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“So how was your day?” Derek asks as he comes into the dining room of their home. Stiles is sitting there, papers strewn around the table in front of him. Derek frowns, looks at the clock – nearly eight thirty, and he knows Stiles, knows that he had probably sat down as soon as he got home from work – which his office closes at two on Wednesdays – and probably hadn’t moved since.
He does look up as Derek comes into the room, though, smiling brightly.
“You’re home,” he says, and Derek nods.
“Sorry I’m so late. Meetings with clients all day, they’re always looking for something to critique. I have to draw up new floor plans for house I decided to tackle, the huge one-room over on the other side of town? The owners decided they wanted to completely change up the dimensions and placement of the rooms. Why’re people so hard to please?”
Stiles’ smile widens at that.
“Don’t I wish I knew. You remember the Bolton’s, the couple I told you about?”
Derek nods, pulls out a chair to sit down next to Stiles, “Aren’t they the lesbian couple who came to you a couple of weeks ago and wants you to plan their wedding for August?”
“Yeah,” Stiles nods, “Which means we have to send out invitations now, but when we went through all the options for cardstock the company I use has, they insisted on finding their own company to print out the invites because the company I use doesn’t have an option for hand-pressed dark blue paper with neon pink ink that smells like lilacs.”
Contrary to popular belief, Stiles has always found that working with women in relation to their weddings was always the easiest; when men did get involved with the wedding plans (which, in heterosexual relationships, was enormously rare, which to Stiles was pretty sad), they tended to be pushy and overbearing. Women were much more likely to listen to what Stiles had to say, and when you’re twenty seven years old and have planned as many weddings as Stiles has, you know what you’re doing. Unfortunately, the Bolton’s seemed to be the exception to this rule, having come to him wanting him to plan a wedding in three months’ time (plenty of time, if he wasn’t already planning four other weddings for later in the year), and now they were being very selective and not listening to Stiles about anything.
“On the bright side,” he continues, reaching under the papers he’d been staring at to pick out two types of cardstock, “I think I found the paper we should use for our invitations, which we should send out soon, too.”
Derek’s soft smile goes bright as he takes the paper from Stiles, just like it always does whenever someone mentions the fact that they’re getting married. His smile drops a little, however, as he looks down at the two cardstocks, because –
“Is there even a difference between these?”
Stiles snorts, pointing to the one in Derek’s left hand, “This is a softer paper, it’s a lot like hand pressed paper but without the actual hand pressing, which means it’s easier to tear and not as stiff, while this,” he points to the cardstock in Derek’s right hand, “Is cardstock, it’s firmer and harder and more like, well, a card. They also smell different.”
Derek stops for a moment to look up at Stiles.
“They both smell like something?”
“Mhmm,” Stiles hums, “Most of the paper the company I use does. Most people don’t notice it, but they usually enjoy the little burst of scent when they open the invitation or thank you note or whatever.”
Scrunching his eyebrows together, Derek takes a sniff of the firmer paper – sweet, a lot like vanilla, a little overwhelmingly sweet – and he moves to the other one, which smells like –
“This smells like Christmas,” he says before he thinks it through, but takes another whiff, and sure enough, it really does.
“I thought so too, but I like it,” Stiles nods, “It’s a little spicier, has cinnamon notes to it, I think it’s chai.”
“Definitely this one,” Derek nods, setting the softer, Christmas-smelling paper back down. His fiancé smiles brightly at him.
“You wanna work on our guest list tonight?”
Derek looks at him for a moment, then gestures to the clock.
“We should probably eat some dinner and just relax for the rest of the night. We can work on it tomorrow, I’ll be home early.”
Stiles blinks at him before looking at the clock, looking surprised as he takes in the time.
“Oh. It’s almost nine.”
“Indeed,” Derek replies, “How about some take out? Pizza or Chinese?”
Stiles looks back over to him with his ‘duh’ expression on.
“Pizza,” they both say at the same time, and Derek laughs, getting up from his chair and leaning over to give Stiles a kiss.
“Y’know we’re gonna be married in ten months,” Stiles says as they break apart, and Derek’s face feels immense with how largely he’s smiling.
“I can’t wait to be your husband,” he responds, and Stiles gives him another kiss before replying with, “Me neither, Mr. Derek Hale-Stilinski.”
“I’m really glad you asked me out those years ago. I probably wouldn’t have ever had the courage to do it myself.”
Stiles huffs.
“Me too. I really love you, y’know.”
“I know,” Derek kisses him once more, “I love you too. Now. Pizza?”
“You know the way to my heart more than anyone else does,” Stiles replies, gathering up he papers into a pile as Derek makes his way to the kitchen. He leans against the kitchen counter as the telephone dials, watching Stiles, his fiancé, and thinks that he’ll always owe one to Laura for finding Stiles Stilinski those three years ago to plan her wedding.