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“So I’m graduating in a couple months,” Stiles declared from the kitchen.
Derek looked up from his book. “Yeah?”
“And we know that this,” Stiles gestured between his chest and Derek, “we know that this is forever, yeah?”
Derek put the book down and rose from the couch. “Yes. What are you getting at?” He walked slowly around the couch and approached Stiles.
“In the interest of being mature adults who communicate… I wanted to say that I want to be the one to propose,” Stiles said with a wide grin.
“What?” Derek asked as he stopped walking a few feet away from Stiles and frowned slightly. “I was planning on proposing to you.”
Stiles crossed his arms over his chest. “Well, then we’ve got a problem.”
Derek blinked a few times before throwing back his head and laughing as he stepped forward to pull Stiles in for a hug. He stood with his arms folded for a moment before relenting and laughing as he wrapped his arms around Derek in return.
“You two are so weird,” Ben shouted from upstairs.
*
Stiles dropped to the bed next to Derek and panted quietly for a few seconds before turning to face him. “Wow.”
Derek grinned widely and rolled onto his side as he watched Stiles wipe at the sweat along his brow. He reached under his pillow and pulled out a small black, velvet box. “Stiles…”
“No!” Stiles gasped. “No, dude, you cannot propose ten seconds after we finish having sex. That cannot be the story we tell people!”
Derek grinned and rubbed his face into his pillow before glancing back up at Stiles. “You’re sure you don’t want to look at it anyway?”
Stiles bit his lip briefly before pushing the black box toward Derek. “I want to keep the suspense.” He smirked suddenly and held his hand out, and Derek watched as a small matching black box floated out of Stiles’ closet and into his hand. “Do you want to look at yours?”
Derek laughed, “No. I’ll wait too.”
*
Derek looked up abruptly and held his hand out in front of Stiles’ chest to get him to stop walking. Stiles glanced sharply at him and shot his hand out to Ben’s shoulder. The kid glanced back at Stiles and Derek and quickly stepped beside them.
“What’s up?” Ben asked in a quiet voice.
“Two men have been following us for a couple blocks,” Derek said softly. “Both wolves. And two more just stepped onto the street in front of us.”
“But they could be…”
“Ben, smell them,” Derek said softly. “They don’t belong to any of the local packs around here.”
Ben inhaled deeply. “They’re omegas?”
Derek nodded grimly before glancing over his shoulder. “I can’t imagine what they think they’d get out of cornering us though.” He glanced at Stiles, “You ready?”
Stiles smirked, “Of course.”
“What should I do?” Ben asked, stepping closer to Stiles.
“Nothing, pup,” Derek answered, as he stepped to the side so that he and Stiles were back-to-back, with Ben between them. “Sound ward?”
“Already up,” Stiles responded. “Feel free to speak freely. Unless you’d like me to?”
“What do you want?” Derek asked, raising his voice slightly so that the group of men walking toward them from opposite directions would still hear them clearly. “We’re here peacefully, welcome guests on established pack territory. And I don’t believe the local Alpha would take kindly to your presence.”
“You might be welcome guests,” the man with the long blonde beard responded. “But the pack is on the other side of town now. And you might be guests, but would they really come to protect you?”
Stiles scoffed, “Protect us? From who?”
“Us,” another bearded man snarled from opposite the blonde bearded man who had spoken first.
Stiles guessed that he was supposed to feel afraid of being surrounded. “Oh no. Big bad werewolves. Whatever will we do?”
“Shut up, boy. We know you have magic.”
Stiles waited a few seconds before speaking. “And? Were you planning on going somewhere with that sentence… or were you just… informing me of my own magic?”
“We’re going to take you,” Blonde Beard said. “You’re going to help us form a pack. A real one.”
“Uh, no thanks,” Stiles scoffed. “I’ve already got a pack. A real one.” Stiles reached one hand back to squeeze Derek’s hand. “A pack that my mate and I built together. A pack that I would do anything for.”
“Your mate?” Brown Beard asked. “You’re… mates?”
Stiles spun suddenly and knelt, still holding Derek’s hand. “Derek, care to make it official?” Stiles reached into his pocket and pulled out the small black box.
Derek smacked himself in the face. “Really, Stiles? Now?”
Stiles laughed as Ben stepped back and snapped a picture of them. “Yes, now. Make me an honest man?”
Derek tugged on his hand. “I am not accepting a proposal in a dirty alley while surrounded by omegas. Try again.”
Stiles laughed loudly before pulling Derek in for a kiss.
