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He doesn't remember all the details, but some of them do stand out in his memories. They're haunting him a lot less than they used to, but they're still there, like stains from the sticky tack he'd used to put up posters in his old room.
There's the old house, pristine and big, a mansion in the middle of the woods. The one he grew up in, always noisy to his sensitive ears, full of life and family. It's the one that haunted him like a ghost for years, while he was away from the town, like the distance spanning the whole country meant nothing at all. The ghost he came back to, though neither he nor Laura had any intention to, regardless of the amount of notices they got from the County about the property's state after the fire.
When he came back, it was to the burnt out, abandoned, and falling apart husk of it, blackened by ashes and mould, creaking with every movement and gust of wind. A reminder of his guilt, of everything he lost due to his own foolishness, his easily manipulated mind. He spent too much time there, twisting the knife under his ribs with the sense of loss, the scent of ashes in the air, far longer than Laura would've allowed him to, had she been alive.
He remembers moving on, finding places only marginally safer, barely more than the ruins of his childhood home. None of them were homes, just places that weren't already marked with defeat, not until he brought it there. None of them stained with loss and blood, like the old house would always be in his mind. But they were a tentative change, a way to at least pretend he was not dwelling on the past anymore.
It wasn't until he left town again that he let go, signed the paperwork to give up ownership over the property, and handed its fate to the County. Unlike the loft with its fresh pain, he was willing to give up some of his ghosts, the ones not causing him as much guilt anymore.
Of course, when he reverted back to his younger self, he didn't remember almost any of the darkness connected to the house. His mind from back then only knew the house as a whole, as a home, a solid and safe place he wanted to find refuge in, only to find it torn down, nothing but the forest surrounding a construction site in its place.
“Hey, sourwolf, pass me the big roller!” Stiles calls out to Derek, and that pulls him out of the vortex of memories that his brain occasionally falls into.
It's partly because of where they are, Derek thinks as he walks over to Stiles, grabbing the rickety ladder just before Stiles shifts enough to fall from it. The place is the same, the County never had full ownership of the land, only rights to tear down the fire-damaged structure. The house is also eerily similar, though not exactly the same.
“You're dripping paint everywhere,” Stiles remarks, and Derek looks down on the brush in his hand, noticing the paint splotches on the newspaper-covered floor.
“Hm, no damage done,” Derek tells Stiles, and his lips turn into a teasing smile. “I can think of places where the paint would look better,” he says as he lifts the brush towards Stiles' jeans.
“Oh no, you don't,” Stiles reacts immediately.
Before Derek can move, there's a cold feeling on his cheek, and a drop of paint starts rolling down his face and onto his T-shirt. He retaliates immediately, the brush in his hand aimed directly at the back pocket of Stiles' pants, leaving a yellow streak of paint behind as Derek moves his arm. Moments later, they're covered in stripes of color, and laughter is echoing off the still empty walls.
Derek lies down on the newspapers on the floor, and pulls Stiles -- still grumbling over the paint on his clothes and skin -- closer. There are memories of the house that used to stand right where the new one is, but for the first time in his life, Derek feels free of their weight. The smell of paint assaults his senses, and he smiles because it's new, it's different, and with Stiles by his side, it's the fresh start Derek didn't allow himself to dream of.