Work Text:
“We looked everywhere, dude. She’s gone. Like totally MIA.”
Derek sighed and leaned his head back against the headrest. Stiles was still talking, his voice squeaking out from the tiny phone speaker, but Derek gave up on listening.
His head rolled to the side and he stared at Isaac, sound asleep in the passenger seat. Isaac’s skin was worryingly pale, his hair still damp with sweat and his shoulders hunched like he wanted to curl up around his recently wounded side. It almost hurt just to look at him.
Distractedly he muttered some farewell to Stiles and put away his phone. He and Scott had managed to track Isaac’s mystery girl to the school, but found no trace after that. Just another thing to put on his list of unresolved concerns.
After a moment of frustrated reflection he roused himself; now was not the time to dwell on his failures. He still had one beta, and Isaac needed his attention. So he hauled himself out of the car, moved around to the passenger side, and hauled Isaac out too.
Isaac didn’t even stir when Derek opened the car door, so he decided it would be easier just to carry the teen up to the loft, rather than trying to wake him. It wasn’t hard. Isaac was tall, but he was all gangly limbs and thin bones. All the same, by the time Derek made it to their floor he was glad for his inhuman strength.
Isaac shifted slightly halfway up the last flight of stairs - finding a building with an elevator hadn’t seemed important when they’d been apartment hunting - his head rolling to nestle fully against Derek’s bicep. The blanket still wrapped around Isaac’s shoulders slipped a little, exposing his bony shoulders. Derek didn’t pause, but he did glance down, watching as Isaac’s pale eyes flickered open and a little frown of confusion creased the space between his eyebrows.
“We’re almost home,” Derek supplied for him helpfully and he felt Isaac relax. It was probably knowing where he was that put Isaac at ease, not the sound of Derek’s voice or the confirmation of who was carrying him, but a part of Derek wanted to pretend a little.
“I can walk,” Isaac said, visibly gathering himself together in preparation. Isaac’s voice was rough and dry, and even though he sounded steady Derek could hear the tiny hitches in Isaac’s breath that belied his calm.
Derek mounted the last few steps and shook his head, his eyes focused on the door to their loft just a few feet ahead. “No point now,” he said. He did pause outside the door so that Isaac could get it open - he hadn’t bothered to lock it, he never did when no one was home, they didn’t have anything worth stealing.
He’d meant to carry Isaac right in and tuck him into bed, but now that Isaac was awake Derek felt a little stupid carrying him like an overgrown child. So he compromised by setting Isaac upright on the couch and made a pretense of checking the now mostly healed wound on the beta’s side.
Isaac didn’t argue. He didn’t say anything at all, he just watched Derek. He always watched Derek, his eyes tracking Derek’s movements. At first it had been wariness - whether some animal instinct telling Isaac to watch his dominant, or an old habit trained into him by years living with his dad, Derek wasn’t sure - but over time the wariness had faded and now it just seemed natural, like Isaac just wanted the reassurance that he wasn’t alone.
“They didn’t find her, did they?” Isaac asked after a moment. He sucked in a breath as Derek accidentally probed a particularly sore spot. The wound had healed on the surface, but there was deeper damage which healed more slowly.
Derek just shook his head. Isaac had told him all he could before falling asleep in the car, about the girl on the motorcycle, and the alpha woman in the hospital, but the troubling thing was that Isaac couldn’t remember what had happened before that. How the mystery girl had found him, or even where, what he had been doing the night before, Isaac just winced and shook his head helplessly every time he tried to remember.
“We have to keep looking.” Isaac tried to stand, but he’d barely lifted half of his body off of the couch before his breath caught and his legs gave out on him. Derek gripped his shoulder, pressing him back down and shook his head. He left his hand there, discouraging another attempt. “We have to find her.” Kindly Derek ignored the note of a whine in Isaac’s voice; the beta had had a long day. “She knows something. She-... If I could just remember.” Isaac gripped his head, long finger curling in his sweat dampened curls, his face creased with pain as he fought for the memories that had been stolen from him.
“Isaac, stop.” Derek let just a hint of a growl leak into his voice, just a tiny display of dominance. Isaac responded instinctually, his shoulder going lax against the back of the couch and his heartbeat beginning to settle.
“We have to find them,” Isaac insisted weakly - them, not her, they weren’t talking about the mystery girl anymore. His eyes were wide and sad, filled with pleading and expectation; why couldn’t Derek just fix this? He was alpha, it was his job. Derek could barely force himself to meet Isaac’s gaze.
