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What annoyed Stiles most about this whole magic thing was the horrible misconception that anything written down in an important looking tome is somehow set in stone. It’s not. Just because some witch wrote down a spell centuries ago and no one scratched it out in her leather-bound spell book, doesn’t mean that it’s any more reliable than a Wikipedia entry anyone can change.
Spells are adaptable, potions can be changed, magic is an endless and ever-evolving world of possibilities. Which sadly didn’t stop anyone from being a sceptic when Stiles tried to push some boundaries every now and then.
Stiles blamed modern fantasy’s depiction of magic as some sort of archaic art. If spells couldn’t be changed to fit the needs of the modern era what was even the point of being a spark? Oh cool, you have a potion that can make you run as fast as any horse? Good luck outrunning that evildoer in his Tesla. Amazing! A spell to make you invisible to the naked eye! Sadly we got rid of the guards in shining armour and replaced them with security cameras which aren’t covered by that lovely shiny spell of yours, but good on your for trying your best, little sparky-warky.
Which is why he worked on his Christmas gift projects in secret. He’d been working on them for a year now, but it had been so worth it. To be completely fair to modern fantasy, he did get the idea while watching Lord of the Rings. And then completely stomped it down and changed it.
So that’s how he found himself at the pack’s Christmas party, nervously putting all his presents under the tree before anyone walked in. They would do a secret Santa gift exchange like they did every year, but these were useful presents and Stiles was not going to wait till everyone’s birthday to hand out the rest. He did get something extra for the name he picked out the hat anyway, so it was all good, right?
By the time Derek finally came downstairs, hair still wet from the shower, Stiles was on the couch scrolling through Instagram.
“You’re here early,” Derek said suspiciously.
“I was making sure you didn’t steal Christmas,” Stiles quipped as he put his phone away, making Derek roll his eyes. “Where’s Peter?”
Derek wandered through to the kitchen, not even glancing at the tree or the gifts underneath. “He wasn’t happy with his third try of cranberry sauce either, he went off to the store. Again.”
That didn’t sound anything like Peter, he was a very good cook and he knew it. “That sounds like a very flimsy excuse to say he forgot about the secret Santa and is currently at the gas station getting a big Toblerone bar. Like he did all previous years,” Stiles said, having followed Derek into the kitchen.
Derek emerged from the fridge with two beers in his hands, amicably offering one to Stiles. “No, I’m pretty sure Lydia took him shopping for gifts to avoid another repeat of that. As if anyone actually minded getting a giant chocolate bar.”
“It’s the principle of the thing, Sourwolf,” Stiles said as he gestured wildly with his beer bottle, Derek glaring at the way the liquid sloshed too closely to the opening at every move. “The principle being that you try to give a personal gift to whomever you got assigned to show them you know them and care about them. Not just spend the budget on chocolate. It’s lazy and entirely un-christmas-like. What would Santa say?”
Derek gave him a deadpan look before replying with a dry “ho, ho, ho,”.
“Okay, smartass,” Stiles retorted just as Erica, Boyd and Isaac walked in, each carrying a gift.
Boyd just nodded at Stiles and Derek with a small smile. Isaac greeted them with a warm, “Merry Christmas,” that Derek returned in kind. Erica of course, just asked why there wasn’t a drink in her hands yet.
A couple minutes later the rest of the pack trickled in, Peter closing the door behind everyone. And he was indeed carrying three more bags of cranberries. He grunted something or other before immediately shooing everyone out of his kitchen.
“No, not you, Derek,” Peter called after them when they had just about left.
“I’m not tasting more of your cranberries, I don’t even like cranberries.”
“What do you mean you don’t like cranberries? You used to love cranberries!” Peter said indignantly. Stiles stopped and turned to lean against the doorframe, sipping his beer as he got ready to watch this play out. Christmas arguments were great. Christmas arguments about food were the best.
“When did I ever even eat cranberries?” Derek replied, crossing his arms in front of his chest, beer still firmly grasped in his hand, probably being framed by a ridiculous bulging bicep like a macho beer commercial.
“You certainly didn’t the last couple of christmases!” Peter said haughtily. He was obviously offended as he slammed a sauce pan on the stove and tore into the first bag of cranberries.
