Title – Christmas Prompt Challenge
Author – Moonbeam (luvsbitca)
Rating – Teen (I don't think it will change)
Warnings – Nothing
Summary – A series of unconnected Christmas ficlets based on prompt words.
Disclaimer – Don't own either universe or the characters – just an unhealthy obsession.
Author's Notes – I've been struggling with the ability to write of late and I have SOOO many WIPs that need me to work on them but they are all so big and scary so I'm trying something different. I'm going to just write little ficlets based on Chrsitmas prompts and see if that gets me back into the rhythm so I can finish the other stuff. They will be unconnected unless otherwise specified and I intend to keep them under 1000 words where possible. Merry Christmas!

Christmas Prompt Challenge
by Moonbeam (luvsbitca)

/ Gingerbread House \\\

Derek walked into the room and looked around the mess that was his once pristine kitchen. He'd been alerted that someone had broken into his house when he'd heard the Christmas songs at the edge of the woods. But he'd known who it was at almost the same moment. Even though everyone in his life knew that he did not like people surprising him at his home there was, and always had been, one person who could not seem to accept that he is included in that list of everyone.

"Stiles."

The human jumped and turned around with a beaming grin and a piping bag in his hand. "Hey, Derek, welcome home!"

"What are you doing here?"

"Making a gingerbread house…obviously."

"Why are you doing it in my kitchen?"

"It's for Christmas."

"I don't like Christmas."

"Exactly."

"That doesn't actually make sense, Stiles."

"Course it does, you don't like Christmas, so I'm going to help you have a good Christmas."

"I don't want to celebrate Christmas at all," Derek said, his voice just a touch growling.

Stiles looked around him and winced. "Right, right, of course."

"I have never loved Christmas but without a family to celebrate with I see no point in it at all."

"But you have a family," Stiles said, confusion colouring his face.

Derek shook his head. "It's not the same."

Stiles nodded and turned around, sliding the cooling gingerbread pieces into a container that Derek recognised from pack nights. Then he started packing up everything else on the bench – cleaning them down as he went and Derek didn't know how to step in and help when Stiles was moving so quickly.

"Can I help?"

"Nope," Stiles said quickly, a little too loudly. "I'll just get out of your way as soon as I can."

Derek nodded and stepped back. "I'm going upstairs to change – I'll be back in a few minutes."

"I'll be gone."

Derek stopped and looked at Stiles again.

"I'll only be a few more minutes and it will be like I was never here." Stiles said into the quiet.

"I appreciate that you were trying to help," Derek said, finally noticing the way that Stiles kept his back to the werewolf and the tightness in his shoulders.

"I was butting in and that's not okay. It won't happen again."

Derek scoffed before he even thought about it and Stiles' shoulders hunched further around to the front.

"I got the message, don't know why it took me so long," Stiles mumbled. "You've been making it pretty obvious since I stumbled through the forest with Scott. I'm done…completely gone, and as soon as I've cleaned up it will be like I haven't ever been here."

Derek didn't like the fact he'd hurt Stiles' feelings but he certainly liked the outcome. He didn't need Stiles in his life constantly pushing his way into places that the human didn't belong.

"I would appreciate you not showing up at my house unannounced and uninvited."

Stiles nodded quickly and piled the two containers he'd brought in his arms and grabbed the bag with the other hand. "I hope that's clean enough – goodbye Derek."

"Bye," Derek said, noting that he'd have to clean his kitchen again when the human was gone.

And then the human was gone…from his house, from pack meetings, from full moon celebrations, from every event that Derek was at. Scott was short with him. Lydia turned and walked away every time he stood, sat, or existed near her. Isaac looked at him with such pity and empathy that Derek found the beta hard to be around sometimes. And it was quiet. There were no quarters of a cake left in his fridge, there were no phone calls inviting him to movie nights he never attending or trips to the bowling alley, café, community concert, or any of the multitude of other events that Stiles decided the pack should attend. Derek was unsure if the rest of the pack were still getting the invites but his time was just as empty as it had been before but now much quieter. Something about not being invited anywhere seemed to have made his solitude much less enjoyable.

