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It starts out because Stiles is feeling bored and edgy after finishing grad school. Well, to be fair, being jobless and adrift would make anyone edgy, and there are only so many times you can apply for extremely shitty entry-level positions in social science research without seeking out serious distractions. So he delves a little too deeply into Google, looks into the fucking abyss, actually, and things just devolve from there.
It’s spring, and Scott’s got finals, vet school finals, but Scott is his bro. Scott can handle a little distraction in Stiles’s quest for information.
“I need to ask you about your penis,” is what Stiles opens with.
Scott glares at him. “No way, dude.”
“It’s anatomy,” Stiles says. “Nothing embarrassing. I just have a werewolf question for you.”
“You want to know about my werewolf penis? Because I’m pretty sure there’s a word for that, and I’m not confused this time.”
“I don’t want to know about your werewolf penis! Just your regular penis! And not yours. I’m just talking in general. I’ve been online – “
“Jesus,” Scott says, then reflexively looks over his shoulder to make sure his abuela isn’t around. (It’s not paranoid; she’s taken to popping over to visit Allison at all times, dropping hints about great-grandbabies. Allison is terrified of her, but that’s because she hasn’t yet realized that Abuela never comes over without making delicious things like meatloaf, which can feed their favorite friends, like Stiles.) “Stiles, I’m really busy here. These tests are no joke, and – “
“Five minutes,” Stiles wheedles. “I was just reading a forum – one of the legit ones, you know – and they mentioned something about knots.”
“Knots,” Scott says, raising horrified eyes at Stiles. “You want to talk to me about my knot.”
“No! I mean, yes. I mean, you have one?”
Scott is quiet for a moment, watching Stiles’s face. Then he says, “Well, only sometimes.”
“Sometimes?”
“Yeah,” Scott says, flipping the page of the journal he’s reading. Scott is now a person who reads veterinary medicine journals instead of Highlights for Children (or Maxim or whatever it was once they hit puberty). It still blows Stiles’s mind. “It’s – well, if a werewolf is with their true mate, you know? Then they can choose to, like, make it official. That’s where the thing comes in, the knot. You know. So sometimes, if it’s like – really good, with Allison, or whatever – or, like, the night we got married – “
“Their true mate?” Stiles repeats, dumbfounded. Why hasn’t he heard this from any of his bestie werewolf friends before? Why did he have to look it up on the internet, and why does he have to have this conversation with Scott instead of his super-hot werewolf boyfriend? “So, you and Allison . . . “
“I was super freaked out at first,” Scott says. “But we asked Deaton and he says it’s just part of the whole magic transformation thing. Totally normal. What, did Derek’s – “
“No!” Stiles says, shouts, whatever, waving his hands as though he can manually dissipate the imminent bro-versation about his super-hot werewolf boyfriend’s magical dick. He had, quite honestly, mostly been expecting a flat denial. “No, I just – uh – thanks.”
Scott wrinkles his nose, looking up. “He hasn’t done it yet? I keep telling you, man. Commitment issues.”
“We do not have commitment issues!” Stiles says hotly. “We are committed. To each other. And – so what, maybe he just doesn’t like talking about his big mutant dick, it’s not a crime, I’m sure he was just being considerate, maybe I should ask Al if she – “
“Rule 12,” Scott says flatly.
(Rule 12: Never talk to anyone’s significant other about dicks. Stiles is a good friend, but sometimes he feels that these rules are a little bit restrictive.)
“I have to go,” Stiles says. “Have fun with your endless studying, asshat.”
“I will,” Scott says, lifting a hand, already focused back on whatever it is he’s reading, Terrible Creatures With Thorns In Their Paws: An Illustrated Guide or something, maybe. “Have fun convincing Derek you’re his mate, buttface.”
“I am his mate!” Stiles yells over his shoulder.
“Whatever!” Scott calls, and Stiles shuts the door sulkily, which is to say, a little too loudly.
But he is totally Derek’s true mate or whatever! He is. He’s the one Derek snuggles with at night; he’s the one who Derek sometimes even tells his feelings to, because Derek loves him. He’s the one Derek makes pancakes for every Sunday that they’re not working or dealing with some terrible supernatural disaster.