“We will,” he assured, forcing more confidence than he felt into his voice, even though he knew Isaac would smell the lie. Isaac just looked away and hunched his shoulder, withdrawing into himself, putting up a barrier between them. Derek squeezed Isaac’s shoulder, almost shaking him before he caught himself. “We will find them,” he reiterated firmly, not letting go until Isaac met his gaze and nodded slightly. “But not today,” Derek added, a soft sigh escaping him. “You look half dead. Go get cleaned up and get some rest.”
Isaac looked like he was going to argue, but then he just shut his mouth and levered himself up from the couch. Derek watched as he limped out of the room, clutching the thin blanket around him to shield what the hospital gown left exposed. After Isaac made it out of the room, Derek listened, tracking Isaac as he made it to the bathroom and turned on the water.
Derek didn’t move. The loft creaked around him, like it always did, Isaac dropped a bottle in shower and cursed softly. Derek just felt... empty. There was a new ache in his chest - he had a collection, his family, Kate, Laura, Erica and Boyd, even Peter in a way - but it took him a few minutes to identify the source of this one; he’d almost lost Isaac too.
He hadn’t even realized Isaac was missing until it was almost too late. It hadn’t occurred to him that Isaac hadn’t come home the night before, he’d been busy, distracted, caught up in his own search. It wasn’t until he’d seen Melissa’s voicemails that he’d known something was wrong. It wasn’t supposed to be like that, he was supposed to know when his betas needed him. If Scott hadn’t been there, or if he had been just a few minutes later, the alphas would have taken Isaac too.
The realization was sudden, and sharp, and painful in its intensity. Isaac was always so quiet, he rarely asked for anything. He helped look for Erica and Boyd with a fervor, but beyond that, Derek barely saw him. He left Isaac alone, let the teen do his own thing, convincing himself that he’d know it if Isaac was in danger, or that Isaac would come to him if he needed something. But Isaac had been in danger, and Derek hadn’t known, which forced him to wonder, would Isaac come to him if he needed something?
He reflected back on the past few months. Isaac was lean but was he too skinny? Was he gaunt? Did he always have those dark circles under his eyes? Had Derek, so wrapped up in searching for his missing betas, neglected the one he still had?
Suddenly he couldn’t sit still any more. He stood, compulsively straightened a couch cushion, then he just stood there, feeling lost. The loft was all but empty; a table, a couch, a half functioning kitchen. A house, a place to live, but not a home.
He’d been telling himself that there’d be time later, after they found Boyd and Erica. He’d planned to renovate the loft, fill the living room with comfortable couches and chairs, maybe some bookshelves, and a nice tv. The floor had been originally two lofts, and he’d bought both halves, intending to convert the other half into bedrooms, so that Erica and Boyd could stay over, and Jackson, and maybe someday Scott, and of course if Scott came Stiles would too. He’d planned to someday have a real pack, and a nice place for them to meet, dreamed of it even. But he’d only gotten as far as smashing a hole in the brick wall between the two halves before reality caught up to him; Erica and Boyd were missing, Jackson moved to London, Scott wanted nothing to do with him. It was just him and Isaac, barely even a pack, just two broken people carefully skirting around each other. So he’d given up, left the dust and broken brick all over the floor and settled in to make do, again.
He’d forgotten that Isaac was used to a home, no matter how crappy it was. He’d forgotten that his duty wasn’t just to Erica and Boyd, but to Isaac too. It was a terrible thing that it had taken almost losing Isaac for him to realize it. He had to do better.
The kitchen was almost as bare as the rest of the loft; Derek mostly ate pizza and Chinese takeout off of paper plates. A little digging did turn up a package of turkey lunch meat - it was heavily processed and looked a little gross to Derek, but he certainly didn’t buy it so Isaac must like it - and some hamburger buns. No regular bread, he didn’t know why they had hamburger buns but no regular bread, but he figured he should be glad there was anything in the fridge at all. He needed to shop more. He needed to make sure that Isaac ate properly. And slept. School had started that day - even though Isaac had missed it - did Isaac even have pens, and paper, and whatever else high schools required these days?
The counter top creaked ominously under Derek’s grip - it was already broken, he’d meant to replace it - and he had to force himself to stop, take a deep breath, slow his heartbeat. He closed his eyes as he breathed, letting himself focus on the distant sounds of Isaac in his room - the shower was off, so he was presumably drying off and getting dressed.
After a minute he had himself back under control. With forced focus he assembled five sandwiches, three for Isaac, two for him - healing took a lot of energy, especially from an alpha wound, Isaac would be starving. He dug some chips that were only a little stale out of a cabinet and found some cokes in the crisper, and it actually looked like a halfway decent meal.
