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The limp head cradled within slim, bewildered fingers was beginning to grow cold despite the warm tears falling on its ghostly melted skin; perhaps blindfolded love could only go so far.
Derek never lost his self-sacrificing stunt, therefore some responsibilities were piercing on his back and shoulders, engulfing the man in a frame of burned shedding pushed far to the side of the Nemeton’s base; peculiar as the moment could be, Stiles had got called there by Scott, “emergency!” he had screamed through the phone, making the other run on the darkening forest’s leaves till the scene was already done and shot.
A burned body was lifelessly resting on the cold ground, fuming in strokes of a pale shade contrasting with the night above; it received gasped breaths and quietly descending tears. Stiles owned all and more, with erratic lungs and sweaty forehead despite the breeze mixed with the evanescent warmth of the body amber eyes couldn’t help but stare at.
Eyes weighted on the man’s figure from afar, wondering where he had gone as his head almost snapped off its neck in a painful search for someone similar to the face he was dreading to see; no one seemed to fit the description, which was when he realized where his person of interest was, feeling a surging motion commanding his body to get closer to him.
Knees gave in toward the man while everyone stood in motionless despair, mute horror and dismay in hearts so far away from a home they never knew was theirs; wailing through the steps separating them, Stiles was ashamed of the embarrassment born at seeing the other’s body, remained without a shred of cover from the cold as he fell by his side.
Being so close to him was an old tradition but fearing to touch his skin was new; fingers hovering above burned flesh and cracking bones, eyes unable to understand why he was unmovable when a tender fingertip touched a boiling cheek and provoked no reaction. A need so primal awakened within him, to cradle the body in his embrace.
So, hands grabbed and pulled ever so slightly without a malicious intention in the motion, finally cradling the head in a warm lap the man could not feel nor see through his burned out eyeballs; grotesque and medieval, resembling the ancient punishment for the toughest of crimes, the spent wolf didn’t deserve any of it.
There was no reason for him to be in such condition, with such scars and injuries everyone avoided looking as they stood motionless outside his field of view. He wondered, if not doubted, if his presence could’ve been a significant change in the outcome of the events; if he could’ve saved him from being so unpleasantly looking and dead.
Skin blended in a knot of fishnet blisters, flesh liquefying at sight pouring on the ground beneath, staining the boy’s lap who soon began to whimper in choked remorse; words would mean nothing now if no one would be there to catch them, feelings would never bring him back even if he tried bargaining with the devil himself.
Furthermore, people’s eyes never held the weight of the man’s disfiguration not out of pride nor shame; they flatly muttered their pain while being unable to understand Stiles’ own, who seemed to be wanted to be left alone, mourning his closed companion only with the trees and the memories of him surrounding his senses.
Therefore, everyone around him began to move away, shying slightly and slowly in the depths of the forest to let the dead rest in peace, sobbing their loss in the quiet of their houses when they arrived at their own front doors, while Stiles remained as intended and so did Eli, a figure the grieving guy wasn’t aware of.
With a throbbing sheer will to repair the damage, Stiles’ hands kept hold of the other’s head while washing the skin with damning tears the boy couldn’t hold back, especially when ears understood everyone was gone to ensure he could mourn alone the loss of the man he didn’t know yet was the reason he came back.
Nothing mattered to Stiles, he had to admit when Scott called. However, the second that choking name passed through the speaker a mountain moved and seas opened for him to reach him; he should’ve said something about their dancing, their ‘patching up wounds’ moments, their conjoined eyes that seemingly everyone noticed. Perhaps, he could’ve done something to help him, to prevent such a tragedy from striking its end.
Although, a maddening and drilling motive chimed in his heart to react, to solve what his eyes couldn't withstand to hold. Meanwhile, Eli remained silent, whimpering in the distance with hands and knees deep in the mud, contemplating what the newcomer was doing with his father, feeling a bond to the guy who howled the pain like a wolf.
Eli could see him from afar, beginning to stand with great effort and painful expression, trying to regain some type of balance before he fell back on the ground and he tried to do the same, being able to accomplish what Stiles seemingly couldn’t at first but began to succeed in at last.
Coming back to a frantic action and surging upward, Stiles stood while maintaining the man’s beloved head in his burning and crimson painted fingers, hiding the trembling demeanor they couldn’t seem to stop, trying to pursue a dead body to follow along; arms locked under armpits then began to pull, it seemed a bull doing hard work on a field of crashed tulips.