This is all just – a misunderstanding. He’ll fix it. No problem.
*
That night, Stiles has a few moments to think about this, mostly when he and Derek are having sex (but well before the part where they’re both pretty much incoherent). He’s got Derek on his back, and naked, one of his favorite positions because it affords him a pretty awesome view of almost everything he loves about Derek’s body, and he gets to lean up and kiss Derek whenever he wants, which is most of the time.
“I love you,” he tells Derek, seriously, running his hands up the ridges of muscles along Derek’s sides. “Like, so much, dude.”
“That’s sweet,” Derek says, inhaling sharply when Stiles moves just so. Stiles is a great lay, thank you very much. He learned at the hands of the student population of UC Berkeley, although Derek doesn’t appreciate being reminded of that. (Stiles reminds him instead who it was that honed his skills thereafter.) “Thank you.”
Stiles bites his shoulder, flicks at the ticklish spot next to his ribs. “Excuse you,” he says. “Rude.”
“I love you too,” Derek says, and even though he rolls his eyes, he lifts up a little to nuzzle Stiles’s cheek, and they have a little moment, right there, and honestly it’s really all Stiles wants from his life ever again. Things get pretty incoherent after that, until Stiles is groaning and making his embarrassing O-face into the side of Derek’s neck, with Derek’s hands on his ass urging him on.
Stiles manages to get it together and looks down at Derek’s dick, just before Derek strips it a few times and comes all over his own belly.
It’s still normal. Goddamn it, Stiles does not want to feel disappointed about having great butt-sex with his awesome boyfriend. That is, like, the gold standard of his sex life, because usually they’re too exhausted from whatever bullshit is going on – work, their disaster-prone friends, that time with the sealions – to do much more than get each other off and go to bed. Sometimes, afterwards, Derek makes herbal tea or hot chocolate and they watch Craig Ferguson. (Derek, inexplicably, has a thing for him.)
They eventually take care of the necessary condom and cleanup duties, and collapse less stickily into their nest of pillows and comforters. “Do you think we’ll ever get tired of having sex?” Stiles wonders. “Does that happen to people?”
“Is this that quarter-life crisis thing?” Derek asks, throwing an arm over his eyes. “I told you, that isn’t real. It’s made-up. And you’re only twenty-four.”
“I just really like having sex with you,” Stiles says.
“You’re not bad either,” Derek says, but he’s totally sniffing Stiles’s hair, nosing at the spot behind Stiles’s ear that he knows makes Stiles crazy. Stiles wishes they'd started doing this when he was 16, so that they could have had sex four times a day. He'd have been so up for that then. “Christ, I wish you’d quit wearing that aftershave Erica got you, though. It smells like fake Christmas tree plastic.”
“That is bizarrely specific.” Stiles curls up against Derek’s side, turns his head to kiss Derek’s nose, and then his mouth, lingering there happily, sleepily. “Now,” he says, “Let’s cuddle under the covers until one of us gets so overheated we shove the other one out of bed.” It happens at least twice a week.
Derek huffs, as though he’d never do something as undignified as getting overheated, but he reaches over to turn the bedside lamp off, and cuddles up to Stiles, which is really nice.
They are so mates. Right? Right.
(He throws out the aftershave. He hadn’t really liked it that much anyway.)
*
Over the next week, Stiles gives Derek approximately 50% more blow-jobs than usual, mostly because thinking about Derek’s dick all the time makes him pretty horny. Partly it’s also because he thinks it might be easier to figure out if anything’s happening to Derek’s dick if his mouth is on the case. So to speak.
Derek seems to enjoy the trend (Stiles is good at this particular sex act, let’s be clear, he is basically a master at blowing Derek Hale) but nothing particularly weird happens to his dick, even when he accidentally comes all over Stiles’s face one time. Which, according to the internet forums Stiles now secretly frequents during the many hours he spends online at various cafes with dubious wifi, should be more than enough to trigger possessive werewolf mating bullshit.