“Because I don’t like cranberries!”
“No, Derek, you don’t like my cranberries!” Peter jabbed his finger into his own chest with such force Stiles couldn’t help but wince.
Derek rolled his eyes, “Why on earth would you think that? You can’t expect everyone to love every single thing you cook! No one here loves everything you make!”
Peter’s eyes turned into dangerous slits as he turned to Stiles, “What don’t you like?”
Stiles quickly raised his hands, palms facing forward, “I don’t like to be involved in this argument, this is between you and the cranberry hater,” he gestured with his beer bottle at Peter and Derek respectively. “I’m just here as a witness to make sure someone can explain the massacre that’s about to happen.”
“I don’t leave witnesses to massacres, Stiles. And before I get rid of your body I will force feed you every single dish I have ever put in front of you to find out what you don’t like! I am a great cook!”
“Of course you are, Remy, but people have preferences that have nothing to do with your abilities. And I’d like to reiterate that this is between you and the sour-hating-wolf, I’m just here for the premium Christmas entertainment,” Stiles said with a huge grin on his face.
“Fine! There’s nothing to be done about people’s incorrect tastes. But you,” Peter wielded the wooden spoon like a weapon and Stiles was so happy it wasn’t pointed at him. “You are lying! You fucking loved cranberries when your mother made them! So you just don’t like the way I make them! So I’m going to make a base sauce and you are going to sit there and taste it and tell me what your mother added to it one step at a time! And no one is touching any of my food until you are ready to eat my goddamn cranberries!”
Stiles gasped when the swearwords came out. Peter rarely shouted and never used swearwords, he was too well-spoken to ever sink so low as to use common swearwords.
“How did you ever get it into your thick skull that I used to like cranberries?” Derek slammed his beer down on the counter, Stiles watching it foam and spill over with rapt attention. “I’ve always hated them! When I was six I threw a tantrum just because my mom had bought the bag and then I threw out the sauce that same year when she’d finally finished it!” Derek was gesturing and speaking more than Stiles had ever seen him do.
When Peter still looked suspicious at the wild tale of a six year old fervent cranberry hater, Derek continued. “When I was thirteen Laura snuck into the kitchen on Christmas eve to put aside an extra bit of cranberry sauce and she invented this ridiculous game that ended with me blindfolded and her trying to force feed me that disgusting thing! It got all over my face and the carpet and mom grounded us both for two weeks!”
“It got all over your face?” Peter asked, as if that was the part to focus on.
“You let Laura blindfold you for a game you’d never heard of?” Stiles chose to focus on the stupidity.
“There’s even a picture of it! It was in the album she took with her to college!”
Peter’s shoulders deflated and he just went back to stirring the sauce. “Fine,” he huffed.
“Oh, no, no, no, Peter. You caused an argument on Christmas and clearly you just found out you were wro-ong,” Stiles sing-songed the last word with glee. “It’s going to take a little bit more than that to get back on Santa’s nice list.” Derek smirked at that, it wasn’t often that Peter was wrong, they were both going to enjoy this.
“I saw the picture in the album with all that cranberry sauce all over your face and I figured you were just glaring because Laura was doing something annoying behind the camera, which seemed to be a theme in that photo album,” Peter admitted, somehow managing to look like an arrogant bastard while apologizing.
Well… apologizing. Stiles motioned for him to continue. Santa’s nice list was nothing to scoff at.
“I’m sorry I misinterpreted an old picture and subsequently got too passionate about trying to give you a flawless Christmas,” Stiles and Derek both rolled their eyes, but there were fond smiles on their faces as well. You couldn’t teach an old wolf new ways to apologize.
Peter finished and served Christmas dinner as if nothing happened and they all scarfed it down. Stiles made sure to take a serving from every side dish on the table, he was not explaining his tastes and preferences to Peter. Not over a polite Christmas dinner at least.
As the plates slowly but surely get emptied Stiles gets more and more excited. Gifts are next. He’s not the only one either. As they clear the table there’s a thrum in the air, because giving and receiving gifts doesn’t suddenly get boring as you get older. Personally, he never understood the idea that getting excited about Christmas gifts was somehow childish.
