"Don't."
"Don't what?"
"Don't study me, I can feel it from here," Stiles shook his head then tilted up as he took a sip. "I wasn't studying you," Derek said honestly, because he wasn't. At least he doesn't think he was. "I just want to understand you," Derek says. Stiles lets out a rough laugh as he swallowed, "Understand me? What's there to understand?" Stiles sits back into the arm chair.
This time Derek find himself studying Stiles, finds himself looking over every pale feature. Every fold and curve on him. How his clothes wrinkled in certain places, how Stiles crossed his legs at the ankles. It was all hypnotizing and sent Derek's heart on a beating frenzy.
"Didn't I tell you not to do that?"
"I wasn't doing anything," Derek answered too quickly. Stiles stared at him and let out a blissful laugh. It filled the empty room, Derek can't remember the last time he's heard a laugh so powerful. He eventually joins in the laugh.
Their laughter eased into a comfortable silence. Stiles could hear a song playing, he'd forgotten to turn off his tape player. Instead of getting up and shutting it off, he waited for the chorus. Listening carefully his eye's widened, "Oh my god-" He smiled widely and tried to hide it under his hand. Derek raised an eyebrow at him.
"I'll never break your heart, I'll never make you cry," Stile wasn't a great singer, but it at least sounded like he knew what he was doing. Derek laughed, "Really? The Backstreet Boys?"
"Hey, they were like a huge hit in the 90's"
"Yeah, white guys singing smooth R&B," Derek humored, Stiles just rolled his eyes "Face it, everyone has fallen victim to their music, I even bet you've fangirled them once," Stiles said sarcastically. Derek shuddered at the thought.
"Stiles,"
"Yeah?"
"What happened to Scott?" Stiles stilled at the mention of Scott. His eyes widened then lowered, his body seemed to clench and want to huddle over on itself. "Why do you ask," He set his beer down on the small coffee table. "It's my job to know,"
"I assume that you read my file, the one that has that report in it,"
"How did yo-"
"I was the one that helped put it together."
Stiles bit his lower lip, a nervous tick he's developed. Derek watched him carefully, how his movements became jerky and rough. Stiles rubbed his hand over his face and then ran his fingers through his hair, that somehow magically stands up like Tin-Tin's. Stiles stares down at his beer, he'd almost finished it. But he'd never really let himself drink more than two.
"A week or so," Stiles broke the silence, his voice sounding dry and scratchy "After my twenty-first birthday, Scott took it upon himself to take me out drinking, He was older by a few months so," Stiles leaned forward with a side smile.
"He said to me 'Stilinski, you are to be a man and drink!' Scott knew why I didn't drink, especially hard alcohol," he shifted in his seat, "And he was just trying to cheer me up, it had been a month since my father was murdered,"
There was a long pause, Derek noticed as to why. Stiles eyes were glossed over with tears that seemed to refuse to fall. It looked like he was having a hard time breathing. When Derek set his beer down to reach out to Stiles; he parted his lips "So he took Danny, and myself to a gay bar, and god only knows how we ended up there, I think Danny was driving, I wasn't to-" Tears began to trace his pale freckled cheeks.
Derek wanted to comfort him, hold him, shield him from what he knows, what he remembers. But he stayed put and waited for the next vocal outburst. "Sure where the switch was made, but we ended up there, and we were drinking an having fun, dancing, you know all the usual . . expect it was all in a gay bar," Stiles choked up a laugh, it was raspy and almost sounded painful.
"Scott was a vet, or something like that—he loved animals and was too kind of a guy to actually ignore someone who needed help with one," Derek tried to make sense of the jumbled story Stiles was telling. "A man came a long as we were walking down the street to our friend Erica's. We were way to hammered to drive so walking seemed suitable,"
Derek nodded as Stiles glance over at him. Proud that it was his only right decision that night. "The man cried, and cried it almost sounded like he was wailing. Scott noticed him only because he held a dead animal in his arms. The blood was like crimson, it was bright and glossy as it dripped from his arms and hands."
Stiles seemed to choke on a breath, "I was training—with a profiler and a field agent, for school. And something was iffy about this guy. I could feel it," Stiles shook his hands in front of him, he licked his lips as he stared down at his hands, "But I didn't stop Scott from approaching him, and next thing I know Scott's on the ground bleeding out, whilst this guy was smiling at me," Stiles paused, he looked at Derek, his eyes filled with anger and grief. Two emotions that Derek knows all to well in his line of work.
"It was the same Fucker that ran past me at the station."