Stiles sputters, torn between keeping his eyes closed and keeping an eye on the prize. Derek uses one of Stiles’s discarded t-shirts to get the come out of Stiles’s eyes and then the rest of his face. “You seem weird,” he says, his mouth twitching. He dabs at Stiles’s jaw, swipes his neck. “Are you okay?”
“I’m not weird,” Stiles deflects indignantly. “Are you objecting to this? Because I’ve had a lot of feedback on this mouth in my life, and 99% of it has been – “
Derek rolls his eyes. It’s basically a chronic condition, or maybe a nervous tic. “I’m not objecting,” he says. “I’m just saying, normally you start whining about reciprocity at some point."
“Feel free,” Stiles says, getting up so that he can flop back on the bed and tug at the waist of his underwear. He levers himself back up, though. “Wait, let me go wash this off. Christ, you’d think after all this time your aim would be better.”
“How do you know it wasn’t on purpose?” Derek asks, getting up – ostensibly to get a wet cloth from the ensuite. (They have an ensuite. If Stiles wasn’t dating way out of his league and somewhat out of his age range, he’d totally still be living in a shitty one-bedroom, or maybe sharing a shitty house in the unincorporated part of Beacon County across the Preserve, like Boyd and Erica and Danny do. Instead, they get to live in Derek’s pretty badass condo in Beacon Heights, and there aren’t even any holes in the wall. Unless windows count, but they totally don’t.)
“Oh god Stiles oh god oh god oh shit, sorry, sorry, I didn’t mean to do that doesn’t exactly speak to a cunning master comeshot plan,” Stiles yells after him. He hears Derek snort, and a few seconds later a warm, damp towel hits Stiles in the face.
“That, I meant to do,” Derek says, stretching and yawning. In the early-morning sun, he basically looks unreal, all naked skin and stubble and sleepy eyes. Stiles can live without morning sex – or mornings – but Derek likes waking up early and drinking coffee and having sex before he goes to work. Apparently teaching fourth grade is very stressful, and Stiles is usually pretty happy to lend a helping-hand.
“Come here and get your mouth on my dick, asshole,” is what Stiles ends up saying, when Derek stands there looking at him. Derek actually laughs, but he totally obliges.
God, he’s good looking. He’s so good looking and such an amazing asshole and so great in general that if Stiles isn’t his true mate, the one he has uncomfortable-sounding supernatural sex with forever, he’s just going to end up pining after him until one of them dies.
*
After Stiles graduates – that is, after he walks; he defended his thesis two months ago, no revisions – he and Derek survive the party (Stiles’s dad gets drunk and tells stories about Stiles as a child, which mostly involved him getting stuck in places he shouldn’t have been in the first place; Scott contributes with his own charming nostalgic reminiscences) and then Stiles tackles Derek to their bed.
“I want celebration sex,” he says, yanking on Derek’s pants.
“I thought we had that when you defended,” Derek says, but he’s laughing, and nothing in the world is better than Derek when he’s loose and happy like this.
“Enough beating off around the bush,” Stiles declares, drunk on success and champagne. “Put it in me. I want you to.”
“Gosh, when you put it that way,” Derek says dryly, but they make out sloppily, losing clothes and inhibitions in the process. Eventually, Stiles is sprawled diagonally across the bed, laughing while Derek fumbles with the lube.
“Use a lot,” Stiles says. “I don’t want it to be like that porno we accidentally watched in Denver.”
“Can we not talk about that,” Derek says, looking pained. “I don’t even – no. I thought we agreed not to – just – I don’t understand why you’d bring that up.”
“Come on,” Stiles wheedles, pulling Derek down to kiss him. Kissing Derek never gets old. “I’m glad you were there tonight,” he adds. “I’m glad you’re around, like, all the time. You make me so freaking happy, seriously.”
“Me too,” Derek says. “Plus now I know that if I ever want to lure you into an attic crawl space, I just have to put a box of Frosted Flakes there.”
“Hmph,” Stiles says, laughing, wrapping an arm around Derek’s waist to pull him closer. The lube gets everywhere, but it always does; they have more spare sets of sheets than anyone else Stiles knows. “Come on, baby,” he says. He only calls Derek ‘baby’ when he’s really drunk; huh. “Make me your mate. I know you want to.”
