Not a House But a Home

The Hale House, after much work and a few years, is fully rebuilt. Derek makes sure there's a room for each pack member and lets them decorate it the way they want. But he's still not content there until Stiles shows him how a house can be a home. Written for SterekWeek2015, prompt SterekCrayon.

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Written for the SterekWeek2015 prompt "A Box of Crayons" with colors chosen by a myriad of people I know on facebook.

This is set in some universe post season 2 where Scott is the alpha but his pack consists of Stiles, Derek, Allison, Lydia, Isaac, Boyd, and Erica.

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When the Hale House had finally been rebuilt and the decision had been made that it would be the official pack meeting place, it had seemed like the right thing to do to for Derek to hand his credit card over to Scott and tell everyone they could buy whatever paint they wanted to color their rooms with.

Whatever. Colors.

"Did you talk to a sales associate when you bought this?" Derek asked, walking into the room that would be Isaac's.

There was a tarp over the hardwood floor and no furniture, as was true of all the rooms until they were painted and dry, and Isaac was busy lathering bright yellow streaks along the wall with his back to the door.

"Yep," he said.

Derek took a few steps around the space, taking in the light yellow walls. Isaac's paint job wasn't the best. He'd put painter's tape around the floorboards and window sills but still managed to get a little yellow on them as well. But it wasn't the quality of the job Derek was worried about.

"And they told you this was a good color?" he asked dubiously.

Isaac stopped painting and turned around. He crossed his arms, getting paint on his bare skin, but didn't seem to notice or care. "Yeah. I said I wanted a bright, sunny color and he said this was sunshine in a can. And he was right."

The beta looked so secure in his choice that Derek felt bad for wanting to tell him otherwise. "Your window faces east. You do realize-"

"It's a nice change from darkness," Isaac interrupted, turning his back on Derek again so he could keep painting. His voice grew defensive as he continued. "Werewolves hunt at night and I spent more than enough time locked in small, dark spaces as a kid. I like the contrast. Do you got a problem with that?"

Derek put his hands up as if to appease Isaac even though Isaac was no longer looking at him. "No," he conceded. "Not at all."

If Isaac wanted a bright yellow room, Isaac could have a bright yellow room. He could deal with the consequences of that decision in the morning when the rising sun turned his room into a giant flare box. Who knew, maybe that's what Isaac wanted.

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It turned out that Scott wasn't much better about paint choices than Isaac.

Every wall in Scott's room was a vibrant, bold red color. It was the color of an alpha wolf's eyes. When Derek asked him about it, if he'd chosen the color so that everyone who came in would remember he was the alpha, Scott had said that wolves had nothing to do with it.

"My room back at my house is pretty blah, you know? It's forgettable. I wanted to try something…I don't know…spontaneous and daring. Is it-is it that bad?"

Derek shook his head as he turned to leave the room. "No."

"Oh," Scott said, calling Derek back. "Stiles said he wanted to see you? He was already here when I showed up this morning, but you'd gone somewhere. I think he's upstairs in his room."

With a nod, Derek left the room. He pointedly did not go upstairs to Stiles' room.

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Derek was well on his way to regretting giving the pack free run of decorating when he checked in on Allison's work. Then he wished everyone was as sensible as Allison.

"White?" he asked.

Allison glanced over from where she was pulling the painter's tape from the wall and smiled. "It's actually called Whitetail, like the deer," she said. "It won't glare in the sun, but it's nice and simple."

Nodding, Derek examined the window accents, and the molding around the doors and floor. They were a calming, medium blue color. Derek had seen blue rooms with white accents before but never a white room with blue accents. Not like this. He decided he liked it.

"I'm going to hang blue curtains, and maybe some blue pillows and accent furniture," Allison informed him, balling up the blue tape and tossing it in a trash bag in the corner.

"I like the flowers," Derek complimented.

Allison had painted some simple but beautiful blue and white flowers on the wall above where her bed would sit. The pack hunter blushed at his compliment and thanked him for letting her have a room in the first place.

"I mean, I already have a room at my own apartment," she said.

Derek shrugged. "They would've just been empty rooms otherwise."

That earned him a hug he wasn't sure how to deal with.