Although being gentle as much as fate allowed, Stiles dragged Derek to the Nemeton. Hope was the tree being capable of mercy, or pity, or some sort of proud feeling for his sacrificing action, or even so able to understand a lone lover who never got to wear his heart on a sleeve or to bet the all-in with his feelings.
But the tree was with no sign of power, unaffected by Stiles’ desperate actions to bring a loved one back to life with any means necessary, and the body showed no interest in cooperating, letting the boy pull and tag him in a futile attempt to get any sort of reaction, even the slightest, out of the situation.
Soon though, he found out the body was skinned of most flesh, leaving it behind on the ground in a manslaughter of a scene, painting the leaves in red and allowing some chunks of meat to be eaten by the crows; bones seemed to remain, connected with tendons and ligaments, muscles which endured the fire.
Stiles felt bile rise, although pushed it down in favor of a quicker course of movement soon allowed by the moment he picked up Derek’s body, ever so slightly recognizable it could’ve been his father or the little boy whom he hadn't noticed, and cradled it in his arms the way a husband would his beloved; he placed him on that damned tree and dropped to broken knees, hands gathered in prayers and eyes chained to the man’s featureless face.
"Please," he begged in a silent choir only his voice participated in, “give him back to me…”
No reaction came from no one or anything around him, although eyes persisted in adjusting to the night to see more of their surroundings, in which he still hadn’t noticed Eli. Stiles bargained with the air, screamed at the sky for a brief moment of compassion life didn’t allow him to have.
“I should’ve stayed…” He quietly muttered in clenched fists and burning eyes, taking hold of the bone hand laying in front of him, shaking life into it with no result, always with no result whatsoever; perhaps he felt guilty, surely he did, for leaving everyone behind, for abandoning Derek in a place that was never kind to him.
“I’m begging you!”
Fists hit the cut tree with greeted teeth and shut eyes unclogging tears to leave in favor of something more akin to their past, even if painful as such, yet still better than a dead body staring aimlessly at nothing.
No fireflies yet gifted him an ounce of hope, nor a glimpse of fate’s mysterious doing. He cried, sobbed and fisted the wood absorbing the tears meant for his beloved, while the decaying body deemed fit to allow burning eyes a more intense pain when the smoke ceased to come, when the breeze was gone; the man got cold quickly under the undying indifference of the night and more tears came.
It seemed an useless action even to him, a desperate attempt to solve a situation impossible to remedy. Eli watched from afar, hidden in the shadow standing with weak knees as the man began to be defeated, quieting unfazed eyes, calming an arching back with lungs pawing less and less.
Therefore, the hope Stiles’ heart had held onto this far began to crumble, breaking his heart as tears stopped wetting cold skin; at least they both had the freezing attitude in common, with flesh being bit by the stinging icy wind, even if one more than the other. Eli witnessed the undoing of a man, who did not stop fighting silently even in the face of such events.
Slowly, Stiles stood once more with eyes unmovable from the man’s silhouette, imprinting solidly in his memory the burned flesh and the thin frame, the claws and fangs persisting, the heart he could begin to see through the thin skin still over his chest; after, he walked away in an incomprehensible strength, with a high chin even the moon couldn’t comprehend.
What could lend him such a strong facade, Eli didn’t know.
Despite the non existing answer the moon could make for the little boy, Stiles remained on his feet and finally noticed someone nearby as he looked around in lost motions, catching more or less a teenager in the shadows as he stood there unknowingly persisting in his stay. He got closer to him even if small growls and trembling hands asked him to go away, while he backed in a corner of the round forest.
Stiles had a questioning look behind the stone wall expression he gave the young boy, who stopped once the other kneeled once more that night, this time to allow his words to reach a more lending pair of listening ears.
“Who are you?”
The question was surreal to Eli, who had decided to not fear him and stopped backing away when he felt a pull telling him to choose the young man who seemed to have known his dad; wonders arrived then, doubting how the pull could be real if Stiles didn’t know who he was, but after all he had never seen him either.
“Eli…”
It seemed to be welcomed as an answer, especially so given the wide pupils Eli could catch regardless of the black night; Stiles could have predicted hundreds of scenarios, but Derek Hale having a son and naming him after his late grandfather was not on any bingo card he got for Christmas.
However, a gentle hand still decided to offer its help to the little boy who accepted it without much of a reluctant act; perhaps Eli knew him, Stiles thought, maybe Derek had told his son about him while he was gone.
