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"What are you doing?"
Stiles looks up from where he’s lugging the trunk of a tree that’s disappearing around the curve of Derek’s door and gives him a bright smile as he states, “Helping you decorate this place for Christmas, of course! If we left it up to you, there might be a garland or two here and there so you could claim ‘you tried’. Pivot, Scotty!”
“I AM PIVOTING!”
Scott’s tone says that this isn’t the first time he’s received that instruction, but Derek is focused on more important things, “So you decided to decorate without asking me?”
"Of course, otherwise you would have said no."
"Did it occur to you that I might be visiting Cora for Christmas and not need to decorate?”
"No, because even if you didn’t tell me of these hypothetical plans, you still would have told Scott. Not to mention the fact that Cora already Skyped us to make sure that you didn’t wallow.”
Most of the tree has made it inside his apartment and he can see Scott now, an apologetic shrug his only answer to Derek’s raised brows.
"I don’t have any ornaments."
"We brought some, they’re in the Jeep."
"That thing isn’t going to fit, no matter where you put it."
"Already made measurements, Grinch Wolf. It’ll fit fine."
"It’ll be in the way."
"Dude, your apartment is half the space of a football field! I think we’ll manage."
Derek throws his hands up in the air, a frustrated growl making the smirk that had been splitting Stiles’ face drop as he bites out, “Fine, put up the damn tree, but don’t expect me to be happy about it!”
"When are you ever happy about anything?”
Derek stomps off to the kitchen before he does something drastic, like taking one of the tree’s branches and shoving it somewhere unpleasant…
There’s a background noise of Scott and Stiles putting the tree up, getting the ornaments from the Jeep, and dividing them up between each other for the better part of the afternoon. By the time Derek tries to use his living room again, however, they’ve fallen into an argument.
"I’m telling you, Scotty, there is a method to this, you just need to wait until we’re done!"
"Stiles, you’re just literally putting as many ornaments as possible on one side of the tree! You’re suppose to spread them out! If we do it your way, half of the tree will be bare!”
"Then we’ll just stick that part to the wall!"
"We can’t ‘stick a side to a wall’! It’s in the middle of the room!”
"Give me the ornaments."
Both boys start from where they’re standing and give Derek guilty looks, Stiles clutching the box of ornaments he has to his chest as if he’s afraid that Derek will try to rip them away.
"We’ll be good, don’t toss it out, we almost have it finished, if Scott hadn’t decided to-"
"I’m not taking them, I’m helping," Derek interrupts, right as Scott turns an offended face to his friend. At Stiles’ delighted look, he’s quick to add, "It’s only so I can stop you two from giving me a headache and get you out of my house."
"Aw, you do care!”
Derek doesn’t both to give that an answer, just moves over to where they’ve set up the tree, sighing when he realizes that they haven’t put the lights on.
"Why aren’t there any lights on the tree?"
"I knew we forgot something!” is his answer, courtesy of Scott. What he doesn’t expect, however, is for him to continue with, “Wait right here, we have a few spares at my house!”
And he’s gone before either one of them can comment.
There’s silence for a few moments before Stiles says, “She said that it was a tradition.”
"What?"
"Cora. She said that it was this huge tradition at your house, and that you always got so excited to help set it up."
Derek doesn’t know what to say, surprised that Cora remembered something like that despite how young she was at the time, and touched that Stiles wanted to try to capture that part of his life again.
"It- it was usually the whole pack, not just three of us."
Stiles grins, catching what Derek is saying without him trying to explain, and makes him want to take back his words a moment later when he chirps, “Well, why didn’t you say so?”
Before Derek can understand what’s going on, Stiles has sent out a massive group text and Scott has returned with the lights, Lydia and Kira following after him, Lydia stating that they need to test each one before they go anywhere near the tree.
It’s a blur of activity after that; Mason and Liam show up shortly after, both getting pulled into decorating, Malia popping up when they get the lights and most of the ornaments on to give them all a completely baffled look, but still helping with the tinsel despite her objections at not understanding the point.
It does look good, bright and cheerful in the middle of the room, making Derek think about getting a few things for the rest of the place as well…
He’s drawn out of his musings by Stiles clearing his throat and the fact that the rest of them have gone quiet.
"Here, you do the honors."
Derek looks down at the star in his hand, a lump growing in throat; he had always begged and pleaded to be the one to put the star on the top of the tree, grumbling at the fact that they had to take turns. For them to let him have this…
"Thank you."
Scott grins and Stiles shrugs one shoulder, as if the whole thing wasn’t as big as they knew it was, as if they couldn’t hear just how much Derek was thanking them for. He puts the star on the tree and looks around at his pack chatting and arguing about what kind of pizza they should order, feeling something inside himself settle for the first time in a long while.