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Erica's room was the first one upstairs that he looked into, it being just at the top of the steps. She'd already painted three sides of her room in a warm, burnt orange color that made Derek think of campfires and warm blankets. Her closet was open and it and the wall including the bedroom door were painted in a pale color.

"Peach," Derek said. "Your room is like a harvest dinner."

"You don't have to come in if you don't like it," Erica responded, flicking peach paint at him.

He shook his head as he barely avoided getting splattered. "No, I like it. It's very you."

She narrowed her eyes at him. "Very me? Am I a Thanksgiving dish now?"

With a groan, Derek rubbed a hand over his face. "No. I mean." He wasn't good at compliments or being 'deep' or whatever. "It's got a different…feel to it. Warm, but not…cuddly," he tried.

Those were apparently the right words to say, though, because Erica's expression lit up and the chemicals she was giving off were all pleasant ones. Then a mischievous glint came to her eyes. Derek predicted the flying paint brush before it could be thrown and so dodged what would've resulted in his favorite Henley becoming a sorry work rag.

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His next stop was Lydia's room, where every wall was a gentle lavender color except one – the one across from the bedroom door this time.

"Peach again?"

Lydia kicked him out, looking insulted. It wasn't until the door was almost shut between them that she said, nose tilted up and in a proud tone of voice, "It's apricot."

If she ever got married, Derek would avoid the wedding plans like they were covered in wolfsbane.

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Boyd's room was halfway painted and Derek also liked what he saw there. His quietest pack member had chosen a rich emerald color for his walls, leaving the roof, window sills, floorboards, and door frames white.

If he was being honest, it kind of reminded him of Slytherin house from Harry Potter, but it was also strangely calming. It felt like a place you could go if the world was too loud and just relax.

Boyd was being meticulous with his painting though, so it was taking him longer than the others to finish.

"I used to work at the rink, you know?" he said when he saw Derek's raised eyebrow. "Part of my job sometimes was repainting stuff. It's one of the only things I'm a perfectionist about. I don't know." He shrugged.

Derek did his best to look encouraging. "It's looking good."

Even if Boyd didn't respond verbally, his body was giving off proud signals. Derek wasn't his alpha anymore, but Boyd still respected Derek and liked having his approval. That was good to know. It made Derek feel proud too.

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There were two rooms Derek had been avoiding in his perusal of the house. The first was his own. It was the master bedroom, since this was actually his house, not simply a place to hang out and crash sometimes. Derek had no idea what to do with it, no real intention of decorating it. His plans consisted of painting it white and then just leaving it be.

Maybe he'd borrow Allison's Whitetail paint once she was gone. No use letting all that paint go to waste, after all.

The other was Stiles' bedroom.

When they'd been building the house – or rather, watching professionals build it – and they'd decided it would be a home for Derek's pack again, Stiles had immediately claimed the second room at the end of the hall. It was directly across from the master bedroom. He'd followed the workmen around constantly while they worked on it, making sure they had everything built exactly like it said on the blueprints, until it was either keep him away from the build site or the company would quit.

Stiles would have a room across from Derek's. He'd be sleeping less than twenty feet away. It wouldn't be every night, obviously, but still. The room would be full of things that belonged to Stiles. Every inch of it would smell like Stiles. If Stiles masturbated-

Derek had to pause in the hallway and take a deep breath, letting the smell of paint override everything else.

Maybe letting the pack stay here had been a bad idea. Sure, living all alone in this giant house would royally suck. It'd be lonely, silent, and even with all new walls and furniture and pictures, the memories of his family would haunt the empty spaces. Okay, so that was definitely worse than dealing with the scent of everything that encompassed Stiles being one room away. He wasn't going to try and convince himself otherwise. Being alone was infinitely the worse option.

After a few moments, Derek turned the handle to Stiles' room and walked inside. He was curious to see what atrocious paint choice the spastic young man had chosen, and Scott had said Stiles wanted to see him, after all.

Stiles' room at his dad's house had grey-blue walls with black furniture and medium blue accessories everywhere – pencil cases, stapler, desk chair, and bookends. The Jeep was almost offensive in how blue it was. Derek should have known that Stiles wouldn't stray far from his signature color.

The walls were sky blue; not too bright and not too dark. The molding around the room was almost silver, but without the shimmer. The closet doors were open, revealing a medium blue inside. The same darker color was on the shelves and back of the built in bookcase along one wall.