Therefore, they got back on their feet, Eli clinging to Stiles’ arm as his vision offered him a vivid look of his father’s body, which the man soon hid with a hand covering the younger’s eyes; through the forest, no words got exchanged and neither asked what to do next. The two of them didn’t know how they ended up at the new Hale house the Stilinski had never seen before.
Jeep parked in the drive away as if meant to have a place there, they went in and Stiles inspected with a candid heart how Derek’s son reminded him of their younger selves, when love was something they never expressed well. Something he always thought never flew the same direction for both.
He had most of Stiles’ features for a reason the man himself couldn't understand, but his eyes were Derek’s, so were his last name and the first tragedy of the boy’s life; it seemed a circle never meant to break, one the new ‘man of the house’ wasn’t fully aware of participating in.
Besides, Stiles still saw Derek in the kid with bowing eyes and a low back, knowing the roaring existence of his deceased partner was within the boy’s blood; he gazed at him for a long time, pondering what he should say to him to comfort him in some way he could still handle without falling apart.
Although, when Eli answered his question “do you have someone to stay with?” with a flat and low “no,” Stiles understood.
If fate had played any part in their lives, especially his and Derek’s, perhaps it was a sign, even if insulting, that their love would have never been a one side thing or a passing moment of weakness that would’ve disappeared with time; it was real, Stiles understood when Eli sat by his side on the sofa without a word being said about it, it was the only fragment of their supposed love left to nourish.
Stiles knew then, with the kid by his side, what he’d do, what he had been brought there to do: he was going to take care of Derek’s son, Eli. He was going to nurture the boy who seemed to be their unspoken love’s child.
So, he stayed in the old and haunted Beacon Hills for years to come, giving up on the FBI internship to raise Eli in a way Derek would be proud, tending to his needs and growing closer to him until the boy started calling him Pa almost a year into their new shared life set in the house of the man and father they grieved for a long time…
At the beginning, things were rough.
Eli was a newly awakened wolf with little to no help if not Scott’s when he was available, while Stiles had picked up Derek’s mechanic shop down the road and began learning the basics; both had a strange time with the other, the man trying to understand the boy wasn’t just a fragment of his unclaimed lover, while the wolf tried to pin together how to go along with the human, who seemed to be his clone with a few more years around his eyes.
The house was a mess most days, Stiles coming home so late at night his father wondered where his kind heart would lead him, while Eli was a sporadic presence, one who enjoyed the time he got to spend with the new man in the house, even when they both struggled to accomplish some chores; it was a fight each time, discussing who’s turn it was without denying the responsibility of having it done.
Besides all though, they got along well, like most father and son who had no blood between them but clicked regardless would, much like a movie the boy had seen a while back with his dad on the couch, sniffing the truth in the connection Derek had with someone Eli was yet not aware of; it still remained one of his most favorite memories with his father.
But not everything could go forward in one straight line.
Seemingly without a scheduled turn, one of them would remember Derek at any given chance throughout the day, with a solicitation or not, with a reason or without; for Stiles it translated in staring mindlessly to the ceiling, with hands motionless on his lap as if in waiting for a head full of black hair to be scratched, while for Eli it was more the locked door of his room, a reckless drive around town or an undying disk of music his father loved.
Both grieved the man in each version they’ve known of him. Stiles knew a young Derek, a guy with a sacrificing stunt ready to go and a golden heart he had loved from afar; Eli knew his father, a man of strict reason but of a kind and gentle demeanor despite his broad shoulders and the status that followed him everywhere given their last name.
Neither knew how to console the other. Stiles could only dare so much; trying to get Eli to talk to him while listening to his muffled cries through a shut door, or even giving a chance to hugs when the boy had called him Pa, which was a start itself.
Although he never wanted to be in the boys’ place, suffering the loss of a father he still hadn’t had a full chance to know. He could never tend to the lost eyes gazing at the TV, or the slow walking he sometimes had when they went out on a walk in the park, simply to release some pressure.
They’d walk silently after dinner, going down streets Eli knew by heart since Derek would thoughtfully go about them whenever something was beating down his heart, although the kid would never know what was the reason behind that; he always thought his father had a problem with him, but Stiles kept reassuring it would never be the case with the old wolf.
Therefore, Stiles seemed to understand, slightly so, what the boy was going through with how he spoke of loss as if something he had known from his younger years; Eli didn’t know about his mother, what illness had taken her away. However, the man was undyingly firm on being able to help the kid.
But the boy had no way to understand what the new figure in his life was going through…
Stiles had lost a lover he never had to begin with.
