recklessthings | β derek hale

[No. It's not.

To be fair, Derek doesn't get a lot of things. He doesn't get people seventy percent of the time, and the other thirty is made up of the predatory, ugly underbelly that people wish they didn't see. Derek's lived a life constantly being ensared by one siren after the other, watching his packs fall apart around him, so maybe while he doesn't understand compassion or empathy and he certainly doesn't understand teenage girls he understands darkness a little better than most people think.

But he doesn't know what this is about. It could very easily be a teenage girl thing in which case he should wait for Cora and let the two of them do that thing where they hole up in their room and talk (or not talk) and when they emerge again everything it's fine. It's the simplest way of dealing with it, really. But Cora and Peter had taken a trip to the rift version of New York and weren't going to be back until just before the full moon which is over a week away. Right now, Derek is all that Abigail's got.

Isn't that the most ringing endorsement?

He can't just ignore her in there, as much as he may want to. All he can really do is try to get out of her what's wrong, and that's not going to come out by ignoring her. He nudges the door open, ever so slightly, just enough so that he could poke his head around it.]

You sure?

[Because it doesn't sound fine, he's just sayin'.]

Fine.

[ she's not fine. and she probably wouldn't talk about it with cora either. hilariously, this particular topic she would only talk to peter about because he would know exactly what to say. maybe that's because he's a sociopathic manipulative bastard sometimes, but abigail still appreciates it.

but in a shocking move, she sits up and looks at derek with her (red-rimmed) keen eyes. ]

Do you think I'm pretty?

[ you in danger, son. ]

[His eyes go a bit wide as he realizes the danger of the question. He wasn't expecting something so blunt, if only because most of the time Abigail appears above superficial things like that. Appears being the operative word, because she is still a teenage girl, and he should have known better.

He turned Erica after all. It's part of what he used to get her to accept the bite in the first place.

He still hates himself a little for that.

Still, when he answers he answers without flinching.]

Yes.

[You're very pretty, Abigail. Probably in big brotherly sort of way, because that's the role she's been slipping into as of late, but it's still honest.]

Edited 2014-11-05 13:32 (UTC)

[ telepathy has never been an ability abigail has possessed, but her intensely blue eyes are so sharp and calculating that sometimes it's hard to shake the idea that she isn't reading someone's mind. her gaze on derek is unrelenting, taking in every tiny little detail. she can't hear his heartbeat the way he can hear hers -- hummingbird quick and stuttering from crying -- but she wouldn't be surprised if his hadn't just skipped a beat right there out of shock.

she stands up with a slow, deliberate grace. she's never going to be the fastest person in this house and she's given up trying to run away because they will beat her to her destination. instead she moves slowly and languidly, forcing them to keep pace with her instead of the other way around.

peter considers it rude, calls it manipulative. he would know, wouldn't he. really its one of the tiny ways abigail is allowed to exhibit control over anything in her life.

so when she is moving toward derek it is with that same slow, careful tiptoe, stopping in front of him and tipping her head to look up at him. when her heart stutters again this time it is not from crying. has she even ever been alone with derek before?

licking her lips, she poses another question. ] Why?

[Derek doesn't mind. Maybe it's the fact that he's always been controlled, been manipulated a little too easily, but what people don't understand is that it's always been a measure of control he's been willing to give. He knows what his assets are - strength, speed, power. He knows the ways he could easily overpower these human women, tear through them. He's felt just how easily human skin can tear on his claws, and it doesn't matter how dangerous they are, how powerful, he gives them that control because it's his way of making sure he's not the killer his eyes dictate him to be.

When it comes to Abigail, it's all too easy to give it away, let her set the terms and call the shots. Most people would call him a pushover, for deferring to a seventeen year-old girl, but he knows the look of someone who's lost too much for having too much control taken from them all too well. It reminds him of what he saw in the mirror in the days after the fire, determination to never let someone take advantage of that again under piles of grief and heartbreak.

(He does, because underneath that determination is someone desperate to be loved, to not be alone, the wolf in him pulling him towards that call of pack and family, but that doesn't mean he doesn't feel the lesson every time. He's an omega for a reason, his penance for the pain he's caused.)

Still, his eyes regard her as she walks towards him, the measured steps of someone trying to maintain control and he doesn't make it difficult for her the way Peter would. He doesn't look at is as a game - he just wants her to feel safe. Once she's close enough, his hand comes up, so gently, to push down against the scarf she always wears to show the scar she's so careful about covering. He doesn't brush her hair back, because he doesn't want her to feel too exposed in front of him, but this scar is older, she's had it longer, it's healed more than it hurts.]

You survived.

[It's beautiful the way the sea after a storm is beautiful, rough and tumultuous but pushing forward, still alive. It's the alive part that matters, not the scars you carry from it, but he understands why she needs to hide them, the powerlessness that pushed him to cover his in strength training and rage and controlled violence. He couldn't show the burns Kate left in her wake, his skin doesn't hold them.

People don't realize how much physical perfection is completely overrated.]

Edited (grammar) 2014-11-15 13:44 (UTC)

[ her head tips slightly. he's right, there, as derek is prone to be. but her lips purse, tongue darting out to lick her lips. ]

Haven't gotten around to doing much living, though. So what's the point?

Sometimes there isn't a difference.

[Surviving and living. To the rest of the world, it may seem like you're only living to a half potential, but sometimes surviving is the best you can do. You see it as owing it to someone that, proving a point, shoving it in their face as irrefutable fact.

He's alive. He survived. You may have taken everything from him, but you didn't kill him.