By the time Isaac shuffled out, Derek had pulled a, only slightly crooked, stool up to the bar the separated the kitchen from the rest of the room and set out the plates and cokes.
Isaac was halfway across the room before he noticed and stopped short, surprise in his eyes. He’d been heading toward the kitchen, but evidently hadn’t expected Derek to be there, let alone for already prepared food to be waiting for him. Other than the fact that his hair no longer had blood in it, he didn’t actually look much better after his shower. His curls flattened out when they were wet, sticking to his forehead in a way that made him look young, too young, and his skin was definitely a sallow grey color. He was wearing a shirt that was a little too small and sweatpants that were a little too big, his shoulders hunched like he was trying to shrink into his skin; mentally Derek added clothes to his shopping list, even though he knew Isaac did in fact have clothes that fit him.
“Sit. Eat,” Derek said, nodding to the plate he’d set out for Isaac. It was a little too brusque, a little too rough, and he winced internally. He didn’t know how to do this, but it was about time he started trying.
Obediently, Isaac sat. Derek was pretty sure Isaac hadn’t actually needed prompting on the eating part as he dug in ravenously. Awkwardly, Derek stood across the bar from him, munching on his own sandwiches but mostly watching Isaac.
“So I figure we can go back to where the paramedics picked up me and that girl,” Isaac said eventually, between bites of his last sandwich. “See if maybe we can pick up a trail of some kind. It might lead us back to... whatever I found. I just need to-”
“Finish eating and go to bed,” Derek cut him off. Isaac looked up in surprise, opening his mouth to argue but Derek didn’t give him the chance. “You could have died today. Mrs. McCall said there were electrical burns on your chest when they brought you into the hospital, so for all I know, maybe you actually did die today.”
“I feel fine,” Isaac protested.
Derek just crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow. “Alright then, let’s do some training,” he challenged. “You obviously need the practice.”
Isaac’s jaw clenched, and Derek could see that he was seriously considering it. In a way Derek was proud of Isaac’s determination, but he was relieved when Isaac’s shoulders slumped in defeat since he’d been mostly bluffing; Isaac was barely up to walking, let alone training, and they both knew it.
“I found something, Derek,” Isaac said softly. His head was ducked, his eyes on his now empty plate, but there was a sort of pleading in his voice, a desperation that echoed the ache in Derek’s heart. “I must have. Maybe... Maybe I actually found them. Why else would the alphas come after me like that? Why else would they take my memories? If I could just get my memories back-”
“Isaac.” He uncrossed his arms, impulsively leaning across the bar the separated them and gripping Isaac’s forearm where it lay next to his now empty plate. “I miss them too. But we can’t do them any good if you get yourself killed looking for them.”
Isaac looked at Derek’s hand, but didn’t pull away. He swallowed, catching his lower lip between his teeth. “How do we even know they’re still alive?” he whispered. “How do we know we’re not too late?” Isaac’s eyes were bright with unshed tears, and Derek’s instincts told him to pull back, that he wasn’t prepared for this, that he gave pain not comfort. He didn’t let go though, instead he squeezed Isaac’s arm tighter in a way that he hoped was somehow comforting, something deeper in him, something stronger telling him to ignore his own self doubt.
“You miss them, don’t you?” Derek asked, already knowing the answer. “Like a physical wound in your chest? Like there’s something that’s just.... pulling at your rib cage?” Almost unconsciously Derek lifted the hand that wasn’t gripping Isaac’s and pressed it to his own chest. Next to the scars that were his parents, his aunts and uncles and cousins, his sisters, Peter, where Erica and Boyd were, still raw and fresh.
Isaac nodded mutely, his lips pressed into a thin line. The tears remained in his eyes, but they didn’t fall. He’d turned his arm in Derek’s grip so that he could grip Derek’s arm in return. Isaac’s fingers clinging to Derek as much as Derek held onto him.
“That’s the pack bond. That’s how we know,” Derek told him. “Because they’re still missing. If they were dead, we’d feel it. The pulling would be gone and the holes would start to scab over. Until that happens there’s still time.”
“What are the alphas waiting for? What do they want?” Isaac asked desperately. He’d asked it before, they both had, and he knew Derek didn’t have the answer.
Derek sighed and released Isaac’s arm, already missing the warmth of contact. “We’ll ask them that, when we find them,” he said firmly, letting the rage that bubbled in the pit of his stomach leak into his voice, making it a promise.
