Corrigan presses his lips together hard, swallowing back the impulse to snap back at Kurt, wanting to ask incredulously: Do you really think I'd do something like that? They're scared, they're hurt, they're not thinking clearly. He'd rather they be honest, as painful as it is, than bury everything they're feeling deep down, like they had at the beginning. Corrigan's worked too hard to build the tenuous trust, he's not about to break it by being thoughtless.

So instead he focuses on washing off all the blood he can, watching the water grow pinkish from how much there is. He takes over the grip on the wound, grip firm, pressing down on the wound. "Miles is the best sort of liar," he begins, slowly. "Because he takes a tiny fragment of truth and twists it into something he can use as a weapon."

Exhaling slowly, Corrigan meets Kurt's eyes, his own soft, solemn. "You're our first true mate. The first one where we all felt it, where we knew it was right from the very beginning. But we did try, once before, to make that connection. It didn't work." Before they can get upset, before they can spiral, he adds: "We tried with Benji, when he first joined the pack. It was -- incredibly painful for him, feeling like he was a failure, like he wasn't good enough. When you joined us, you already felt that way. We didn't want to make it worse."

He lets it linger in the air, then, softer: "Does that make sense? Why I didn't tell you everything right away?"