Something changes in her demeanor and in her expression before Katniss speaks again and Derek's waiting for her to say something he doesn't want to hear. She does, in fact, but it isn't in the vein he'd expected it to be. Derek's expression falls with sad empathy and he looks down.
For a long moment, he's quiet, trying to decide whether he ought to share his parallel or whether that's just going to make her feel worse for gravitating toward someone with the traits she hates about herself. Then, he realizes she hasn't. She hasn't gravitated toward him. Her drugged self had some interest in his drugged self and while he was a lot closer to the real Derek than she was the real Katniss, he still hadn't been himself.
"Those are all really, really awful things for us to have in common, Katniss, and I'm sorry," he says finally, sincerity laced into his words because how can they not be? He knows the feeling of wishing that the glitches weren't real. He held onto the belief that the glitches were just glitches so hard until Buffy chipped away at it and Stiles straight up shattered it to pieces. If there's one thing he understands, it's wishing they were real. "But you know what? Maybe it's not the worst thing in the world to have someone to share it with who gets that. I wanted the glitches to be glitches so bad...I still wish they were. So I get it."
He pauses then and takes a deep breath. "When I was—" he falters, having to make a conscious decision not to say about your age because that just makes him feel dirty considering the fact that he can't stop thinking about this girl and the kiss they shared, "— a teenager, I fell in love with a woman who was a lot older than me. Not a lot a lot, but old enough that it would've raised eyebrows. I thought she loved me, too. I made a mistake. I told her things I shouldn't ever have told her about my life; my family. She used those things against me. Against all of us. That was just the start of the downward spiral. My family is dead and that's my fault. It will always be my fault. And I can't change it or take it back and now I can't even pretend it isn't real anymore because I can't force myself into that much denial after running into other Specials here who were in my glitches...who remember me, too, and the same things I remember us experiencing together."
Sighing softly and, probably against his better judgement, he reaches a hand to push her hair behind her ear and looks her in the eye. "It took me a long, long time to realize that I made shitty decisions and I did some terrible things, but that doesn't make me a bad person. I don't believe that you're a bad person, Katniss, I really don't. I don't know you that well," he admits, his hand falling away, "but if the girl I did get to know a little exists anywhere inside you, even under the depths of darkness that come from being dealt a really shitty hand in life and losing the people you care about, then you're not a bad person. You just fucked up and other people paid the price. That doesn't define you, it's just a thing or things that happened and they suck, I'm not trying to say they don't or write them off as no big deal, because they very much are, but they don't define you. They just happened.
"You're not a bad person. I've known bad people. A bad person wouldn't feel guilt. They'd feel accomplished, if they felt anything at all. The fact that you're upset speaks volumes about your character, don't sell that short."
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For a long moment, he's quiet, trying to decide whether he ought to share his parallel or whether that's just going to make her feel worse for gravitating toward someone with the traits she hates about herself. Then, he realizes she hasn't. She hasn't gravitated toward him. Her drugged self had some interest in his drugged self and while he was a lot closer to the real Derek than she was the real Katniss, he still hadn't been himself.
"Those are all really, really awful things for us to have in common, Katniss, and I'm sorry," he says finally, sincerity laced into his words because how can they not be? He knows the feeling of wishing that the glitches weren't real. He held onto the belief that the glitches were just glitches so hard until Buffy chipped away at it and Stiles straight up shattered it to pieces. If there's one thing he understands, it's wishing they were real. "But you know what? Maybe it's not the worst thing in the world to have someone to share it with who gets that. I wanted the glitches to be glitches so bad...I still wish they were. So I get it."
He pauses then and takes a deep breath. "When I was—" he falters, having to make a conscious decision not to say about your age because that just makes him feel dirty considering the fact that he can't stop thinking about this girl and the kiss they shared, "— a teenager, I fell in love with a woman who was a lot older than me. Not a lot a lot, but old enough that it would've raised eyebrows. I thought she loved me, too. I made a mistake. I told her things I shouldn't ever have told her about my life; my family. She used those things against me. Against all of us. That was just the start of the downward spiral. My family is dead and that's my fault. It will always be my fault. And I can't change it or take it back and now I can't even pretend it isn't real anymore because I can't force myself into that much denial after running into other Specials here who were in my glitches...who remember me, too, and the same things I remember us experiencing together."
Sighing softly and, probably against his better judgement, he reaches a hand to push her hair behind her ear and looks her in the eye. "It took me a long, long time to realize that I made shitty decisions and I did some terrible things, but that doesn't make me a bad person. I don't believe that you're a bad person, Katniss, I really don't. I don't know you that well," he admits, his hand falling away, "but if the girl I did get to know a little exists anywhere inside you, even under the depths of darkness that come from being dealt a really shitty hand in life and losing the people you care about, then you're not a bad person. You just fucked up and other people paid the price. That doesn't define you, it's just a thing or things that happened and they suck, I'm not trying to say they don't or write them off as no big deal, because they very much are, but they don't define you. They just happened.
"You're not a bad person. I've known bad people. A bad person wouldn't feel guilt. They'd feel accomplished, if they felt anything at all. The fact that you're upset speaks volumes about your character, don't sell that short."