Derek pulls back, looking puzzled. “What the fuck are you talking about?” he asks pleasantly.
“With your thing,” Stiles clarifies. “Your, whatsit. Knot. I know all about it.”
Derek pulls back a little further, leaving Stiles uncomfortably cold and kind of lonely. “I don’t have a fucking clue what you’re talking about. Is this like that time you watched the Discovery Channel and had nightmares about meerkats for a week?”
“Your dick,” Stiles says, feeling like this situation is getting away from him. He props himself up on his elbows to get a better look at Derek. Usually, when he has a boner and he and Derek are in the same room, good things happen. “You just have to – like – accept me as your werewolf husband.”
Derek stares at him. “I’m sleeping on the couch,” he announces, abruptly. “I have to work tomorrow morning, and you’re – Jesus Christ.” With a sharp, disappointed exhale, Derek grabs his memory-foam pillow and stalks out of the room, leaving Stiles naked and alone.
“Sorry, buddy,” Stiles says sadly to his boner, and passes out after staring at the ceiling in despair for a while.
*
When Stiles wakes up the next morning, he has a brutal hangover, his mouth tastes like ass, and Derek’s already left for work.
*
It comes to him when he’s watering the plants in his dad’s house. (Dad always forgets, but Stiles prefers not to come back to his childhood home to see dead plants everywhere. It’s creepy. Anyway, this way he can make sure Dad’s not sneaking anything too bad; he eats the rest of the Pop-Tarts with a morally righteous heart.)
Anyway, it occurs to him as he eats the last raspberry one hot out of the toaster:
Scott lied to him.
It's the only thing that makes sense. Scott Straight-As-An-Arrow McCall straight up, 100%, absolutely told Stiles a falsehood that may have ruined his relationship with the first person who thought Stiles was charming versus neurotic. Stiles has been the victim of a vicious punking, wrought by the one person he thought he could trust.
YOU ASSHOLE, he texts to Scott, furiously, thumbs pounding at the touchscreen.
serves u rite, Scott says, 4 getng so nosy abt my personal penis.
You could have just told the truth!
Scott replies, i needed time 2 study. ur bored. it wuz self-defense.
I hate you, Stiles writes. Forever and always, just like Taylor Swift.
He waits fifteen minutes for Scott’s response, pacing through the kitchen. It simply reads, w/e.
Stiles pounds his head against the refrigerator door a few times. His dad walks in, back from his shift.
“How’s tricks, son?” he asks blandly.
“Argh,” Stiles says.
“What’d you do,” Dad says unsympathetically.
Stiles flees. There are some things you can’t talk to your parents about, and believing that the base of your boyfriend’s dick swells to enormous proportions for breeding and sexytimes and soulmate purposes is absolutely one of them. Believing it because Scott McCall said it was true –
Well, he’s pretty sure his dad would disown him.
He spends the afternoon driving around, texting abuse to Scott, drinking coffee at pseudo-Starbucks on Main, and applying for jobs he probably won’t get.
Dear baby Jesus, he prays more than once, even though he’s not exactly monotheistic anymore, Please don’t let Derek break up with me because I thought he had a freaky dick. I would really appreciate this favor and will definitely stop lying about how my job hunt is going, and maybe some other stuff too. Love, Stiles.
*
He gets home to find Derek waiting on the couch. “Hey,” he says.
Derek looks absolutely miserable. “Hey,” he says. “Can we – you know.”
“Talk,” Stiles says glumly. “Sure.” This is healthy, sure. Unlike the better part of Stiles’s junior year of college, which involved (a) no fucking, (b) a lot of miscommunications, and (c) more angst and pining than anyone should have to deal with, they now have a deal where they talk about their feelings more often. It’s horrible and usually awkward, and of course it was Stiles’s idea, so he can’t even take it back.
Derek has a list written in his flowy, super-girly handwriting. That’s how Stiles knows an important talk is coming up; if Derek doesn’t have a list, they usually just fight and have really great make-up sex afterward, or sometimes, if they’re lazy, so-so make-up hand-jobs and pizza in front of the TV.