Stiles lost someone he wanted more than life itself, and what did it get him? To get away from him to allow him a happy life, only resulted in the end of that same wish.
Which was why there were nights when the ceiling of Derek’s bedroom was heavy as he slept on his bed, with a spinning head while blood would rush to his brain in a poorly executed plan of revival, producing just a sweaty forehead and tears he couldn’t wipe away anyhow, merged and forged in the pale skin of a lone, defeated lover.
He’d stay alone in the room even if Eli would sporadically knock on the door to get him to open his heart to him, but the man would not do anything about it, just shushing the boy to go to sleep and that he would be fine by the next morning, when they would wake up and make breakfast together without much of a second thought about the previous night.
“It’s fine, Eli.”
He’d say that with a spent voice and fists clenching the shirt found in Derek’s wardrobe and religiously smelling of him, in which he’d sleep every night, either with a comforting feeling or a devastating one. When there were nights in which he’d sob in the pillow, something would break more and more within him, a sign he could never stop from coming.
It made him wail as he persistently tried to keep it quiet, unable to do so each time he tried. Most mornings after, he’d have puffy eyes and a thigh smile, and the boy would hug him with strength hiding his face in the man’s chest; it made him feel better to have Derek’s son so close to him.
Although he didn’t know the motive behind the action was that Eli heard his cries most nights, never shutting them away.
The man sleeping in his father’s room had a shattering heart made of thick glass, but he was a person his father looked up to from afar; he wouldn’t have narrated to him so many stories in which he was involved, during some of which he even saved his father’s life or when he played hero without knowing.
The man was a good one, one his father had a soft spot for. He knew, how could he miss his old dad going to the sheriff’s station and working with him partially just so he could hear something about the mystery guy sent away to his internship at the FBI?
However, both Eli and Stiles were tied to Derek Hale in a way or another, therefore growing closer came easily when instead of suppressing their memories of the late man, they shared them with the other, forging the connection that made Eli feel at home in a house where his father was gone, while it turned Stiles into a man resembling the one he loved.
But.
Life had other plans for the new dad and son in town, more so for Stiles Stilinski, unlicensed mechanic as he was, who was working an out-of-plan night shift to finish a load of work on an old Camaro.
He admitted once to Eli, whenever such a car would show up at the shop for any type of repair, he’d stare at it relentlessly as if it could magically share something he wished could be true, but they both knew nothing would ever come out of an engine if not old oil and a few broken pistons.
Still, Stiles didn’t care.
Legs would make him circle around the cars, hands endlessly trying to clean off dry motor oil, eyes unable to look elsewhere, with a more toned body thanks to the hard work reflecting in the car’s body; no matter color, year, model, or horsepower, each car would get the same treatment just for a glimpse of him.
Him driving that fearless piece of machinery through the depths of the night as if in battle with a tank, revving the engine and giving away his position without fear of being caught, maybe wanting to; Stiles remembered him well, he once admitted to himself but not Eli, he remembered the way their eyes locked when Derek would pass by his house in silence and he, from his window, would catch his sourwolf’s shining stare through the blackout glass of the car.
The strongest memory of that kind never faded in the slightest: Derek parking his car one night, without any previous notice, and going into his house through the window as if too complicated to knock on the door.
“Why are you here?”
Stiles couldn’t keep the question at bay. Derek had come to him, finally, but the reason was still uncertain hanging in the air, in which neither wanted to speak to allow a feeling to be born; perhaps they were the reason their hearts never felt completed.
“You know why…”
Even in his memory, old and rusty but working and shining, the answer was surreal… He could never know, he told himself time and time over, why Derek was there; he never understood it then, he never understood it now. Maybe, he kept wondering sporadically in the mechanic shop he was claiming as his, maybe he loved him back, but of that he could never have any confirmation.
Therefore, even that night when Derek sat on his bed and Stiles stood in front of him at hand-reach with crossed arms, tension thick in the air he could cut it with a knife, neither said a word and just stared with a lost and passionate gaze in the other’s eyes, perhaps wondering who would make the first move.
Which Stiles obliged only once, barely so.
“Tell me, Derek…”
It seemed a plea, a beg and a prayer. He wanted to hear it, to know it was real and it wasn’t a fool’s game of pretending to be; Stiles needed him to say it, even twisted in the Hale’s way of speaking feelings, but he craved it deeply. If he didn’t have it, he knew he could never be the first to spill his heart’s ache.
