𝗧𝗔𝗦𝗧𝗘 𝗢𝗙 𝗬𝗢𝗨 ── 𝘚.𝘚𝘛𝘐𝘓𝘐𝘕𝘚𝘒𝘐

♡ 𝗖𝗛𝗔𝗣𝗧𝗘𝗥 𝗘𝗜𝗚𝗛𝗧𝗬-𝗢𝗡𝗘 ♡

♡ 𝙩𝙖𝙨𝙩𝙚 𝙤𝙛 𝙮𝙤𝙪 ♡
𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘱𝘵𝘦𝘳 eighty-one.

angel, he calls me, does he know I'm falling?

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

  "IS SHE GROUNDED?"

The sides of Jim's lips folded upwards as he heard Derek's voice. With an ice pack pressed against the back of his head and a glass of liquor in hand, he focused on everything but the silhouette of the man before him. 

"Grounded?" He huffed, "Til retirement."

Waking up in the nurse's office of a high school wasn't how he expected his day to go. Neither was realizing with a wife still widowed in the eyes of everybody else, his emergency contact was passed on to Derek Hale.

They didn't pester him with too many questions at least. How'd you hit your head? Oh, my daughter is a rolling pin-swinging maniac. Why is your suit stained red? I've been carrying a dead body inside a carpet for the last couple of hours. Who's Derek Hale to you? ... None of your business.

Compulsion was fun.

Almost hearing his thoughts, Derek crossed his arms. "I hope that new trick of yours works well. The school is swarmed with police, some still slightly untrustworthy of me ever since Scott accused me of murder that one time." He paused. "Thanks for helping me out with that, by the way."

They both knew he did no such thing.

James didn't bother to hide his laugh as the werewolf took a seat beside him, gelled hair a certified mess and silver rings lining his fingers barely shining as a hand ruffled through it. "Like you could afford me."

There was a silence neither of them could fill afterward. As the quietness of the nurse's office set in and a reminder of the past few days lay with it, there was a string of words left unsaid. 

"James, why am I your emergency contact?"

A miswriting on his documents. A spur of the moment decision by his younger self. A simple sentiment that may have meant a little more than he imagined. 

Derek had his eyes forced forward, not daring to move his head barely an inch in the vampire's direction. "If it means nothing, tell me. Don't make me believe there's something if there isn't."

There was something. An unwritten tragedy, perhaps. James watched a seashell in the form of his wife wash up in his life years before - only to see her fizzle out into seafoam that became too tiring to swim in. If that could happen with Marilyn, the mother of his child and the proclaimed love of his life, who's to say he and Derek ever had a chance?