(Bickering, now, bickering is pretty much just foreplay at this point.)
Mostly they don’t fight, unless someone does something stupid and dangerous, or Stiles forgets to get milk for the ninth time in a row, or Derek accidentally tells Stiles’s dad about the time of the yetis and Stiles’s dad threatens to lock him in the basement to think about his life and his choices for a few decades. Then they have a real conversation.
If Derek has a list, they talk about something really awful – something like What I Did On My Summer Vacation Starring My Virginity and Kate Argent Plus Everything Horrible In The Universe, or the fun time they did I’m Really Worried That Your Dad Hates Me Because I Haven’t Had a Family In Like Fifteen Years So Here, Please Have An Enumerated List of All My Shortcomings So You and Your Loved Ones Are Totally Forewarned Against My Many Failtastic Qualities.
Or, apparently, Things I Feel About Stiles Being a Jackass About My Dick. Or maybe, Ways I Came Up With To Break Up With Stiles In Such a Way That He Isn’t Forever Ruined For All Other Dicks.
His therapist got him started with it. It works, but it makes Stiles’s stomach drop, because it means Derek’s feeling awful, and Stiles – stupid, gullible, occasionally but not for the whole time drunk Stiles – made him feel that way.
“So,” Derek says, clearing his throat.
Stiles nods, waiting for it. Derek is going to break up with him.
“I wanted to ask – “ Derek looks extraordinarily uncomfortable, the way most people look just prior to a root canal, once the apparatus to keep their mouth open is firmly in place. “Are you. Unhappy with – our relationship.”
“What,” Stiles says, blown away.
“I know you heard me,” Derek mutters.
“I’m just – are you?”
“No!” Derek looks irritated at this turn in the conversation. ”I wasn’t the one who thought – what you thought,” he says.
“That was kind of – a misunderstanding.”
“What in God’s name did you misunderstand?” Derek demands. It’s not an unfair question.
“Well,” Stiles hedges, “It was actually more that Scott – um. Told me that it was true.”
“And he did this because?”
Stiles looks at the ceiling. “I asked him?” he offers, finally, weakly.
“You asked Scott about my dick,” Derek clarifies flatly.
“No! I asked him about his – I mean, about general dicks. The collective of werewolf dicks. As a biological entity.”
“And he said that we have – what wolves have.”
“Knots,” Stiles says miserably. “They’re called knots.”
“I know,” Derek says. “I just don’t know why you thought anyone had one, except wolves. And why you wanted me to – with the – thing.” He glowers at his list. “It was unexpected. It made me feel - ” He pauses, glaring at his hands. “Objectified. And scrutinized. And not great, okay.”
“Right,” Stiles says, feeling like a total asshole. He is actually kind of an asshole, but not usually in ways that make Derek feel bad.
“I just thought that you liked – me,” Derek says.
“Derek,” Stiles says, “You’re basically my favorite person in the entire world. You let me talk about all the stupid shit I want, and you don’t get too mad when I drink all but a teaspoon of the milk and then put the carton back in the fridge – “
“ – I hate it when you do that,” Derek interrupts.
“ – Right, but you don’t hate me for doing that even though I always forget. And you’re the least likely person ever to be the most popular fourth-grade teacher at BHE, but I love that you love your job enough to bring glitter home from work and make posters. And I love how much you care about the pack, even when they’re acting like douches. And I love having sex with you. A lot. All the time. Anytime.” Stiles isn’t sure of his welcome, so he bites his lip, giving Derek space if he wants it.
“Then – is it my – “ Derek is red and humiliated, and oh, God, Stiles never meant for that to happen. This might be written on the list, and Stiles wants to set the list on fire, forever, okay. “Is there something you want to be different about. My body.” Derek is surprisingly sensitive about his body, for a Greek god in human (werewolf) form. He works out obsessively, grooms himself much more thoroughly than Stiles does (including manscaping that makes Stiles itchy just thinking about it), and still somehow feels like the dorky kid that nobody wants to date. It’s maddening.