Derek aimed the thin frame, the perky ears and the sneaking eyes, wondering for an instance if Stiles was aware of the way he looked at him, how he couldn't help but plant his vision fully on him whenever he wasn’t looking; wondering if he could risk it though, unease washed over him and the most annoying remark hit the boy’s heart.
“What do you want to hear, Stiles?”
The words felt bitter on his own tongue; he could only imagine how they must’ve hurt Stiles in hearing them. The boy was standing in front of him, Derek was capable of manhandling his hips to sit on his lap, but he didn’t do anything of sorts, somehow preferring to hide in plain sight, thinking and knowing perhaps the other didn’t feel the same.
However Stiles, despite the pain throbbing in his chest and the desire to slap the man for then kiss away the pain, just eyed the features of the person he loved and took a step closer, obliging ever so much to take the reins the other seemingly refused to hold; the wolf wanted nothing more than to have the other as his, but he never acted on the feeling.
Derek, in fact, always played a game with him, going around in circles as if the answer was running away from them and wasn’t the center of said spiral; Stiles, although, never complied and went along whenever he could, which wasn’t the last time he saw his beloved that night, before Quantico would be his home the next day.
“Stop playing!” He shouted back then, with fists crossed on his chest and eyes beginning to shake with fear; he questioned his actions, if they compelled a mistake. But Derek didn’t respond.
From his perfectly made bed, then creased with the man’s weight, no reaction came. But due to the dark of the room Stiles didn’t catch the way shoulders snapped together, eyes got slightly watered, fists hid behind back and mouth had begun to open, perhaps to oblige back, to comply and share what their tango was really about.
But he didn’t. Nothing came out sewed lips, witnessing tears coming down Stiles’ cheeks; he wanted to wipe them away, to beg his forgiveness and kiss the salt away from his skin, but he did nothing of it. He just played the part he couldn't seem to shake off no matter how much sorrow it caused.
Standing, almost pushing Stiles away as he cried silently without any wailing or intense sobbing, Derek stared at him for a long moment, knowing the other could never feel anything close to care for him after that night; down the stairs outside the boy’s bedroom, he had let fingers run across the wall with eyes low to the ground.
The man, as stoic as he had always been even as he disappeared without Stiles’ gaze lingering on him, went away that same night to never be seen again.
Stiles, as he remembered everything while bent over a Camaro’s engine, regretted the way he had handled the situation, but spoke or thought no ill of it; with a quiet huff in the night at the memory going back in the archive, he reached a tool and cradled it in his hands, cold and slick.
The weight of it felt unbearable, akin to the head he had once in his lap, cold the same way burning flesh had once felt; the car was a suffocating sight, one he had learned to love in its disgustingly choking design which Stiles never stopped admiring. It reminded him of Derek, everything always felt that way.
As most nights anyway, it was all going fine despite whatever feeling was weighing him down.
Besides, work kept him busy and distracted from the few glimpses of him he could catch around in surprising places, allowing him to push through to ensure Eli had food to eat and someone sleeping in the house with him; he wanted to do so much for that kid, and he even slowly began to feel the boy as his.
However life wanted to show him something more.
That night, at the garage Derek seemingly allowed him to have, a shadow blurred in the darkness approached the metal shutter and caught his eye for a split instance, neck turning in a thundering snap echoing in the silence of the place. He discharged the tool, the towel cleaning his hands, the care for the kid, the memories he could not seem to rewind.
He said nothing, as per FBI training, and went towards the shadow who jogged away from him, ultimately luring him outside the garage and into its parking space; the dim light of moon and street lamps was thin and casted a pale bluish aura to whatever was beneath it, making darker colors appear as void of infinite depths.
Standing there, a huffed breath formed a shaky cloud in front of his mouth, hands running along arms to warm up the skin which soon adapted to the temperature; scanning the area, the creature seemed to have vanished, but the second he was about to head back in something caught his attention.
Slender figure, on all fours perhaps, standing with a high chin and a fierce look in its head placement, patiently waiting for Stiles to follow, or so he thought as he walked towards it and the creature started jogging away towards the forest behind the garage. The Preserve had always been a close reminder for the man, especially having it so close to his workplace, almost laying on his shoulders a tender hand imprinting Derek’s tattoo on his skin.
However, he did as asked and followed suit the trotting animal at a distance, entering the woods and letting eyes search for predators or dangers, just in case he was having a fever dream so vivid it brought him this far out the garage. Besides, the animal was calm and serene, never checking as if knowing Stiles would never stop following.
In less than five minutes, perhaps some more, the two explorers reached the center of the Preserve and its massive beauty was admirable even with the oppressive weight of the night.
