To Build a Home

Chapter 22

The true anger didn't start building within Derek until he was alone and staring at a still sniffling Isaac in the corner of the quiet living room, both of them still in their pajamas, stomachs growling in the absence of their usual homemade Saturday chocolate chip pancakes.

"Daddy's mad at me," Isaac began to cry a few seconds after the front door had closed despite having apologized and given his father a goodbye kiss.

"Do you remember what I said the other night? That when grown-ups get stressed they say things they don't mean?" Derek asked, Isaac nodding from his place on the carpet. "Well, sometimes they do things they don't mean, too," Derek found himself explaining as he took his son in his arms and stood up, rocking from foot to foot, his hand rubbing Isaac's back in gentle circles. "Daddy was angry but not at you, baby."

"B-but he y-yelled and I had a t-time-out!" Isaac cried as he held onto Derek like a baby koala, legs tight around his middle and hands gripping his thin blue t-shirt.

"I know, Ize," he said, kissing the child's blonde curls. "Daddy was disappointed in you because you misbehaved, but you apologized and had a time-out, so now he's really just mad about work. He hugged you afterwards and told you how much he loved you, remember?"

"Yeah, b-but I don't know where I putted the keys and he's gonna be mad about that when he gets home!" he sobbed, the shoulder of Derek's shirt becoming wet with tears, snot, and spit.

"Don't worry about the keys right now. We'll find them," he assured Isaac.

"Pwomise?"

"I can't promise that, but I can promise that Daddy isn't really mad at you."

"But he was screamin' and I maded him late!"

"You didn't make him late, Ize. And he was screaming because he's very busy with work right now, not because of anything you did. Trust me, he's much more upset with himself than he is at you."

"At hisself?" Isaac sniffled, confused.

"He's mad because he wants to be able to come to your games but he can't because of work. Just like when I have to go away to do business; I always wish I was home with you and Daddy instead," Derek explained softly, still rocking the child to calm him.

"Daddy's stwessed?"

"Super stressed, but he still shouldn't have yelled like he did. You didn't deserve that, Ize, even for taking his keys."

"Is that why he was gettin' sick? 'Cause he's stwessed?" Isaac asked as he looked up at Derek, concern in his bright blue eyes.

Derek narrowed his eyes at Isaac, ready to tell him that Stiles was fine, but stopped before he could speak. Because Stiles had been wheezing, the whistle audible with every breath, his pale cheeks splattered with the telltale crimson that hallmarked each of his asthma flares. There'd been no buzzing of the nebulizer earlier that morning, not even a five-minute treatment like the ones he did on busy mornings after a rough night where he'd sit on the closed toilet seat with the misting mouthpiece as Derek shaved from the sink. The steam from Derek's showers, Stiles said, helped open him up, and on mornings following nights in which he'd suffered mid-night attacks, the two would hop in together, Derek massaging his husband's aching shoulders that had worked so hard to help him breathe the night before.

"Yeah, baby," Derek said as he took Isaac into the kitchen to make breakfast, sighing as a small pit of worry found its place in his gut. "That's why."

"I made him stwessed and now he's sick!" Isaac began to sob again, Derek having to take a deep breath before approaching the situation for a third time; he hated that he'd been left to deal with the aftermath of that morning, left to handle Isaac emotionally after what was arguably one of the harder moments they'd experienced as a family.