Derek did not miss Stiles. Stiles had been an annoying addition to his life since the night Scott had been turned into a werewolf. Stiles was bright and he got involved in things he shouldn't be and sometimes he was the only thing that saved the pack but that didn't mean he could push himself into every aspect of pack life.

Then one day, some long time since Stiles had left his house, Cora showed up at his house with an expression of sibling disdain. "You're an idiot."

"It's nice to see you too."

"Why do you insist on being so obtuse, so completely opposed to anything that could be good in your life?"

"What?" But Derek knew exactly why she was here.

"You didn't even have to work for it, that's the pathetic thing – you had something handed to you that could have helped remind you that you're worth so much more than you think you are but then you shat all over it like a moron and I have to come here and slap you because you think you don't have any family left but I'm family and the pack is family and Stiles fucking Stilinski is family because he has kept you alive all this time and you treated him like some stranger stepping on your land. You are not a ninety-year-old omega wolf whose whole pack had died and is the only thing left to protect the pack's land."

"You left," Derek pointed out.

"Because it's healthier for me to be somewhere else – I don't know how to be a Hale anymore."

"You'll always be a Hale."

"And apparently you'll always be a moron who ruins good things that come into his life because one sociopathic, psychotic bitch abused and manipulated you when you were a teenager."

"Stiles is not a good thing that came into my life."

"How has he been a bad thing?"

"He butts in, and he noses around in places humans don't belong, he tries to lead the pack and Scott lets him. He was possessed by an evil fox spirit and he broke into my house to bake a gingerbread house when he knows I don't like Christmas and I don't like people trespassing on my land and he never listens when you tell him no or enough – he just keeps going until he gets what he wants."

"And you miss him."

"No, I don't."

"You've never been a good liar – Laura once told me how to tell when you were lying and it's all over you now."

"My heartbeat was steady," Derek defended.

Cora scoffed. "That doesn't mean you weren't lying."

Derek sometimes forgot what it was like living with Laura as the next alpha in line and then Cora would act just like Laura and he remembered how frustrating and annoying it could be.

"The pack needs him and you need him too."

"I do not need him."

Cora sighed dramatically. "And your life has been so much better since he stopped being a part of it?"

Derek opened his mouth to say that it had but she looked at him with such a strong resemblance to their mother that he found himself agreeing without ever intending to. "I have been lonely since he left the pack – it feels like I am the one who's left the pack."

"And what are you going to do about it? Stiles might be willing to try and try and try again but you made sure he would never try again. What are you going to do?"

Derek groaned. "I'm going to bake a gingerbread house."

Cora looked at him strangely for a moment then she grinned. "There is hope for you yet."

"Why?"

"You have been thinking about how to make it up to Stiles."

"No."

Cora grabbed him and pulled him into a fierce hug. "I love you, Derek. Even when you're deluding yourself."

The next day, Derek's kitchen was a little less than pristine but he had a lopsided gingerbread house on a wooden cutting board in the car next to him and he was sitting in front of Stiles' house listening to make sure the human was alone. He eventually forced himself to knock on the door and wait for Stiles to answer.

"Derek?"

"I made you a gingerbread house."

Stiles frowned at him. "Why?"

"Because I don't like people just coming to my house even if they are pack but I still shouldn't have been so rude to you."

"No, you were right – I shouldn't have come near your house without permission."

"I should have a different set of rules for the pack; after all I snuck into your room more than once without permission."

"Or you keep your rules and just join in a little more with the pack."

"Or that. But, you're pack, Stiles, and no member of the pack should speak to another like I spoke to you. I have come to realise that being in the pack is important to me and I miss it."

"Is this your way of saying you want us to be friends? Instead of me just desperately trying to drag you into the pack family?"

Derek ignored the strange twist in his gut and nodded. "I want us to be friends."

Stiles snapped the door off the gingerbread house and took a bite. Then grimaced and shook his head. "That was terrible."

Derek shrugged. "It was a gesture."

"And it was accepted. The pack is going bowling tonight – want to come?"

Derek hesitated and then nodded with an internal groan – he'd probably need to wait a while before he started saying no to the invites and from the way Stiles' eyes lit up he had a feeling the human realised that too.

The End