To no one’s surprise, since he’d done it every single year without fail, Stiles claimed that he just needed to go first. “Look I have a good reason this year!” He said when they all scoffed, even though no one was putting up any sort of fight. “I made something for everyone, because it was easier than I expected and it’s for the good of the pack if everyone gets it,” he explained as he passed out the gifts.
Erica and Scott, both strategically positioned closest to the tree, were already ripping off the paper by the time Stiles got to Peter.
“You… made these?” Erica held up two pieces of rainbow-coloured fabric between two fingers, looking incredibly dubious.
“It looks great! These will be…” Scott started and then flushed as he couldn’t figure out what they were.
“They’re gloves. They’re magically enhanced though,” Stiles started excitedly while all the others opened a variation of the same gloves, all different colourways.
“Magically enhanced gloves? Look, they’re lovely, but Stiles, this is California,” Kira tried. “Also, I think you may have forgotten the second one?” She said as she shook out the wrapping paper in search of a glove matching the one in her other hand.
“Oh no, you only get one,” Stiles tried to restart his explanation but then his eyes fell on Lydia who was looking at her scarf like she’d just witnessed a horrible crime. The earmuffs were thrown on the floor already. “Lyds, would it kill you to be careful with those? I put hours into them!”
She glared at him in response, “Why?”
“Because I magically enhanced the gloves and the scarf and the earmuffs to give all your various powers a boost!” Stiles shouted, tired of everyone treating his hard work like garbage. He huffed as he took his own seat between Peter and Boyd.
At least they had the decency to look semi-curious. “You know those swords and blades and whatever weapons you have in movies and games with the runes on them? Usually forged by some sort of legendary epic elf smith? It’s like that! But it’s the affordable DIY version of that, for your claws,” he let out a little growl and made claw shapes with his hands.
Now he finally had their attention. “I can’t just learn how to forge stuff from metal, the cost of the materials and tools alone… but turns out that crocheting is pretty manageable on a deputy’s salary. It’s actually quite interesting, you know most of those magically enhanced weapons in real life don’t even have functioning runes? And if they do they’re defensive not offensive.
“The offensive part is worked into the blade itself with the forgers intent behind every single blow. But you can put intent into anything you make! It just had to include a repetitive process so I could put enough intent into it. Knitting and crocheting is perfect!” He concluded, pleased to see the wolves put on their gloves.
“They should make your claws sharper and put more force behind your blows. But don’t test that out inside,” He said, before moving on to explain how Kira only had one glove for her katana wielding hand and how Lydia had a scarf for her offensive banshee scream that they were still trying to figure out and earmuffs that should help her get control of the voices she heard. Either mute them or turn them up.
Then he quickly grabbed the last present he made from under the tree and gave it to Peter who was still marvelling at the gloves. He carefully put them aside when he accepted his next present with a little more reverie than before. Stiles was practically bouncing by the time Peter pulled out the sweater, scarf and hat combo, because Peter was one of those annoying people who refused to tear the wrapping paper.
Stiles faintly noticed Erica slap Isaac on the back of his head when he questioned why Peter got the fashionable things, but paid it no mind as Peter looked up at him with his hands still feeling over the fabric. “Are these also enhanced? Or just beautiful?” Stiles felt heat rush to his cheeks.
“The sweater and the scarf are for protection, they should be near impenetrable when it comes to claws and weapons and… tomahawks. And they make the wearer fire proof,” Stiles scratched the back of his head. “I made sure it worked, tested it myself.”
Peter stood up to rid himself of his t-shirt – and you’d really think Stiles would be used to that with all those werewolves running around – before immediately putting on the sweater. Stiles was pleased to note it fit him like a glove. No pun intended.
“And the hat?” Peter questioned further, smoothing his hands down the front of his chest, fingers feeling over the pattern of carefully made stitches.
Stiles chuckled. “Oh, the hat. Well the hat is a literal thinking cap. It helps with focus.”
Peter smiled softly. Scott made a quip in the background that Stiles could use one of those himself, but again Stiles ignored it.
“Thank you, Stiles. I love it,” Peter baffled Stiles a bit with his sincerity.
Then he baffled Stiles a lot when he leaned in to peck him softly on his cheek.