams his uncle had planted in his head, in the smirk of a madwoman who'd orchestrated the whole thing at the behest of her cruel father. "Don't be her," Derek kept whispering over and over, because reason had nothing to do with what the inside of his head looked like. He was cracked and broken in a way he'd only ever resolved with violence. There was no telling what color his eyes were, hidden away where no one could see them. "Kate, please. Be better than she could have ever been."
The claws in her shoulder, the trembling wolf in her arms, the tears against her neck? Now Kate was scared. Though, she wasn't scared for herself (again, maybe she should have been?) she was terrified for him. Derek was obviously going through something here, and Kate could do nothing but hold him tight and whisper gentle affirmations. "I'm not her," and, "I'm so sorry," and, "I love you," before she started over again. She gave a soft, "I will never be her. Not to you, not to anyone else."
Finally, it felt like there was a pause. Kate lifted a hand to run over his hair. "Derek," she said gently, "Should I go get Steve? Do you need him?"
The juddering sobs had finally subsided to deep, ragged breathing. He would talk to Steve later—he would, but for now he shook his head. At some point his claws had retracted, and all he was left with was a loose grip around her back and at her arm. Shame stole through his mind like a thief, turning his loss and his grief into something pitiable and pathetic. "Don't go," he breathed out, the sound barely there. "Not yet. Just… stay. For a while, just stay."
Kate nodded, holding him tight. She wasn't going anywhere, wasn't going to let go until he told her to. She didn't have any judgement, just love. … and concern. "I'm here. I'll stay as long as you need me to. I'm sorry, Der. I didn't know." She should have left well enough alone, but couldn't help herself. "I'm not… I'm not like her. You know that, right?" She paused. "Do you… want to tell me about it?"
His small nod that yes, yes, he did know turned into a brief shake of his head. This, of course, led to him spilling the whole thing. Derek wasn't the best storyteller at the best of times, and this was far from it. But he did his best to lay out everything, starting with the disaster of trying to turn Paige, and then meeting Kate Argent and being seduced by her while she plotted to murder his family. The fire, the betrayal, the years long festering hatred at having given his heart to someone only to have it used and abused. And how she'd laughed in his face and mocked him when he'd been taken prisoner and tortured for hours. Maybe even days. He still wasn't sure. It all came pouring out of him, the good and the bad: his misguided attempts to build a pack, only to get them killed; his tenuous alliance with Scott and his friends; stopping his insane uncle from killing anyone one else, but not before Laura was torn apart; finding Cora, his long lost sister, but having no idea how to connect with her.
He'd told Steve about it all, but never all at once, just in bits and manageable pieces. Here, now, with Kate—the good Kate, the one who he honestly believed loved him—it was a catharsis he hadn't even meant to start. Derek talked and talked until his voice was a croaking mess and all his tears had dried up. A part of him knew he should have done this with Steve, but also realized that if he'd had just a moment's reprieve between Kate and Steve being there, it would have all been packed down tight again. "I know it's not rational, and I know none of it's the same. But I keep thinking about your age and Stiles' age, and it just—it just feels so similar that I can't. I just can't. And that isn't on you, it's on me. I should get past it, get over it, but I don't know how not to feel like this."
Kate listened, holding him. It was all she could do, really. Listen and hug. She ran her hand up and down his back in a hopefully comforting way, thinking how awful his experience was. Someone he thought loved him, betraying him so severely. No wonder he was freaking out over her and the boys. There was an age difference, her name was Kate… But so many things were different. She wasn't interested in burning anyone's house down or hurting anyone.
She nodded. "I'm sorry, Derek. I never meant to dredge up old feelings. I'm not… I don't know. What can I do to help you with this?" Because, let's be honest, she wanted to see him again, and she would be miserable if Derek … continued to disapprove. He meant a lot to her. More than friendship. Hell, more than family. Kate didn't know what the feeling was, but it meant the world to her.
"I don't know," he admitted miserably, still tucked up tight against her. It didn't help that he could pick out the subtle notes of whatever conflict was going on inside her. Derek wasn't a mindreader by any stretch of anyone's imagination, but he knew chemosignals enough that his terrible and truly unfair reaction to her budding situation wouldn't change a damn thing anyway. "I don't think you can. This is just the garbage I have to sort through myself. I'm—" He shook his head the best he could with his face stuffed into the side of her neck. "I haven't been feeling like myself for a little while now. Things—my emotions, my memories feel closer to the surface, and I-I don't know why."
He sighed and bundled her closer with the last of his flagging strength. "Can we just… can we just lie here for a while? I'll feel better after I sleep some, I'm sure of it."
A gentle lie, but a lie nonetheless.
Kate knew that Derek always seemed to know what was going on in her head and her heart, and that he could hear, smell, and see her better than anyone she knew. She almost thought he could read her mind most of the time, as his comments were so spot on. Still, she was glad that he couldn’t. The thoughts running around in her head right now would probably set him off on another tear. Still, she wished she knew why he was feeling so emotional. She frowned. “Maybe… maybe it’s close to the holidays? I know that can be a stressful or emotional time for people.”
She lifted a hand to run over his hair, petting it gently, running her fingers through it, nails against his scalp. She nodded. “Of course we can just lie here. You can sleep against me, I won’t judge.” It was what she needed to sleep, too. A little smirk tugged at the corner of her mouth. “...you just have to be the one to explain it to Cap if he comes in here and catches us like this.”
"Not worried," he mumbled, half-slurring the syllables together. Each breath and movement of her hand in his hair had him relaxing by degrees as exhaustion gave way to actual sleep. "He can join in. I'll 'splain it later. 'Splain ev'rything. I love you, too, Katie. I love you, too."
And then he was out.