you & me could calm a war down.

Light filtered through the grimy windows of Derek's loft, barely strong enough to illuminate the light particles in the air. He'd have to clean them soon.

At that thought Derek froze, fingers gripping at the hem of his sleep shirt, poised to take it off. Cleaning. When was the last time he had a thought to spare for cleaning? All panic and worry from the next threat to his pack's lives and now... nothing. It was quiet. Derek wasn't sure which was worse, finding the lack of imminent death itself concerning, or the concern in question.

He sat heavily on the edge of his bed, dropping his hands into his lap and frowning at them. Maybe it was time to get a job, or at least start to rebuild what was left of his life. He'd dropped it and ran when Laura went missing, and there'd barely been a moment to breath since.

Derek's brow furrowed at the thought of it. At one point he'd had a plan, a career in mind, a home. And now he was an alpha in a loft, he wasn't sure how much he'd be able to rebuild.

Stiles mindlessly gnawed on the pen trapped between his fingers. He was definitely happy to be home but it was a good week of resting and reuniting with people and he was now bored of sleeping in his bed and watching lots of episodes of Gossip Girl (because of course he'd reverted to that). He had just gotten out of the shower and dressed in typical Stiles fashion - that being a nicely fitted black skinny jeans and pants and flannel, only the latter being old while the earlier were quite new actually. He scrolled through text messages and knew that Erica and Boyd were out on a date, Scott and Isaac were bonding over puppies at Deaton's so Stiles options were almost exhausted - almost.

Stiles carded his growing hair - he might have to cut it soon because college had made it get out of hand - and then he thought about Derek. An involuntary blush spread across his cheeks and his hands fidgeted. Ugh. That feeling he had had when they were younger and mostly just fought each other had changed as the pack had stabilized and all of its members had grown. Whatever. It was just the pack bond growing and being able to stand each other, really.

Stiles nodded to himself, because yeah, why not pester Derek? He grabbed his keys and phone, jumped down the stairs and turned the lights off before seeing his beloved Roscoe, his most loyal Jeep parked in the driveway. It didn't take long to drive to Derek's loft, and he scoffed thinking about its interior knowing already that it was subpar, not that Derek liked to listen to his ingenious opinion. Anyways, Stiles traipsed clumsily up the stairs and knocked on Derek's door, his heartbeat jackhammering a couple times before he got it to calm down, no doubt making his presence known before he had knocked.

Derek had dressed and was sitting at a complete loss of what to do when he heard Stiles' jeep pull up outside. He listened to the younger man's footsteps as he came up the stairs and was ready to yank the door open as soon as Stiles had knocked.

It occurred to him, belatedly, that it might seem a little desperate pulling his door open with such enthusiasm in the face of actual human company, but then there could be an emergency of some sort- time could be a necessity.

"Stiles," he greeted. "What do you need?"

Stiles raised an eyebrow at the grumpy werewolf and took the question as an invitation. He figured for as many times as he had watched his friends bleed all over his hands in this loft, he could invite himself inside.

"I probably need a number of therapy sessions because your grumpiness is a personal attack on my happiness," Stiles said with a small smirk before he pushed past Derek and stood in the middle of the loft. He would comment that the place could use some sprucing up, but he doubted Derek wanted to hear that and he was probably the last person Derek would want to be stuck in Ikea or Homegoods with so instead, Stiles threw himself on the subpar couch in the loft and relaxed. There were a few claw scratches on the pillow he leaned against, but that was when from Stiles had annoyed Isaac so he didn't mind.

Seeing the way that Derek had thrown the door open though, Stiles felt a tiny ounce of guilt and revisited what he said before. "There's nothing wrong, I just got bored, and Scott's at work," Stiles explained, stretching his arms behind his head and then surveying the loft. His fingers tapped on the couch and his eyes followed Derek's figure from where Stiles sat.

Derek sighed as he closed the door behind Stiles, following him in and setting himself down on the edge of the battered armchair. He nodded slowly at Stiles explanation, watching as he tapped his fingers against the upholstery.

"I see," he said after a moment, rubbing the back of his neck as he moved his gaze from Stiles to the floor.

He wasn't sure what more to say. There was no emergency, the younger man was simply bored. Derek couldn't remember the last time it had just been him and Stiles together, without a life threatening situation on the cards.

He wiped his palms on his jeans, searching for something to say before settling on his thoughts before Stiles had arrived.

"I'm thinking about decorating," he offered up. "Now we have time, perhaps."

Stiles almost snorted and responded with, "Yeah that's overdue," but restrained himself because Derek? Actually making conversation with him and trying to improve his state of his life and living situations? He was scared that train would never leave the station so he was sure as hell going to be on board with it. He caught a piece of his index finger between his teeth but then remembered he had been trying to quit chewing on things so he went back to tapping on the couch to do something with his fingers.

"Yeah, I know brooding eyebrows is your aesthetic right now but a change of scenery might do you good too," he said and then winced because damn, he was not saying what he wanted to say right now. He was trying to be supportive so he glanced away kind of shyly and looked around.

"You could set up something more secure for your workout routines, get some paint, fix up those dents in the wall - I could help!" he offered and then thought twice about it, "like - if you want me to. I have free time is all I'm saying," Stiles murmured, scratching the back of his head briefly.

He had free time and well... it wouldn't hurt to let Derek know that the pack wanted to see him feel home somewhere and not like he was just hiding out until the next threat and well, Stiles wanted to see him smile more often. (He was absolutely not going to think more about why he wanted to see Derek's smile more often).

"Do you know if you want specific color schemes? Or want to start off small or just jump into it?"

Derek's brow raised a little more with each thing Stiles listed off, he'd thought maybe wiping down the windows and some curtains but there seemed to be more to it than he'd planned. More to it to make it a real home at least.

"I hadn't thought that far..." Derek admitted, watching Stiles' hand as it flitted between his mouth and the couch. "I don't even know how to fix the dents in the walls."

He eyed the dents in question for a long moment, brow furrowing as he tried to figure out where each one came from. Were they there when he bought the place? Or had they come from the wear and tear of herding round and unruly pack of teenage werewolves.

"Something light, for the colour scheme," he said eventually. "Make it seem... welcoming?"

He hadn't quite intended the last bit to come out as a question, but the thought of his home becoming welcoming was almost laughable.

"Help would be appreciated, though," he glanced up at Stiles face, quirking an attempt at a smile, "Someone should look up how to fix dents."

Stiles let out a little huff looking at the dents, one where he had dodged a "playful" punch from one of the teen wolves and others from when there had been real fights taken inside the loft. His heartbeat stuttered a little as he saw what he thought was an attempt at a smile on Derek's part.

"Yeah sourwolf, there's no way you can get the deposit back on that...," he murmured as he pulled out his phone since he wasn't even sure if Derek had a laptop or not. Google was a great invention, especially for figuring out how to fix dents/holes in the wall.

"Looks like to fix up the wall, we'd have to sand the dents and cover with paint, or for that hole, we'd have to get something called fast drying spackle to cover it up," Stiles said reading from his phone, offering the phone to Derek if he wanted to come closer and poke around on the internet himself too. He also saw some website links where they had suggestions on how to do renovations and themes.

"Maybe try and do some kind of earthy toned theme? Like light greens and off whites?"

Thank god for all the times he'd been bored out of his mind and didn't have energy to game so he'd just laid around eating pizza and watching the HGTV channel where all they did was fixer uppers and renovations. He could also call in Lydia's help, but he figured he had time and Lydia could be overbearing and would want to decorate the place in a chic manner and well, this was Derek's home. All in all, it looked like