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It’s been snowing for the better part of a week by the time that Stiles convinces someone to actually go out and play in it with him, and it’s the last person that he would expect to actually want to go running around in the snow.
"You’re never going to let the fact that I was an asshole when we first met go, are you?" Derek asks as he follows Stiles through the Preserve, large flakes still falling from the sky and almost covering any tracks they make as they travel deeper into the woods.
(Stiles had made a vague noise about getting lost before he seemed to realize that Derek grew up here, right around the time Derek was giving him the best unimpressed look he could muster.)
"I’m only pointing out how much you’ve emotionally grown since then, Sourwolf," is Stiles’ blithe reply, giving Derek a grin over his shoulder as he darts around like a forest animal. "How can I point out how happy I am that you’ve changed for the better if I can’t point out where you started?"
"I think I got it the first dozen times you said so, Stiles."
The only response he gets is laughter as they finally make it to the clearing that they were looking for, Stiles immediately bending over and packing up snow as soon as he gets to the middle of it.
Derek quickly looks away and starts building up his own mound, his mind elsewhere as Stiles throws himself into making his own snowman, remembering how excited the boy had been when he had barged into Derek’s loft and insisted that the werewolf ‘run around in the snow, chasing his tail like real wolves do’.
It would have been something that he’d have made a big deal out of when they first met, but Stiles is right; he has mellowed out a bit since that first day in the woods, so the most he had done was give an eyeroll at the way Stiles had snickered at his own joke and told him that wolves hunted things that annoyed them.
A scoff had slipped from Stiles’ lips and Derek received his own eye roll, as if there was no worry on that front.
He’s made a vague shape of a snowman with what might be a hoodie if you looked close enough when Stiles interrupts his thoughts with a “Ah-ha! Finished!”
Turning, Derek takes a look at Stiles’ creation:
It’s him; a bulky, mass of snow with what looks like a leather jacket carved into the middle, two lines of small pebbles curved over two larger ones to represent his eyebrows and eyes, completed with a scowl carved into the ice of the head.
“Stiles!”
The boy in question laughs again, darting away from Derek’s reaching hands and is nearly across the clearing when Derek tackles him into the ground.
He’s still laughing when Derek stuffs a handful of snow down his jacket, sputtering about the cold in between hiccups of giggles.