Christmas time is family time.
That's what Stiles's mother had told him on their last Christmas together when the McCalls had appeared at the front door with a box of cookies. So of course, Stiles let them in.
Stiles took what his mother had said very seriously. He wans't going to let some werewolf problem get in the way of Christmas. There were more important things than kanimas, and alpha packs, or whatever other foul monster had brewed up in Beacon Hills lately. More important things like dragging Scott out of his Allison-induced funk to put Christmas lights upon his house.
"Dude," he said, waving his arms at Scott's supine form. "It's Christmas!"
"I know," Scott sighed into his pillow.
Stiles let his arms fall as he stared at his unenthusiastic friend. "So get the hell up!" he said, rekindling his holiday spirit and jabbing Scott with his shoe. "We have a house to decorate. I refuse to let Allison get in the way of what is going to be the best light display this house has ever seen."
"You said that last year," Scott moaned, but still dragged himself upright.
"Last year's display was awesome while it lasted," Stiles insisted, "and this year it won't short-circuit."
"Then you have to remember that you can't plug twelve strings together," Scott insisted, pulling on a sweater.
"Exactly," Stiles gesticulated. "It's your little grains of wisdom that make it just a waste to let you pine away the best time of the year on your bed."
Three hours later, Stiles was standing in front of Scott's house staring up at his magnificent creation. As usual, Scott had been called away by Derek on some sort of vitally important mission so Stiles had finished smothering the yard in lights by himself.
"Dude," Scott said, rumbling to a halt in the driveway on his bike. "This is awesome."
"I know," Stiles nodded proudly. "No thanks to you."
"Derek had this thing-" Scott began, looking downright morose.
"I know," Stiles waved it off. "Important stuff. It's fine."
"What do you mean, 'Isaac needs me?' " Stiles demanded, nearly dropping the glass ball he was putting on the tree.
"Boyd and Erica are in trouble again and Derek isn't answering his phone," Scott sighed, but Stiles could feel the righteous hero rising in him.
"Ok," moaned Stiles, practically shoving the ball into the tree, "go save the world again."
"Thanks man," Scott said, already halfway out the door. "I'll make it up to you."
Stiles rolled his eyes and stuck another ball on the tree. It's difficult to have Christmas when werewolves have other plans.
The pattern continued; Stiles and Scott would be engaging in one of their long-lasting Christmas traditions, and then Scott would get a call that someone was in trouble or needed help, and he would have to dash off like Rudolph to save the day.
Stiles was beginning to wonder if it had always been like this, or if it was only the Christmas season.
Something had to be done.
"Alright," Stiles said, dragging Scott into the kitchen. "We are going to decorate cookies. It's Christmas Eve, and we haven't done it yet, sit your ass down and stay there."
Scott, looking bewildered, obediently sat at the table and started eating the frosting.
"No," Stiles said, snatching it away. "There has to be some left. And give me your phone," he waggled his free hand expectantly.
"Why?" Scott asked, taking it out of his pocket.
"Because nobody is going to call you with some werewolf emergency this time," Stiles insisted, turning it off.
"But if it's an emergency-"
"THERE WIL BE NO EMERGENCIESNow don't move," Stiles said, pointing threateningly at him as he left the kitchen.
"For how long?" Scott called when Stiles darted out the front door.
Stiles jumped into his jeep and called Boyd.
"Who is this?" his voice demanded.
"It's Stiles," he said, drumming nervously on the steering wheel. "I need you to come over to my house."
"Why?"
"Because," Stiles insisted, waving his hands for emphasis as if Boyd could see him. "And bring Erica."
Silence. "Is it an emergency?" he asked finally.
"Yes!" Stiles shouted. "So you better make it snappy."
"Fine."
"Good," Stiles said triumphantly, and then hung up very quickly so Boyd couldn't change his mind.
Isaac and Allison were easy enough to convince when he heard that Scott would be there, and Lydia was sold the second she heard the words 'Christmas' and 'party,' so Stiles was feeling very confident when he called Derek.
The phone rang, and rang, and rang, but there was no answer.
"Typical," Stiles muttered as he started up the jeep to a string of curses.