“God, I can’t with you two sometimes,” Ben grumbled before turning to the omegas around them. They were shifting uneasily and glancing at each other while Stiles and Derek continued kissing. “You should probably start running,” Ben said mildly. “Before he starts paying attention to you again.”
The men all exchanged looks again before they started to slowly back away from the trio.
“Too slow,” Stiles said, still grinning up close to Derek. He reached his hand out and all four of the bearded men let out grunts as they lifted into the air and floated forward. “I think the Alpha of this territory will be quite interested in meeting you.”
*
Derek checked the clock and nodded. He had practically run through the store to get everything that he needed, so that he would have time leftover without Stiles getting too suspicious about what else he was doing.
He opened the front door to Stiles’ old house and called softly, “John?” He could hear the man in the kitchen, but it was still polite to announce himself when he came in.
“Come on back, Derek,” John called out. “I’m fixing myself a heart-healthy lunch.”
Derek chuckled as he made his way through the house and grinned as John stepped away from the counter to hug him quickly. The older man had taken to the ways of the pack surprisingly well, and knew how important scent was to all of the wolves.
“You said you wanted to ask about something important?”
Derek nodded and pulled the ring box out of his pocket. “Stiles and I have a problem,” he said as he opened the box.
John let out a small awed sound and nodded in approval. “What’s the problem? You’re both head over heels in love with each other.”
“We both want to be the one to propose.”
Stiles’ father laughed, “Yeah, that would be the type of problem you two would have. And you don’t want to just… propose at the same time?”
“We want it to be romantic and… a surprise. We know we’re going to get married, but we both still want to surprise each other with the proposal.”
John nodded as he pulled two beers out of the fridge and handed one to Derek before sitting down at the kitchen table. “I proposed to Stiles’ mother during a picnic. And I had our families hiding just out of sight, and we timed it so that as I got on my knee, they all came out. They had balloons and champagne and everything. Stiles always liked the way she told the story - she made it seem a lot more magical and romantic than I felt it was… but then again… I was a sweaty ball of nerves leading up to it, so maybe it was just more magical for her.”
Derek nodded, “So you’re saying you think he’d like it if I proposed at a picnic too?”
John shrugged as he took a bite of his sandwich. “I’m sure he’d like it. Whether it’s the right move, or perfect, or whatever it is that you boys are looking for is something else entirely.”
Derek stared at his beer for a few seconds before picking it up and sipping it. “I know we’d both like something romantic, obviously, but we also agreed that it doesn’t need to be anything like, cliché. And he proposed to me in a dirty alley when we were cornered by a bunch of omegas, so I don’t know that either of us are taking it super seriously.”
“He already proposed?” John asked, his eyebrows shooting up.
“I told him he had to try again,” Derek said, scratching at the side of his neck and laughing self-consciously. “He told me my first proposal wasn’t good enough because it wasn’t a story we could tell everyone, so I told him I didn’t want our story to be that we were in a dirty alley either.”
John shook his head as he studied Derek. “You proposed during sex, didn’t you?”
Derek nearly choked on his beer. “No!” he exclaimed, his cheeks colored as John continued staring at him. Eventually he admitted, “Right after.”
“Derek,” John sighed and shook his head. “Well, honestly, Stiles proposing while fighting omegas doesn’t particularly surprise me either.” John took another bite of his sandwich and chewed thoughtfully. “Have you had any other proposals?” Derek shook his head. “So you’ve both tried spontaneous but… not story-worthy proposals. Maybe you can aim for something that’s spontaneous but… story-worthy, like, a proper public place or at a pack dinner or wherever the mood hits.”
Derek nodded, “Proper public place. I can do that.”
*
“Hey babe, should we get two bunches of bananas this week? If we don’t eat through them quickly enough, Ben and I can always make banana bread.” Stiles glanced up and noticed that Derek wasn’t standing where he thought he’d be. “Babe?” He turned around and laughed at the sight in front of him.
Derek was down on one knee holding up the small black box with a mischievous grin on his face.
“Stiles, will you make me the happiest man on the planet?”
“Dude, in the produce section?” Stiles laughed again and reached a hand down to stroke along Derek’s beard as he started laughing too. “When I’m musing about making banana bread? How is that romantic?”
“It’s better than that alley,” Derek responded, standing up and kissing Stiles.
“Alright fine, we’re both bad at this,” Stiles responded, leaning his forehead against Derek’s.
“Well?” An old lady said loudly from a few feet away from them. “What’s the answer?”
Stiles and Derek both looked over and realized that a small crowd of shoppers had stopped to watch them.
