Sterek One-shots

Guilt.

"Derek? You alright, dude?" Stiles raised an eyebrow, not used to seeing Mr My-only-expression-is-anger look so broken and... defeated was the only other word he could come up with to describe the man stood, frozen in front of him.

"What are you doing here?" Even as Stiles watched, those walls were being rebuilt. He was trying to block Stiles out but Stiles refused to let that happen. He had thought for a while now that Derek wasn't as strong as he let on and this (to him) seemed like definite proof, there was no way he was letting this opportunity slide.

"I came to check in on you as--" he trailed off, not entirely sure what to say. 'As your family died ten years ago today' just didn't seem right. So instead he said with a vague hand gesture, "well, you know." Tactful, he could've punched himself in the face, surprised Derek didn't he just grunted and turned his back on him. "I talked to The Pack and all of them said you told them to leave you alone, they all advised me to stay away but... I couldn't bring myself to and I mean, technically you never told me not to come so--" he bit his lip to stop himself from continuing but the damage was already done.

Spinning on his heel, Derek stalked up to the younger man with a growl on his lips, "you should have listened." At least he hadn't ended up with his back painfully pressed against a wall, he counted that as a win. He rose an eyebrow when Derek spoke again, "I don't want you here." He'd heard that before, yet refused to back down as even he could hear the lie on Derek's tongue. There was no need for the extra sensitive ears or a superior sense of smell that the bite would have brought him to tell that, especially not with the way Derek's right hand twitched in the way it did every time he told a lie and an even bigger clue was the slight tremor in his voice - almost unnoticeable over the rage but it was there, Stiles could tell. Just like always.

"Don't lie, it doesn't suit your brooding personality. No, personally I think you're more of a 'tell the truth no matter how much it hurts the other person' type of guy." he hummed, unless it wasn't to protect Stiles. "Look--"

"No, don't say whatever you were about to say. Go, just go!" Once again, he turned away from the pale teen and once again Stiles refused to let him get away with it.

Taking a deep breath he said, "There's a reason you didn't tell me and it's either that you didn't even think of me or you did but you wanted someone to talk to--" he got cut off again.

"Or maybe you can stop trying to analyse me and admit to yourself that I just forgot about you!" He's deflecting, Stiles summoned all the patience he could muster knowing he'd need a lot if Derek was going to act this way. He knew Derek was upset and he knew he most likely wasn't helping but he also understood the older male enough to know that he wasn't mad at Stiles. In fact, he seemed madder at himself and, for some reason, Stiles couldn't blame him.

"We both know that's not true," he took a slow, calculated step towards the man who had been walking away but had stopped and was now facing him again, he's going to get dizzy. "You can talk to me, I may not have been through what you have but I know what it's like to lose someone."

Derek's eyes snapped to his and it was like looking into a cesspool of hazel-green grief and anger. But there was something else in there too, hidden behind everything, buried deep: guilt. He blames himself, but no one had ever told him different so why wouldn't he. "You think you have any idea of how I'm feeling?" Derek spat. Stiles took another careful step forward and then another and another until he was in touching distance of the alpha. They watched each other in a tense silence.

"It wasn't your fault." Derek stumbled back at the suddenness of the words that were said so quietly, so calmly compared to how Stiles had been talking not moments ago. Stiles watched as his face softened only slightly before once again the facade was thrown back up.