Every surface was almost dry. There wasn't a speck of paint out of place. The plastic tarp was still on the floor but any evidence of painter's tape was gone. Stiles' room was finished. All it needed was the furniture.

Stiles wasn't there.

Derek stepped back out into the hallway and took a deep breath. He had to sift through the paint smell the house had been marinated in, but he found Stiles' scent. The smell of paint was too overpowering though. He couldn't tell where the scent led, where it was coming from. So he focused on his hearing.

Everyone was still in their rooms, finishing up. Boyd's slow paint brush strokes. Allison, Erica, and Lydia already cleaning up. Scott muttering to himself as he made the final touches. Isaac cursing when he stepped in his own paint.

Wait. Just across the hall, in the master bedroom, someone was moving around. No one was in the house except the pack, so it had to be Stiles. Why was Stiles in Derek's bedroom?

Heart jumping, Derek opened his own door and walked inside.

The walls were painted. Every wall was a simple tan color, not the color of sand but of young tree bark. It wouldn't have looked dark but for the white molding and roof. Derek reached out and touched the wall nearest the bedroom door. The paint was completely dry, as if it had been applied hours ago.

Across from the door, and across from where Derek had planned to put his bed, Stiles stood on a step stool to paint near the roof. He wasn't painting the wall tan, however. The paint on his brush was dark brown, almost black unless sunlight hit it, and he was using it to draw trees. He'd drawn three already, thin but climbing beyond the roof and out of sight, with skinny, reaching branches, and was working on a forth. They had no leaves, yet Derek didn't think they were dead either. They were simple, simpler than Allison's flowers or Boyd's meticulous work, but they looked so right in this room.

Derek would have left these walls bare, and he was ashamed of himself for it now.

He waited until Stiles was back on the ground and getting more paint before he spoke. "Stiles."

It was good he waited, because Stiles jumped almost a foot in the air and dropped his brush in the paint bucket, the handle disappearing below the rim. He clutched his hands to his chest.

"Oh my god," he gasped. "Why do you always do that?"

A smirk fought to gain purchase on Derek's face but he was too in awe to manage it. "You painted my room?" he asked, unable to fathom it.

Stiles scratched his cheek idly as his eyes cast around the room, as if checking whether he had in fact painted or not. "Uh, yeah. Yes."

"You gave me trees." Derek wished he could say something more profound than simple observations, but his brain seemed to have crashed like a faulty computer.

"A bit of nature without the part where they die because you have no green thumb," Stiles explained, glancing back at his almost completed fourth tree. "Is….Do you not like it?"

For the first time in a long time, Stiles seemed unsure of himself. Derek didn't like it. He didn't like how Stiles was hunching his shoulders or avoiding his gaze. He didn't like the worry bleeding off his skin.

"I like it," Derek admitted, and most of the tension left Stiles in the blink of an eye. He really liked it. "I just don't understand why you did it."

A shrug. "You didn't come shopping with us yesterday, and you've been kind of avoiding the place since the idea came up, so I thought, I don't know, maybe you weren't planning on doing anything to it at all," he explained. "And that just seemed like a total waste. I mean, it's the master bedroom of this big house you got rebuilt. It's the only room in the house where someone is gonna have to live every day and sleep every night. I don't know, it felt wrong to have everyone else with a room to call home…except you," he trailed off.

Home. Derek hadn't had a home since he was sixteen and this house burned down. He and Laura had lived in an apartment together. He'd lived in the burned wreck of this house, in the railway car, in the loft. Derek had lived places, but he hadn't had a home.

"A room is a room," he said, but then Stiles cut him off.

"No it's not," he denied, a deep frown on his face. "A kitchen is a kitchen. A dining room is a dining room. A living room is a living room. A bathroom is a bathroom. And a bedroom is a bedroom. But you can't tell me that if someone decorated your living room like a bedroom that you'd be comfortable inviting guests in, or that if your dining room looked like your bathroom that you'd want to eat there." He crossed his arms. "Every place in this house has a purpose, and a bedroom should be a place you feel comfortable and safe. Unpainted, blank walls make me feel like I'm in the prologue of a horror movie or Jumanji, not like I'm home."

