“Something happened,” He says, and a coffee shop really wasn’t an ideal setting to bleed amber eyes like that, but Stiles does it anyway; something solemn lining his mouth. “Something bad.”
It wasn’t like Derek hadn’t known. The coffee shop had reeked like something recently turned, bred with the tension of anxiety. Intermingled with Stiles; it was a dangerous concoction. It was more-so wistful thinking on his part that what was striking him in the face wasn’t actually true. A faux-pas. A fluke.
The message is clear, but Stiles was speaking anyway, eyes closed because he knows what they look like - could read it off Derek’s face.
“You can’t.”
“Stiles -” Derek starts, because it’s Stiles. But the boy shakes his head fiercely, his jaw a hard-line of pure clench.
“No. You don’t do that to them. Not because of me.”
And in his head, Derek could see it. The foolish child in red, touching trees as he makes his way along the path, and the wolf drenched in ink to bleed away into the night happening upon him. Just one quick punch of the teeth, and it’s done. Did Stiles scream? There’s another question dangling at the back of his head, but he knows the answer.
Despite his better effort, Stiles would go if they called. One Alpha calling is one thing. A whole pack of them is another. Derek’s own eyes react to the idea, face slack in a nonplussed expression, and he has to close them. So he doesn’t think, so he doesn’t look at Stiles; so he doesn’t give away his birth-nature to anyone moving around the cafe. The words fade into his mind as if they’ve been said to him aloud, white chicken scrawl on black. It’s an enticement, and a threat:
Kill them. Join us.
Or he’s ours.
