Just a Kid [Derek Hale]

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Lying down across the sofa, she remained as sprawled out as she could be whilst also being in the most perfect position to go to sleep. Her eyes were slowly drooping every two seconds and she was more than enjoying the peace that came from Talia's nap times. It was a rare moment that was always treated like the grandest luxury you could ever encounter. Derek was sat on the floor with a chessboard sat on the coffee table as he tried to figure out the next moves of everything that Stiles was doing.

"What are you doing?" Peter asked as he looked at both of them. He didn't understand why they were being so casual when there was a psychotic fox running around. "And, more importantly, why aren't you healing?"

"It's from one of their swords. It'll heal," Derek assured, and Peter looking at him confused.

"By playing chess?"

"Well I said sleeping was the way to go, but apparently I'm the only one here who suffers from sleep deprivation," Hayley droned as she held up her hand to bring the attention to herself before she allowed it to drop. She didn't even bother looking at him or opening her eyes as she said it.

"Back in his room, Stiles had a board with my name on one of the pieces. If this is a game to him, then I need to figure out the plays," Derek explained, and Peter pulled his face even further than it was pulled before.

"Not so easy to do when it's a game without rules..."

"What does that mean?"

"Yes, please enlighten us with your old-age wisdom," Hayley added on, finally pushing herself up with a sigh so that she was sat up and could see him through fogged over eyes.

"You're dealing with the kind of spirit that's lived too long to play by human rules. It's a fox spirit that chose to become human-- and supposedly, that's something they can do only after about one hundred years. If a Kitsune is an annoying pain-in-the-ass, then a Nogitsune, which is a dark Kitsune, is a freaking disaster. Besides, chess is Stiles' game. It's not the game of a Japanese Fox. Do yourself a favour and put something on that... before it gets infected," he explained gesturing over to Derek's wounds and he looked down at the wounds before he looked back up watching as Peter took a seat in the kitchen.

"So, what's the plan wolfman?" Hayley drawled as she leant forward resting her chin on Derek's shoulder and peering down at the chessboard. She never understood chess. It was just a mess of pieces that she could never quite work out and for them to be confined to squares with each of them having different abilities... her brain couldn't cover that.

"The plan is, I work this out and you can I don't know... go back to sleep," he mused moving another piece and she rolled her eyes pulling herself up just as she noticed Peter smirking with a coffee in his hands. How was she supposed to go back to sleep when any minute now the baby would start crying and since Derek was busy contributing to saving Stiles she'd have to deal with it. I mean, eventually, she'd give up and give the baby to Derek regardless since Talia still would never stop crying for her. Something which was still so infuriating and she debated whether she should question Peter on it, but she also didn't want to blatantly admit it to anyone. In her own eyes, she shouldn't be worrying about it since there were so many important things that had to be worried about more.

Pushing herself up, she stepped over the mess of Derek and the chessboard to get to the kitchen and she hopped onto a stool beside Peter. "So then old-man, what's the gravy?"

He looked at her confused with his lips tugged into a confused frown, "the what?"

"Well, I may be wrong my memory isn't that great but I believe I said gravy."