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Derek stared after Stiles with a swirl of anxiety in his gut. Stiles was hurt, in a way he couldn’t help because he was walking away. He wanted to rush after him, to stop him somehow, to tell him how much he *did* care about him, but instead he just stood there. Not moving.
“Derek?” Isaac finally said, clearing his throat, and Derek broke out of his daze, turning to the boy.
“What?” he asked.
“We… we aren’t going to stay here anymore, are we?” Isaac asked as his hands fiddled with the edge of his shirt. “It’s just, if they can find us so easily, but we don’t even know where they’re living, maybe we shouldn’t be so easy to attack a second time?”
“He has a point,” Erica said, struggling to stand. “Can we maybe move?”
“Erica and I have our own homes,” Vernon said as he helped Erica up. “Do you think they’d come there to cause trouble?”
Right, the Alpha Pack. Deucalion. Derek had to do something about them. Looking around at the damage they’d already done to the train station, he figured he may as well get himself a real place to live. Somewhere open enough they could train maybe? Quiet enough that people wouldn’t bother them. He had a few ideas.
“Yeah,” he said with a nod, returning to Erica and leaching some of her pain. It helped shift the focus of the wounds to him, so she would heal properly. “I know a few places to look into.” His hand reached to Vernon and he leached some of his pain as well. The blood lost all blackness and both of them gave him a small smile.
“Thanks,” Erica said. Derek nodded and moved over to Isaac.
“I’m fine,” Isaac said. Derek raised his eyebrows at the boy, who finally looked down and sighed. “Okay, I’m not fine, but I will be.”
“You’re bleeding black,” Derek said as he reached for Isaac.
“So are you,” Isaac returned. Derek looked down at his chest and shrugged.
“I’m the Alpha, I’ll be fine,” he said instantly. He didn’t matter as much as the others. It was his job to take care of them, to make sure they were able to heal. His wounds would eventually clear out so he touched Isaac and pulled until he was bleeding red.
“Thanks,” Isaac mumbled.
“Sure. I have to find a new place for us, but they said they’d give me a week so let’s meet here again tomorrow as usual.” Derek looked Erica and Vernon over and when he knew they were mostly healed up he pointed at the train. “You two should get cleaned up and back home. Don’t forget what you were asked to do, and I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Okay,” Erica said but before she move away she looked Derek up and down. “Are you two going to be okay?” she asked.
“Who? Me and Stiles?” Derek asked. At her nod, he shrugged. “I’m sure we’ll be fine, it’s just a little argument, even if I don’t know what his problem was.” Stiles was so frustrating, and not knowing what was going on with him just made Derek crazy.
“Really?” Isaac lifted his eyebrows. “You don’t know what his problem is?”
“What?” Derek breathed. “You do?”
“Well, yeah. You two are dating, so obviously he wants you to take a look at him, be worried about him and like, I don’t know, kiss his wounds or something. It’s a support thing.”
“Huh?” Derek was baffled.
“Derek,” Erica rolled her eyes. “He came here to ask you out on a date. That means you did well last time, so he wants more of it. That means you’re important to him and he wants to be important to you. The way you were acting…” she trailed off as Derek growled at her.
“You were acting like we were more important to you than he was and he’s only human, so he can’t heal like we can. He wanted you to be worried about him,” Isaac said quickly.
“I *was* worried about him!” Derek snapped, feeling a combination of shame and unease.
“You didn’t really act like you were,” Vernon said softly, coming out of the train dressed in clean clothes.
“You should apologize to him and like, grovel for a few moments,” Erica suggested. Then she went into the train herself.
“I’m not groveling,” Derek muttered, but he worried that she might be right, and somehow he had given Stiles the impression that he didn’t care about him. He did care about Stiles, Stiles was important.
“Okay, but apologize,” Isaac said, walking into his train and not saying another word.
Derek couldn’t imagine why he would have to do that. Only… he could too. He’d kind of brushed Stiles off because he had been overly flustered over the idea that Stiles was his mate. Deucalion said it like it was a common thing, something he should obviously know, but it was rare that mates happened at all, and exceedingly rare that it happened between a were and a human. In fact, Derek didn’t know if he’d ever heard of that happening at all.
He stood there as his betas slowly left him, just staring out at the rubble around him. Surely it wasn’t true. Even if it was true, surely he wasn’t expected to treat Stiles as his mate, not now, not when Stiles didn’t even know what that could mean to him. No, no, he’d go see the boy, he’d make sure he was okay, but he wasn’t going to talk about the mate thing. Not at all.