“It’s a yes!” Stiles shouted with a wide grin. Everyone standing in the produce section cheered as Stiles leaned his forehead against Derek’s again and spoke under his breath. “This doesn’t count though, and don’t you open that box. We’re trying this again.”
“Of course,” Derek responded as he wrapped an arm around Stiles’ waist and pulled him close.
*
Derek rolled over and opened his eyes suddenly. Stiles’ side of the bed was empty. He could hear him in the kitchen, but he almost never got out of bed early on Saturdays unless somebody called him and forced him to wake up.
He pulled Stiles’ pillow close to him and inhaled deeply. The smell of bacon and pancakes wafted in even through the divine scent of Stiles.
After only a minute or two, the bedroom door opened and Stiles entered carrying a platter of food. “Good morning, sleepyhead,” he said as he settled onto the bed and kissed Derek’s messy hair. “You took my pillow to replace me?”
“Well, I didn’t have you to grab onto,” Derek murmured into the pillow before turning his head and grinning up at Stiles.
“Look,” Stiles said now that he had Derek’s attention. “Breakfast in bed, just for you, because I love you. Romance.”
Derek raised an eyebrow. “Uh… sure?”
Stiles grinned and dropped from the bed so he was kneeling beside it. He pulled the now-familiar black velvet box out and placed it on the platter beside the bacon. “Will you take it this time, babe? Will you say yes? Please?”
Derek reached out slowly, his hand hovering over the ring box for a moment before he picked up a piece of bacon and bit it slowly while maintaining eye contact with Stiles the whole time.
“Are you serious?” Stiles demanded with a laugh. “This isn’t romantic enough?”
“I think we need to go bigger. This just doesn’t feel… right,” Derek said as he pulled the platter closer to him. “Bacon’s good though. Did you leave some in the kitchen for Ben?”
“Ben helped make everything,” Stiles responded as he climbed onto the bed and pulled the plate of eggs closer. “Bigger, you said? I can do bigger.”
Derek chuckled and leaned over to kiss Stiles, “Not if I beat you to it.”
*
“Laura I made him breakfast in bed!” Stiles whined as he dropped his head into his hands on the island. He had waited until the minute that Derek and Ben were far enough away from the house that they wouldn’t be able to overhear him. “I know our first few times weren’t romantic because they were just… spontaneous. But I actually put in effort! It was romantic! And he still said it wasn’t good enough.”
“Hmm,” Laura hummed into her coffee mug while she studied Stiles. “And you both agreed you don’t want anything over-the-top?”
“Not really,” Stiles said, tipping his head to the side so he could look up at Laura. “Just that it didn’t need to be a romantic cliché-type thing. But he said he wants something bigger.”
“Alright, well since you both clearly don’t want a spontaneous thing, and Derek seemingly doesn’t even want a casually romantic thing, then you should definitely try going bigger. Like, rent out a restaurant for a private dinner. Or go to a romantic bed and breakfast or something.”
“There’s a hot-air balloon festival next weekend,” Stiles murmured.
“Perfect,” Laura said, a glint in her eye. “He can’t claim that isn’t big enough.”
*
“Reservations tomorrow night at a fancy restaurant, Derek? Really?”
Derek laughed into the phone. Stiles regularly just launched into conversations without any of the normal greetings, so he was used to this in general. But he had also just texted Stiles to let him know about the reservation, and had been holding his phone and waiting for a response.
“Well, I’ll just have you know that there’s a hot-air balloon festival tomorrow, and I already booked us a private trip.”
“You wouldn’t,” Derek gasped into the phone.
“I’m going to romance the shit out of you,” Stiles declared victoriously. “Champagne and caviar and all that romantic bougie shit.”
*
“So how was your day of competitive romance?” Ben asked as Stiles and Derek walked into the house. Ben and Isaac were sitting on the couch with their legs tangled together as they watched tv.
Derek and Stiles both held up their left hands to show off the lack of rings. Isaac grunted and threw a pillow at them. “What are you waiting for? Just put the rings on and start planning your wedding. Does the proposal really matter that much?”
Derek shrugged and Stiles laughed as he came to drop onto the couch between Ben and Isaac, who both moved their legs to make room for Stiles. “It just didn’t feel right. The balloon ride was fun and the restaurant was so fancy. The food was delicious and everything, but it just didn’t feel like… us.”
“We decided we want our proposal to be something that’s important to us,” Derek added as he leaned over the back of the couch and pressed a kiss to Stiles’ head. “We’re not in a hurry, so we’re just going to have fun and see how things go.”
