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“You know, you never answered my question,” Derek said, leaning against the frame of the window he had just entered the room through.
It had been a few days since the pool incident and Derek finding out that Stiles is a Siren. Stiles and Scott had since been trying to find out a way to tell whether Lydia or Jackson was the Kanima. He doesn’t know what Derek or his merry band of leather-jacket-wearing beta werewolves had been up to lately, though they were probably doing the same thing he and Scott were doing: Trying to find out who the Kanima was.
“I’m sorry,” Stiles responded, not turning to face the man from his desk where he was currently trying to find any information he could on the Kanima via the internet because the Argent bestiary (that was apparently the flash drive on the key chain Allison gave him to unlock her grandfather’ office) was in archaic Latin or some other kind of Latin and none of them knew how to translate it.
“You never answered my question,” Derek repeated. “I asked if you had a tail and you never answered me. You just blushed, turned around, and walked away.”
“No, I’m sorry you think that my bedroom window -on the second floor of my house- is your own personal Morgan Door. Hell, maybe I should even start calling it the ‘Derek Door’ or, no, maybe I should call it the ‘Werewolf Door’ because you, Scott, and even your betas think that my window is the front door to my home.” Derek had the decency to look slightly ashamed as well as confused as to why any of his betas would come over to the Stilinski house. “I’m also sorry that you, Derek Hale, the most closed off and secretive person I have ever met, thinks it is okay to ask me, a Siren, a supernatural creature of the sea, whether or not I have a tail. Do you know how offensive that could come off to other Sirens or even just other supernaturals in general?” Derek opened his mouth to answer but Stiles cut him off. “No, you don’t, and I know why you don’t because humans, especially hunters, are assholes. Now get it through your thick-ass, emotionally stunted, neanderthal werewolf of a brain that you don’t just ask people shit like that without prompting. Okay?” Derek nodded. “Okay!”
“But yes, in certain circumstances I do happen to have a tail.” This caused a quick flash of a smile on Derek’s face. He of course tried to hide it but Stiles still caught him. “I guess it could, in a way, be considered the full shift of a siren. But, like most of our abilities, it can only be performed in a water environment.”
“If growing a tail is considered a full shift, then what’s the beta shift?”
For the first time Stiles met the guy Derek was actually showing emotions besides anger and sadness. Granted that emotion was curiosity and if any other supernatural creature (especially another Siren) was the one being asked the questions, at least in the way Derek was asking about it, they would have probably thought Derek was a racist asshole -even if most of the Siren population had tails it was still hard to achieve for a good portion of the species. Some even thought that it was another thing lost to their ancestors- and he would have likely been seriously injured and/or dead because of it. It’s kind of like asking werewolves nowadays if they can turn into actual wolves or comparing them to dogs (even accidentally).
“Well, the entire beta shift is our eyes,” Siren eyes are usually a pale green, blue or purple and slit like a cats, “our ears take on a more fin-like quality, our hands and feet become webbed and we grow claws and gills. Typically the gills will be on one's neck but I have heard instances of gills appearing on people’s torsos, and limbs, and even cheeks on occasion. The full shift, which I know is what you’re actually interested in, would include everything I just told you about, except we form tails and our ears become fully like fins, and typically our skin will take on a purple or bluish hue.” the look of concentration on Derek’s face told Stiles that the man was trying to insure he remembered everything he was saying, possibly to write down and keep if he ever needed the information again.
It was adorable.
“If you want I can send you some information on Sirens and other water based supernaturals. It would all be factual, of course, because people tend to have biases against water creatures for some reason. I like to keep that kind of stuff out of my research as much as possible, it never does good for anyone to have biased bullshit in their research.” Derek nodded eagerly in agreement, both to the offer of lore and Stiles’ mini rant on bias.
This was the most animated Stiles had ever seen the alpha. Just sitting here telling the man simple things about Sirens, Stiles was learning more about the man now than he had since he had known him. It was quite fascinating really. Derek was clearly a seeker of knowledge, even if he hid it most of the time, and Stiles eager to provide it.
After giving Stiles his email -and surprisingly his phone number as well- for the siren to send the information too, Derek didn’t bother to stick around much longer. He was clearly trying to be polite about it, slowly gathering what little he had brought with him and slowly inching towards his Derek Door (there was no stopping that name now).
“You know you could just tell me you want to go, right? It’s not like I’m forcing you to stay here,” Stiles told the Werewolf, causing the man to blush ever so slightly at being caught.
Again, adorable.
“I didn’t want to be rude,” the alpha muttered.
“Well by trying not to be rude you were inadvertently being rude. Now go run back to your puppies. And tell them to start using the front door. If you’re not going to the least you could do is have them do it.” Derek rolled eyes at the remark his before moving over to the window and opening it.
Derek paused for a second before turning his head slightly to look at Stiles. “Hey Stiles?”
“Yeah?”
“I’d love to see your shift sometime.” Then Derek left, leaving a gaping and red-faced Siren in his wake.
What Derek had just said was basically the supernatural equivalent to asking someone on a date.
And it was an offer Stiles was very much going to accept.
Eventually anyway.