All the way to Derek's burned out mansion, Stiles was inadvertently inventing new ways to sing carols with much more profanity. He was still singing a very angry version of Jingle Bells when he got out of his jeep and stalked towards the front door.
"Derek!" he shouted into the air, expecting the werewolf to just materialize out of thin air like he usually did.
When Stiles turned around, there was no one brooding at him from behind a tree. "Seriously?" Stiles asked the empty woods and marched up the steps and into the house.
For a moment, he thought the place was empty, but then he saw Derek's form bent over in a corner. "Dude," he said, nearly falling over a beam as he approached him. "Didn't you hear me?"
"It would be difficult not to," Derek quipped darkly, pulling another wire from the wall.
"Would it kill you to answer?" Stiles demanded. "What are you even doing?"
Derek sighed, setting down the wires and turning to Stiles. "What do you want, Stiles?" he asked, crossing his arms.
"Oh," Stiles said, diverting his attention from the web of wires. "I need to come to my house."
Derek stared at him for a second, one eyebrow raised in a clear demand of Why?
"Because," Stiles said, rolling his eyes and dropping his shoulders. "It's Christmas Eve."
"I'm aware," Derek scowled. "Why does that mean that I have to go to your house?"
Stiles sighed again. "Because I'm tired of trying to celebrate Christmas around constant werewolf emergencies, so I figured that if I got all of you on one place, then there wouldn't be anymore emergencies."
"You think that the problems are just going to go on hold for Christmas?" Derek asked, uncrossing his arms and stalking towards the boney youth.
"Well they have to stop some time and I figure that Christmas should be reserved for fun," Stiles nodded, backing away.
Derek stopped and stared at him for a second before turning back to his wall. "You can go celebrate. I won't call Scott."
Stiles stared at his back for a second, wondering if he should just high-tail it then and there, but then he continued, "So I'm just supposed to leave you here trying to fix your wiring?" he asked.
"Yes," Derek nodded, looking up to him briefly.
"Well that's just said," Stiles said, and then added, "no offense," when Derek scowled at him.
Derek just jerked another wire out of the wall.
"That's it," Stiles said, steeling him self and taking Derek by the arm. "You're coming with me if I have to drag you by your hair."
"You think you could?" Derek asked with a skeptical scowl, but still let Stiles pull him out of his house.
"With my sheer will-power, yes," Stiles nodded, shoving Derek into his jeep.
Derek just stared at him for a second while Stiles turned around and skidded onto the road. Stiles ignored him and turned on the radio to the Christmas station.
After a long, increasingly uncomfortable silence in which Stiles regretted bringing Derek more and more, Derek spoke, 'Why do you even want me to come?" he asked.
"If I leave you in the wild," Stiles answered immediately, relieved by the break in the silence, "then you'll undoubtedly get caught in a bear-trap or something and have to drag the entire pack out into the middle of nowhere to rescue you."
"The whole pack?" Derek demanded, raising his eyebrows.
"Yeah," Stiles said. "Duh."
Derek scowled, but Stiles thought this scowl was more contemplative than the usual black cloud that crossed Derek's face.
"It'll be awesome, man," Stiles insisted. "We've got cookies and everything."
Derek didn't answer, and the silence descended again until they reached his house.
"Why do you really want me here?" Derek asked when Stiles turned off the jeep.
Stiles stopped in the act of opening the door. For a second, he stared at the conflagration of lights dripping from his eaves.
Just when Derek was sure he wasn't going to answer, Stiles said, "Christmas time is family time."
Derek looked over to him, unreadable sadness in his eyes.
"And that has never meant," Stiles said, getting out of his jeep, "that your family has to be genetic. Now get the hell inside and decorate some cookies."
Stiles didn't see because he was heading for the door, but Derek smiled a little before following the younger boy.
"Thank you," Derek said abruptly as Stiles opened the door.
"It's what family's for, man," Stiles said, leading him into the mayhem of a pack of werewolves and humans trying to decorate cookies.
Stiles knew that if family ended at genetics, Christmas would be a miserable time of year for all of them, so Stiles had done what his mother had taught him to do: make up a better way.