"You keep saying 'home.' Stiles, this isn't your home. It's a house, one you have a room in. Do you put this much effort into your own home?" Derek asked, defensively.

He didn't know why he felt defensive. Stiles was just stating facts. Every room in a house did have a purpose and was decorated and set up a specific way to meet that purpose. His bedroom would have look incredibly uninviting without the paint on the walls. Derek had already admitted that to himself. But hearing Stiles talk about it like it mattered, hearing him refer to this place as home, made Derek's chest ache. Because, like he'd said, this wasn't Stiles' home. It was a meeting place. And any of the pack could choose to never come back at any time. Easy as that.

"No, I don't," Stiles admitted, but it sounded like an attack rather than a submission. "And you know why? Because my dad and me? We have memories in that house. My parents bought that house together when they were newlyweds. I grew up there with my mom. There are notches on the wall where they measured me. There's a burn on the wall behind the stove where dad tried to fry lasagna. We've had the laundry room treated for mold twice after the washer flooded the room. I shot a bullet from my dad's sidearm into the livingroom wall when I was seven and now there's a picture hanging in front of it to hide it. That isn't a house. That's a home, Derek. I don't have to try to make it one because it already is."

He shifted uncomfortably and Derek felt his pain. What did you say to that?

"This isn't a home," he said at length.

Stiles let out a long, soft breath of air, his shoulders sagging. He looked up at Derek and nodded, almost shyly. "I know. But it could be. It will be. You have a pack here, Derek. You have a family. And I know they won't replace what you lost, but this house? Soon it'll show that they lived here. You'll smell perfume and makeup products and female problems all over the bathrooms, and god knows how much boys smell on their own, let alone werewolf boys." Another shrug, this one a bit bouncy. "But nothing can happen until the rooms are set up, and you can't decorate a room until it's painted," he concluded with a smile.

And so they came full circle.

"And I care because…it's your home, Derek." Stiles blushed and ran a hand through his hair nervously. "It's your home."

Derek took the few steps between them, placed one hand on either side of Stiles' face, and kissed him. It wasn't passionate or bruising or rushed. Derek went slow. He tested the waters. And Stiles returned the gesture with a mixture of want and surprise leaking through in his scent, his heartbeat, and his body language.

They pulled back from the kiss but Derek couldn't make himself move away. They stood, breathing each other's air, for several long moments.

"You just kissed me," Stiles muttered, breaking the silence only a fraction.

"Did you not like it?" Derek asked at the same volume, but without the startled awe in his voice.

Stiles shook his head, making Derek release him in the process. "No. No I liked it. I really very much liked it. I'd like to do it again, many times. With tongue. I just….why-"

"Thank you," Derek interrupted. "For everything. It was you that pushed me to rebuild the house, and you're a big reason why the two packs merged. I…I've never said thank you."

Stiles frowned and moved his head back a few centimeters now that Derek wasn't holding his face anymore. "You thank me by kissing me?"

"No." Derek groaned, stepping back and covering his face with his hand.

He peeked through his fingers and found a very unhappy Stiles standing before him. There was a can of dark brown paint on the floor and drying trees on the wall behind him. Derek let his hand fall and took a deep breath.

Take two. "No one has cared about me so much in a long time," he started again. "And I haven't cared about anyone this much since before the fire. I'm out of practice."

He watched a smile tugged the corners of Stiles' lips up and up, until he was fighting not to beam. Stiles crossed his arms over his chest and puffed out his chest.

"Well don't worry. I can walk you through it step by step," he claimed proudly.

Derek couldn't help himself. "You've never been on a date before, Stiles."

Stiles spluttered, losing his grand stance. "Yeah- well- that's- I've watched movies, dude. I can probably figure it out."

Derek smiled. There was no fighting or denying it. He'd read the signals right this time. Stiles cared about him. Stiles wanted this to be a home as much, if not more, than Derek did. Stiles wanted to be with him for him. There was nothing phony about him.

"Stiles," he said, but didn't continue. He just looked at Stiles once he'd stopped talking, taking in the fact that he could maybe, actually, call this his.

Stiles rolled his eyes after only a few seconds. "Oh just come over here and kiss me again. I need to finish painting and you're embarrassing yourself."

So Derek did.

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fin.