Isaac pulled his hand back, wrapping both arms around himself as a shiver ran down his spine. “I guess I should get some sleep,” he said after a moment. He pushed away from the counter, his movements stiff and brittle. “Thanks,” he added, as an almost embarrassed afterthought, “for the sandwiches, and, you know, bringing me home and stuff.” It wasn’t a smile, but Isaac’s lips twitched a little in that direction, and for a moment Derek caught a glimpse past the hunched shoulders and false bravado to the friendly, loving person Isaac should have always been.
It hurt. Derek wanted to tell Isaac that everything would be okay. He wanted to pull Isaac into his arms and kiss his hair like Derek’s mother had always done for him and promise Isaac that soon he’d have a real pack, a real home, and a real family. “Get some rest,” he said instead.
*****
Derek was still awake when Isaac’s hesitant, shuffling footsteps climbed the thin spiral steps to his room. It was after midnight and though Derek had gone to bed hours ago, not even a hint of sleep had touched him.
Derek hadn’t realized he was waiting until Isaac crested the top of the steps and the sickly sweet scent of heart sickness struck his nose. He didn’t need to smell it, of course, to know that Isaac was lonely, the sort of loneliness that buried itself deep into your heart and grounded itself with sharp spikes and seemed to amplify gravity until standing up was almost too much to bear; the kind of loneliness that Derek was all too familiar with. To be honest, Derek was surprised Isaac hadn’t given in to it earlier.
He sat up when Isaac hesitated in the open doorway to his room. At some point Isaac had traded his sweat pants for the boxer shorts he usually slept in, and his tousled hair stuck up in all directions, a testament to the tossing and turning he’d been doing.
Isaac’s eyes were wide and haunted, and he hovered in the doorway like he needed the support of the frame to keep him on his feet. He didn’t speak, his lower lip caught firmly between his teeth. He’s smelled of pain and anxiety and it was all Derek could do to keep his face calm and resist the urge to pull Isaac into his arms.
“Come here,” Derek said. He didn’t move, the sheets pooled around his waist and the light of the nearly full moon illuminating his ruffled hair and bare chest. He was careful to keep all command out of his voice, though it wasn’t exactly a request either.
Despite Derek’s efforts, Isaac’s shoulders tightened just a little, that haunted wariness back in his eyes. He looked confused, like he didn’t entirely understand what he was doing in Derek’s room; he probably didn’t, Derek reminded himself with a stab of pain as he remembered all the things he hadn’t had time to teach his betas yet.
“It’ll help, I promise,” Derek tried to reassure. He shifted, moving the sheets aside and dropping his legs over the edge of the bed so that he could face Isaac fully.
“What?” Isaac asked. His arms were crossed over his chest, wary, defensive, but there wasn’t much resistance in his voice and he’d taken half a step forward.
“Touch. Physical contact.” A vague sort of alarm flared in Isaac’s eyes, and Derek quickly shook his head, derailing whatever dark concludes Isaac had leapt to. “It’s a pack thing,” he explained. “We don’t form packs just for protection against hunters. We give each other other kinds of strength too; comfort, security, healing.”
“I’m already healed,” Isaac protested. It was a half lie, the wound was gone but Derek knew the pain still lingered.
Derek shook his head. “That’s not the kind of healing I’m talking about.” He lifted an arm and held it out to Isaac, beckoning, offering. “Just, come here.”
Isaac wavered, torn between caution and need, but in the end he took Derek’s hand. He stood awkwardly in front of Derek, moving close enough for his legs to brush against the soft cotton of Derek’s sleep pants, and Derek had to look up to see Isaac’s face.
Derek’s breath caught and a shudder ran down his spine at the warm spark of contact when Isaac took his hand. He shoved it down, working to keep his face impassive; this was about Isaac, it wasn’t about Derek, or about how long Derek had been aching desperately for exactly this kind of healing. Memories surged to the surface of his mind of warm nights curled up in his parent’s big bed, his sisters’ limp limbs tangling with his and his mother running her fingers through his hair. Memories of looking up at the full moon framed by bright stars while a bonfire emitted it’s dying pops and one of his cousins snored in his ear. Before the fire he’d never in his life gone a full week without curling up beside one of his pack members for the night; after the fire, he and Laura had spent almost every desperate, tear filled nights clinging to each other.
“Do it. Whatever you’re going to do-” Derek was torn from his memories by Isaac’s cracked words. Isaac’s jaw was clenched so tight Derek could hear it creak, but his lip trembled all the same and his hand had tightened on Derek’s to the point of being painful.
Without a word, Derek scooted back on the bed, pulling Isaac with him. Isaac came, his reticence subsumed by his need for the comfort Derek offered. Once he was on the bed Isaac collapsed into like he was folding in on himself. Derek let go of Isaac’s hand to tuck the sheets around them both and Isaac turned his back to Derek, curling up on his side in a tight ball. It wasn’t a rejection, Derek knew, he’d found Isaac collapsed on the couch enough times to know that it was just how Isaac habitually slept.
