This City (love me then leave me alone)

Song: This City - Sam Fischer

A study on the relationship of Derek Hale and the city of Beacon Hills.

I know Beacon Hills is technically a town, but I'm taking a poetic license and calling it a city here.

Song lyrics are in bold.

"This city's gonna break my heart. She's always gonna break your heart."

I've been seeing lonely people in crowded rooms

Covering their old heartbreaks with new tattoos

He always feel raw after the pack's meetings. Vulnerable like an open wound, flesh and bones exposed, as if their togetherness was their way to rub in his face how alone he truly is. The silence in his heart echoes over their loud laughter — he thinks he can hear Stiles yelling above Jackson's and Scott's voices, there's even a hint of Lydia's in the background. They are rambunctious, unapologetically chaotic as only this pack can be. As his fir- birth pack was. As he can't bring himself to be anymore.

As he stands there, Derek wonders if he is the only one feeling (miserable) adrift when they're all under the same roof. Covering up the loneliness with smiles as if they were make‐up and painting the edges to make them sharper, to make them look real, pretending that chemistry doesn't make it all moot and that their scents won't give away how they truly feel. For a second, he wonders how much his misery stinks the room, but dismisses in the next moment. He knows. Everybody knows. They're just polite enough not to remark on the obvious. To see beyond the surface of his pain. He is fine with that too, it's why he put a lid after all, (covering) trapping all the hurt beneath the inky curves of the Triskelion, the symbol of his torture and one of the last reminders of what once was the Hale family. Some people got smiles, others got tattoos.

It's all about smokescreens and cigarettes

Looking through low lights at silhouettes

He watches over them in the dark, after they're gone back to their homes. Checking on them in the cover of night, with the barely lit streets and glowing red eyes in the corner where the post light doesn't reach. Spying from afar, observing them greet parents, make a last‐minute snack or engaging their own night rituals. Seeing, hearing them prepare for just another day in this (life) city of lies and masks. Another day to fight monsters and when that's over, battle their own inner demons. Another day of deception, subterfuge and sometimes actual smoke and fire.

But all I see is lonely people in crowded rooms...

This city's gonna break my heart

This city's gonna love then leave me alone

It's the way their music plays. This old dance between Derek and this city. She gives him joy: sixteen years of wolf shenanigans, roughhousing through the house, racing packmates through the preserve, making friends in the basketball team, full moons infused with laughter with the pack... She gives him love: dark hair framing a heartshaped face, mischievous smiling eyes next to a familiar mole, the beautiful notes that leave her cello — Paige... She breathes him life. And later robs all his oxygen, furious hurricane taking all away, and leaving him deserted in the center of the disaster; by himself, in the ashes of his past.

And he should be used to it. The old song — the ballad of Derek Hale and Beacon Hills — doesn't change its melody: it is made of the same notes.The new pack sneaking up on his heart, rooting itself there like a stubborn plant, Isaac, Erica, Boyd, Scott, Stiles, Lydia, Jackson, Alisson... the happiness of embracing the long lost little wolf and feeling the fresh scent of Cora pack!sister!family!home!pack and committing the slight changes to memory... Jennifer, so unlike Kate, soothing the hard edges of his scarred heart (scarred to compensate for the scars that refuse to imprint, to stay, to mar his flesh; stupid healing!)... The feeling that even broken he's got another shot... And the flames the consume them all, devouring the lies, shattering the illusions and leaving him gutted with the naked truth. Once again, Derek is alone in the wake of the catastrophes.

The old adage of their relationship, she's daggering him again and again in a neverending cycle; he is unable to break.

This city got me chasing stars

Beacon is like the ruins of the Hale House. Beacon is his haunted house. Every charred corner and every webbed nook whispers hurt, memories and pain. Full of ghosts upon ghosts. Erica's eyes will never open. Boyd's eyes will forever haunt him and his blood will always stain his claws. Isaac's shadow will never be in the edge of his sight. Laura's innocence still lingers in these walls. Peter's full‐belly laughs echo in the distance. Cora's pranks eliciting exhasperated tells and escalating into a full‐blown pack war. Dad's warm hugs. Mom's kind eyes telling him his new (horrible!shameful!murderous) blue eyes are beautiful. Kate's traitorous smiles, voice whispering sweet nothings (and they really were nothing). And those ghost have faces.

And these are the faces he looks for whenever he gazes at the starry sky. (Except Kate's.)

It's been a couple months since I felt like I'm home

Months away from Beacon, months in Beacon they blur all together and he can't tell anymore where home is.

Am I getting closer to knowing where I belong?

Has She made a decision yet? Will she stop jerking him around, shaking him left and right, loving him one minute and hating in the next? Has Derek found out yet: is She his home?

(or not?)

This city's gonna break my heart

She's always gonna break your heart, oh

I remember mornings when my head didn't hurt

They seem so far away, but there were mornings when Derek's head didn't hurt. Didn't hurt from the heartache. Didn't hurt from the migraines of surviving another horror gore!blood!innards!fear week at Beacon Hills (his mind still reminds him of that time paralyzed in a pool, trapped there by the presence of a murderous scaly‐and-brainwashed Jackson, with only the hope of Stiles' human arms withstanding his dead weight body afloat, keeping him from drowning). Didn't hurt from almost losing another pack again, from endangering them with his every decision, from not saving Erica and Boyd, from pushing Isaac away and losing another beta even when alive. From falling hook, line and sinker time and time again and being ensnared by lying psycho women.

From not succumbing to the agonized screams of his soul.

She wakes up at noon and she's out 'til three

To anyone who doesn't know her well, Beacon seems to be a calm city before noon. Some would say it's because nothing really interesting happens before lunch, or no one happens... Some would say it's because She's full of lazy teenagers who frankly vegetate before lunchtime. But to anyone who truly knows her like Derek does, Beacon is only deceptively dormant at the mornings, stirring at midday and getting lively till the wee hours because her monsters stay up late, lurking in the light of day and springing in the cover of night.

She leaves her perfume all over me

No matter how much he scrub it pink, this city's scent is imprinted in his skin, in his memory, in his dreams and in his loved ones. Laura's scent, even in death, carried a hint of her deathplace. His new pack is saturated in it. He can still feel it miles away. He can never escape her scent.

But I remember mornings where my head didn't hurt

With how pungent and fetid, how deathlike, her scent is some days, it's almost hard to remember a time when it wasn't polluted with tears and pain, when it wasn't such an intrinsic part of it. Almost.

She got a hold on me

She got me wrapped 'round her finger

Her grip is tight, like a leash constricting his throat, stealing his oxygen. Like a leash, it may seem long, it offers an impression of freedom, but miles are but a number and in the end he's always drawn back here. To her. To Beacon Hills, his first home and personal hell. He must be a masochist, no better than an addicted always looking for his fix... and he is attracted to self‐flagellation like a wolf is to the moon. He can't ever escape her.

She got a hold on me

She got me wrapped 'round her finger

This cycle will only break with his death.

This city's gonna break my heart

She's always gonna break your heart

Beacon's always going to break his heart, Derek knows. But till when always is? This answer he doesn't have.

This fic is part of a self-challenge to write 6 Song Fics Till Christmas day, so hopefully I'll post more the next days.

Also, no beta, so any mistakes are mine.

If you enjoy, leave a review.