“You guys are so weird,” Isaac said fondly.
*
“No!” Ben declared loudly, drawing both Derek and Stiles’ attention.
Then Stiles noticed what had caught Ben’s attention in the first place and grinned widely before sliding out of his seat and pulling the now-familiar black box out of his pocket.
“Derek, you said ‘bigger’ so my question is up on the jumbotron, and we wanted something that’s been special to us, so I’m proposing here in the football stadium where we’ve watched endless games together, and there are tons of cameras on us right now, so please make me beyond happy and say yes,” Stiles said earnestly, even though there was a mischievous glint in his eyes.
Derek stared blankly between the real-life Stiles in front of him and the larger-than-life version of both of them, with Ben trying to hide out of the camera’s view, on the jumbotron screen with the words “Derek, will you marry me?” in giant cartoon letters framing them.
He burst into laughter and waved at the jumbotron as he got down on his knee too and pulled out his own, now-familiar black box.
The crowd around them gasped as the text on the jumbotron changed to say, “Stiles, will you marry me?”
Stiles collapsed onto Derek’s shoulder in laughter before looking back up at the screen. “So obviously this is a tie, right? So it doesn’t really count?”
“Obviously. But I think this was the closest one. Now kiss me,” Derek said with a laugh as he wrapped an arm around Stiles’ waist, “So the crowd doesn’t think we’re saying no.”
As Stiles leaned in to press their lips together, Ben groaned, “I’m not going out in public with either of you ever again.”
*
Derek inhaled slowly through his nose and sighed happily as he looked around at the pack. He and Stiles had just finished officially moving back to Beacon Hills. Stiles’ graduation had been last weekend, and they’d spent most of the last week packing things and doing touristy things in the area. It had taken the help of several pack members and an entire long weekend, but they had finally cleaned out the house they were renting and got everything moved back into the house here. He was tired, but he was glad to officially be back in Beacon Hills for good.
Isaac, Allison, and Ben were sitting directly across from Derek and Stiles, and Laura was sitting next to them, tucked under Jordan’s arm.
Jackson and Lydia had arrived back in Beacon Hills earlier in the week and Jackson had chipped in and helped unload all of their belongings, even though Lydia refused to lift a finger. Scott and Kira were sitting further down the table and talking happily with Boyd and Erica.
Stiles grinned at his dad where he was standing and chatting with Chris, Marco, and Cynthia. He looked over at Derek and they simultaneously reached out and laced their fingers together.
“This is perfect,” Derek said softly.
“It is,” Stiles replied, just as softly. Everyone around them continued talking, not paying attention to the two of them, but happily surrounding them.
Derek squeezed his hand and asked, “Should we do it now?”
Stiles whipped to look at him and squeezed back. “Yeah.” He reached into his pocket at the same time Derek did, and they both produced the small black boxes and held them out to each other.
The table around them slowly fell quiet as they opened the boxes for the first time in each other’s presence.
“Oh Derek,” Stiles sighed. “It’s perfect.”
The top of the ring had a small triskelle inlaid with yellow gold and it fit on his finger perfectly.
“Yours looks unassuming,” Stiles explained as he lifted it out of the box and slid it onto Derek’s finger, “but I infused it with magic so that it will grow and shrink to always fit perfectly on your finger, no matter what form you’re in. I can also use it as an anchor for a ward, and I even infused it with several different protective qualities.”
“It’s perfect,” Derek grinned as he leaned in for a kiss.
The both jumped slightly a second later at the sound of a bottle of champagne popping, and they leaned back to look up at the whole pack crowding around them. Chris and Marco were both holding bottles of champagne and Laura had walked around the table and pulled them both into a tight hug. After a moment, she moved aside and John wrapped them both in his arms before pressing kisses to their hair.
“Good call, doing it when the whole pack is here,” he murmured to the pair.
Stiles patted his dad’s back. “We weren’t going to find a more perfect moment than this, no matter how hard we tried.”
Isaac came over and pressed champagne flutes into their hands before planting kisses on each of their heads. “Honestly, I’m glad I got to be here for the real proposal.”
“Mmmm,” Ben agreed with a wide grin, “instead of their like, three practice proposals, like I had to live through.”
“Those were special too,” Derek said with a grin, “but not as special as having the whole pack here.”
Stiles pressed a kiss to Derek’s temple and grinned against his skin. “I love you, babe.”
“Love you too,” Derek whispered back as he rested their foreheads together. “My fiancé.”
Stiles’ eyes widened and he squeezed Derek’s hand. “My mate. My fiancé.”