Derek didn’t mind. He shifted until Isaac’s back was pressed flush against his chest and he could feel every shuddering tremor of Isaac’s breath reverberating through him.
Isaac was stiff at first, his shoulders tight and his breath too even in a way that meant his was fighting to keep it that way. But after a minute he gave in and the tension went out of him with a soft sigh. Boldly he reached back and found Derek’s arm, pulling it around so that Derek’s hand could drape over Isaac’s stomach.
Derek let him, his own relief echoing Isaac’s sigh. He let his head drop, face curling forward so that it almost rested between the sharp angles of Isaac’s shoulder blades.
“Is this a wolf thing?” Isaac asked after a few more minutes, his voice low and soft like already he was on the verge of sleep.
“It’s a pack thing,” Derek answered. A quiet had settled over them that felt a lot like peace, so much so that Derek was afraid to break it.
“Would you tell me about them?” Isaac’s voice was tentative, like he fully expected to be kicked out of the bed for daring to ask. “Just a little.”
Derek didn’t have to ask who he meant. His heart stuttered a little; he and Laura had never really talked about them after they were gone, it was just too painful. But Isaac’s back radiated heat and it settled in the pit of Derek’s stomach as a warm glow, settling the painful twisting his memories caused.
“In September, for the Harvest Moon, we’d all gather together,” Derek started, grasping at the first memory he could think of that didn’t feel like shards of broken glass tearing at his throat. “Our pack, our family, was an old one. Over the generations it got so big that branches of the family moved away and broke off into smaller packs. But for the Harvest Moon they all came. When the full moon rose my mom - our alpha - she took all those who’d come of age in the past year on their first hunt. And then we’d have a huge feast, out in the yard behind the house.” He closed his eyes, breathing in Isaac’s scent and remembering.
He remembered his own first hunt, dashing through the forest at his mother’s heels, howling with the joy and the pure freedom of it. He remembered catching a deer, just a small doe, but he’d brought it back for the feast and Laura had ruffled his hair and his mother had hugged him close and told him how proud she was.
Isaac’s breath had gone truly slow and even, but he wasn’t asleep. He was listening to every word Derek said, drinking them in as though he could borrow from them the feeling of having a true family, a true pack and secret it away in his heart. Derek ached to give him more than just memories, to give him the real thing, but words were all he had.
“Then we had a bonfire,” he continued, his voice softening further until it was just a low murmur whispered in Isaac’s ear. “A huge one, big enough to last all night. And we all camped out next to it, curled up together like this in a big heap, drawing on each other’s warmth and strength.”
“Will you take us on our first hunt?” Isaac asked. “It’ll be the Harvest Moon next month. We’ll… we’ll have Erica and Boyd back by then. And maybe we could convince Scott to join us. We could hunt and feast and-” he broke off, biting his lip in embarrassed uncertainty, like he wasn’t sure if he had any right to participate such a personal ritual.
Derek’s heart twisted. He’d never led a hunt, and he’d never expected to. He’d never expected to be alpha, content to always follow his mother’s footsteps, and then Laura’s. He wished they were there, wished that Isaac could know the security and strength of following a real alpha. Derek wasn’t sure he could ever be that for Isaac, but suddenly he wanted to more than ever.
“I’d like that,” Derek answered quietly, sincerely. “There’s so much I haven’t taught you yet. If we find Erica and Boyd I’ll-”
“When,” Isaac interjected, “when we find them.”
“Yeah.” Derek tightened his arm around Isaac, as though Isaac might at any moment slip away from him like everyone else had. “When we find them, I’ll teach you everything.” It was a promise to himself as much as it was to Isaac.
“Good.” Isaac shifted, his body settling deeper into the bed as he clutched the sheet around him. Neither of them said anything more, and a few minutes later Isaac fell asleep, his body a solid line of warmth from Derek’s chest to his thighs.
Derek lay awake for a while longer, holding Isaac close in the glow of the moon. For just a little while, in the dark and quiet of the night, he let himself make plans for the future. He let himself imagine taking his betas on their first hunt, dream of flopping down beside a bonfire with them. He fantasized about watching them finish growing up, find mates, start families. He let himself picture the pack growing, strengthening, until his life was a bright and full of life again.
*****
When Derek woke Isaac was gone and the bed was cold. Harsh sunlight glared in through the windows he’d never bothered to get curtains for, and the ache of loneliness had settled back into his heart.