Stiles had lost sight of the creature by then, not caring much though given how far and plain the land was.
Around him a bed of charcoal grass was wet with the night’s temperature, trees far and sleeping uncaring of their visitor, while behind his back a tall stone wall projected a shadow on him, a cubical of darkness he had never really left since that terrible day; it seemed to be sculpted by nature’s will to appear as a high pinnacle of leadership, a stand on which only a leader could stand at about two and a half meters from the ground.
A muttered sound got stopped from being expressed, sealing lips as the moon glowed in crystal light above that same stone that gaped throats and choked necks; Stiles restrained himself from making something akin to a mistake, therefore composure needed to be somehow immaculate.
Furthermore so far, no words escaped trained lips, impossibly close in the shivering manner of teeth, eyes on alert in a frenetic hunting; he missed for a painful moment the guidance that creature provided him, something he had yearned for so long that he craved it more than the balance of heart and mind itself.
But the area was spotless of life, a dead corner of the lively forest which had taken away his almost lover, therefore waiting for something to happen became a must; he trusted he was there for a reason, following the same belief who brought him to be a father to a son who seemed to resemble him without any trace of shared blood.
Then, as he spun around once more, his side to the stone, a shadow emerged from the greenery within craved paths feet had made, stealing his eyes as the creature was apparently back and commanding Stiles’ vision to pass from the silhouette to the owner of it. His head turned slowly, methodically sectioning each muscle movement until he saw it.
A wolf stood on the rock, high above him in judgment, a trail he didn’t know he had to take. Its puffed chest expanded and retrieved with each breath, smoky out its nostrils; pitch black and visible just as the moon enlightened its coat in shades of paler colors, the animal was still as if embalmed and put on display for passersby.
“What-”
The sentence got cut when the wolf hammered the rock with a drilling paw, one singular sound echoing in the forest beneath its claws; Stiles remained silent, pondering whether he should run or wait for something to be revealed. He opted for the second option, writing a reminder to ask forgiveness for coming home late to Eli, who he knew was waiting for him.
Thoughts of the boy then soon ambushed his mind, eyes going blurry for an instance he couldn't control, unable to see how reality shifted in the landscape he seemed such an intruder within. The wolf simply tilted its head, almost knowing the memories coming from the man; perhaps it understood how lost the man was in thinking the boy at home wouldn’t see him coming back.
Therefore, the creature jumped off the pinnacle of its presence, calling the man’s attention to itself and disappearing into the shadow of the rock in front of Stiles, who rightfully took a few steps back as he snapped back to reality while positioning his arms in a protective stance, ready for any outcome of the situation; but the wolf just slowly placed a paw in front of another and pushed him back without touching him, floating out the darkness which seemed its home.
Stiles expressed nothing of his emotions. Not his distress or fear, not his desire to go back home and make sure Eli was fine, not his immense hope for something he didn’t quite understand why would be in his chest.
But out of nowhere, as if planned in scripts he missed to check, the creature had him backed against a tree, its snout close to his stomach until the creature pressed it into his skin and made him fall, becoming then face to face with the animal; Stiles thought a million things, yet none stuck in his head.
Besides, the surprises weren’t over.
The wolf locked their eyes together, Stiles let out no sound nor movement; perhaps the creature meant him no harm.
Surely he was right, he knew so when he had thought the creature would never mean him any sorrow in such a peculiar scheme of circumstances; he would already be dead if the wolf wanted him to. But the creature of weightless color remained still, calmly so in front of him.
He even felt safe in its presence; the sensation was being ruled simply by the wolf undying look in his own amber eyes, almost begging the man to recognize something he still had to see and reconnect to his life. Perhaps, the wolf knew him somehow.
And once more that night, he found himself being right.
Because the creature showed him blue irises made of colored glass, a deep ultramarine which Stiles would recognize anywhere at any given instance of his life; a hand snapped to life, fingers wanting to untangle the coat of the animal, to caress its head and scratch between his ears.
But then those irises turned red, angry and demanding as if spray painted on top of the original shade. The hand fell back in place, not in disappointment but disbelief; it seemed responsibilities were hammered in the creature’s shoulders.
He knew by then finally, deep within his heart, that his prayers, begs, pleas even, had been answered by some force he could never fully thank.
Perhaps, it was his chance to change, to allow him and Eli to do better next time because Stiles understood in the instance the wolf remained still with reddish eyes, why everything seemed to be happening for a reason.
Reason being the wolf was Derek.