The pine odour had already alerted Derek to something strange as he opened the door to the decrepit house he called home. Painfully, the smell of burnt wood was so familiar he barely registered it, but this new pine odour stood out, a stark contrast against the dark, charred wood.
At first he thought Stiles had just hung a magic tree air freshener on the door handle. The younger boy had started staying there more and more regularly and was almost constantly complaining about the musty smell and lack of anything comfortable. Derek had repeatedly tried to explain his Spartan living space to him but all that had achieved was a troublingly pathetic kick to Derek's chest and a grimy Stiles after he had fallen, despondent to the floor.
After Derek had tried to help him up from the floor Stiles had swatted his hand away; muttering something about how he was more like Ephialtes anyway. Derek didn't get the reference, but let Stiles pick himself up, along with the pieces of his dignity he thought he had lost.
Derek knew these last few months had been stressful for Stiles, with Scott and Allison spending more and more time together, the messy business with the Kanima and the impending arrival of the Alpha pack. Everyone's nerves had felt frayed, and especially after the school term had ended Stiles had just been left waiting away the days until another disaster turned up for them to face. And with Christmas coming up Derek knew he had been lonelier and lonelier. He had told Derek the week before that him and the Sheriff had stopped celebrating Christmas since his Mom had died. That had been hard for Derek to hear. It was times like that Derek realised just how young and vulnerable Stiles could be. Times like that he wondered if he wouldn't just be better giving him the Bite.
But still, he hadn't. Stiles was still just as human and just as vulnerable as he had always been. Derek on the other-hand was afraid. Afraid that if Stiles was ever to become a werewolf he would leave him. Why would he hang around with Derek to protect him when he'd be more than capable of protecting himself? Derek didn't know the answer to that question but often asked himself it as he lay awake and watched the slow and steady rise and fall of Stiles' chest as he slept. Asked it as he smiled softly and watched him sleep mumble about Lydia.
These thoughts had caused Derek's pace to drop to an almost pensive amble as he approached the Hale Mansion. He looked up into the eyes of the sitting room windows and saw an unfamiliar flickering there. A quick sniff on the air was enough to convince him there was no threat of fire but the steady blinking alarmed him.
"Flashlights..?" he thought to himself and before he could formulate another he had eradicated the remaining distance between himself and the house.
An intense terror that someone was waiting inside and the image of Stiles; tied to a chair, bruised and bleeding, with the orange and blue flannel shirt he had been wearing in tatters around his shoulders fought for the forefront of his mind. His fingernails, transformed into claws, ripped angry and worried slashes into the mottled wood as he tore the door open and dove into the house.
He found Stiles swaying on the edge of the decrepit couch they had slept on together the night before, a crudely constructed paper angel in his hand. His other was trying to persuade the large Christmas tree which had taken over half the room to help him with his make-shift circus act of decorating it.
Derek stopped like a balloon left in the afternoon sun, purposeless and confused. The flashing Christmas lights and twinkling tinsel looked a sad sight on the haggard tree which was obviously desiccating in the dry Californian air. There was a carpet of discarded pine needles covering a large area on the floor. Most of the branches of the tree were a bare brown and the gaudy red tinsel did nothing but highlight that the tree was mostly, if not totally, dead.
Despite himself, Derek laughed. A deep, pleasant throaty noise that sounded like an excitable family dog waking from a dream of dewy chases and lazy days.
"Dude, I know you've probably never had a Christmas tree in this place in your life, and a teenagers allowance doesn't exactly scream luxury, but come on. Laughter?!" Stiles barked. "Excuse me for trying to do something nice."
Minutes passed, and then, half stepping and half falling from his perch on the couch-arm Stiles walked towards Derek and started laughing himself. Derek leant forward and used Stiles' shoulder to brace himself as he laughed vigorously into the crook of Stiles' neck. As hot breath slowed to a steady pace Derek's face lifted to his cheek to place a gentle kiss. Stepping back he looked at Stiles with the barest touch of a smile breaking into a grin again as he picked a pine needle from Stile's short, buzzed hair.