(Sometimes you do it because you owe it to people who aren't there to collect. They died and you lived so those moments where you feel so alone that you think not surviving may be the better option, that's when you need to make the choice. Because your mother would want you to survive. Your sister would want you to survive. If for no other reason than to clean up the mess you made, and make sure it's finished once and for all.)]

Sometimes surviving is all you can do. But at least you know if you're surviving, there's nowhere to go but up.

I want to be living.

[ which is all the "warning" he gets before abigail pushes him against the open door, using the weight of his body to slam it again. all the warning he gets before her small fingers are curled around his tee shirt so she can gain some purchase and pull herself up to press her lips firmly against his. all the warning he gets before she is pressed against him, heart beating violently in her chest, blood rushing through her veins, eyes squeezed shut against forethought and any rejection that may or may not come from this.

no warning at all, really. ]

[Which is why the whole thing catches him by surprise and he falters, just for a moment. Derek cuts himself off from the world, starves himself for the affection his nature naturally calls for, unable to trust himself with anyone because in the end when he does people only seem to get hurt. But he wants it, needs it so desperately sometimes it hurts, so when Abigail kisses him, at first he can't help but melt into it, kiss her back, soak up the spark that it ignites in both of them as though it's the only thing he has to keep him warm.

But it's only a few seconds later that everything else catches up with him. As his hands move to her waist to steady her he remembers that it's Abigail. His sister's friend. A teenage girl, not much older than he was when Kate ...

He pulls back with a shock, pushing Abigail away from him gently looking apologetic but wanting at the same time, that need still lingering under his skin.]

Abigail ... I ...

[he pauses before shaking his head.]

I can't.

[ what.

she wobbles back, forehead wrinkled in confusion, hands falling limply to her sides. he kissed her back, she felt it, she felt him give into it, to her, and then suddenly it was over.

she opens her mouth to speak, but nothing comes out and she licks her lips to try again. ]

Why?

[♫ Trust ~ Christina Perri]

[His brain is buzzing with the number of words he could say, trying not to blurt out the option that would make her think it's something she did wrong when it's him, all him, his own fault for responding and giving in, even if it was only for a moment. He let the lines blur a little too far and there's a part of him that hates himself for it - that will always hate himself for it, though that doesn't have everything to do with her.

(It doesn't matter that he's not the one initiating, it doesn't matter that she is older than he was, none of that matters because he's the adult, he's the one with the responsibility and the power and everything that claws at him says that he can't repeat the same cycle. He can't do to her what Kate did to him.

And he will. One way or another he will. Derek's just like Kate in the way that everything he touches turns to ash. Only difference is, he doesn't mean to - it's just the way it happens. He doesn't want to watch the world burn, but for some reason the smell of sulfur and ash is always going to follow him.)

He slips down against the wall slightly, scrubbing a hand over his face as he tries to breath through the way his chest tightens and find an answer for her because she deserves an answer. An answer that isn't a cop out (You're too young) or a lie (Because I don't want you) and it doesn't help that the cop out is true.]

I'm not good for anyone.

[Honest and to the point, and he won't let Abigail be another thing he lets burn. She won't be another set of blood on his hands, she won't be another death that sits on his shoulders. He thought he was moving on, building a better life and letting go, that he was worth something in the long run, and that there was something left after the cost of his failures, but maybe that's just as much a lie, but much more convincing because it was a lie he was telling to himself.]

I ... can't do to you what she did to me.

Edited 2015-04-06 13:34 (UTC)

[ her mouth turns down in a deep frown, eyebrows pulling together. she manages to hide most of the sting of rejection behind a mask of some other kind of upset, confusion and a little bit of anger mingling together. ]

And you think I'm good for anyone? I'm not asking you to be good, Derek, and if I wasn't I wouldn't be asking you to be good for me. I want you to be good for you.

[ her bright eyes blaze as she steps forward, keeping him pinned against the wall. she'll back off, but only after she's made her point. ]

You're not doing anything to me at all. If I asked you to stop, you would. I know that, you know that. I'm asking you not to stop. [ against her will, the hardness drains away from her expression, leaving only rejection. ] Please.

[His eyes soften because part of him does want and he doesn't want to hurt her. It would be too easy to just give in and take what he wants, but he knows that when he takes what he wants, it doesn't end well.

For anyone, least of all Derek.]

I didn't ask her to stop either.

[Just because she's okay with it doesn't mean it's right or good.]

I'm not ... I don't want to ...

[He huffs.]

I just can't.

[ for a moment, she looks deeply sad. everyone tells her to put herself out there, try to make connections, and when she tries... this happens. after a beat though, blankness shutters across her expression and she steps back. ]

You're not her. Please... just get out.

[ she tried. and she failed. ]

[When they say that, they probably don't mean Derek Hale, just for the record. And Derek's face carries so much more remorse than it normally would, because he hates that he can't give her what she's looking for, but in the end he respects her wishes and leaves. He doesn't want to make her uncomfortable or upset, but in the end, it seems like he can't help himself.]

β derek hale | teen wolf

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject


	✔ Cʀᴏssᴏᴠᴇʀs/AU ✔ Aᴄᴛɪᴏɴsᴘᴀᴍ ✔ Pʀᴏsᴇ	✔ Pɪᴄᴛᴜʀᴇ ᴘʀᴏᴍᴘᴛs ✔ Oᴛʜᴇʀᴡᴏʀᴅʟʏ ✔ Sᴛᴀʀᴛᴇʀs	♥ F/M ⏰ Uᴘ ᴛᴏ ᴅᴀᴛᴇ