So Stiles says: “No. No way. I love your body. And I love your penis, dude. There is absolutely nothing that could improve it. It’s, like, the Platonic ideal of penises. A penis Pieta.” Stiles worries at the hem of his jeans, trying to find the right words. “I mean, it’s basically one of the top two things I think about, ever.” That – well, it’ll do. He shuts up to let Derek sigh.
“Top two?”
“Well,” Stiles says, “I haven’t really calculated it out whether I think about my own more or yours more. But usually when I’m thinking about my penis, yours – comes up.” He tries to smirk, ends up beaming.
Derek drags a hand over his face. “You’re the worst,” he says, severely, but the miserable hunch is out of his shoulders, at least. “You believed the internet about werewolves, again. You idiot.”
“I only tried the silver thing with Peter because – “
“No,” Derek says. “Let’s remember that I won that argument at the time, and I can win it again.”
“I was on drugs,” Stiles mutters. “It wasn’t a fair fight.”
“Your leg was broken in two places and you sprained both your wrists,” Derek says, “After your brilliant silver bullet strategy failed comprehensively.”
“Speaking of unfair fights.”
“You’re proving my point for me.”
Stiles takes a deep breath, and shuffles close enough to pull Derek’s hand into his own lap and rub it for him. For a werewolf with magical healing powers, Derek is the tensest person Stiles knows, prone to sore shoulders, back aches, and that line between his eyebrows when he gets stressed out. He also happens to be extraordinarily receptive to any kind of massagelike activity, and an easy way to calm him down is to put your hands on him. Even if you don’t end up having sex. “This is going to sound really stupid,” he says.
“We’re so far past that on this issue,” Derek sighs, but he relaxes a little and puts his toes under Stiles’s thigh.
“So, it’s just that Scott – we hate him now, by the way – told me that it was something werewolves did with their, um. True mates. As a way to, um. Seal the deal?”
“True mates,” Derek repeats, eyebrows climbing.
Oh, God. This is going to be so far beyond humiliating. He feels his ears turning red. “Right. You know. Sort of like a – werewolf marriage thing. So, um. I thought you were holding out on me, or maybe you didn’t think I wanted to be your werewolf soulmate husband, which, bee-tee-dubs, I totally did. Do! I want that, with you. So I was seeing if I could, you know. Make it happen.”
Derek stares at the ceiling. He says, “And you didn’t think that maybe you could ask me about it.”
Stiles focuses on digging his fingers into Derek’s palm. “That seemed embarrassing.”
“It was more embarrassing to ask me to marry you than to trick me into werewolf-mating you with sex?”
“When you put it that way,” Stiles says, “It sounds kind of shitty and manipulative.”
Derek flexes his toes forgivingly, and reaches over to muss Stiles’s hair, which Stiles secretly loves but complains about because he ends up looking like a static electricity victim.
Derek says, “Okay. Here’s what we’re going to do.”
“Okay,” Stiles says.
“You’re going to propose to me,” he says, which is the most surprising thing to come out of Derek’s mouth since, Do you maybe, I don’t know, want to go on a date with me or whatever, it’s fine, I mean, it’s okay if you don’t, but I just. Stiles blinks. “You’re going to do it properly, somewhere private, and I’m probably going to say yes, and then we’re going to suffer through months of everyone we know asking asshole questions about the wedding, which is going to be as small and unembarrassing as possible, considering the people we know.”
“No doves,” Stiles says, remembering the unfortunate scene at Scott and Allison’s ceremony. Her dad still wouldn’t look Isaac in the face, even though it had been a totally reasonable reaction, considering, well. Werewolves.
“None,” Derek agrees.
“What else?” Stiles asks, moving forward now that he’s sure of his forgiveness.
“We’re going to have to stand up in front of everyone we know and say some stuff, I guess,” Derek says, his free hand coming to rest on Stiles’s hip. “That’s going to be terrible. But then we’ll be married, and God willing the next time you have something stupid to ask you’ll just ask.” He pauses. “Also, we’ll get a cat.”
“A cat?”
“Laura always said you should get a pet before you have kids. To test the waters.” Derek grins and Stiles leans forward to kiss him, because that’s what you do when you love someone and they want to get a test cat with you. He throws his hands around Derek’s neck, just to be a jackass, and somewhere along the way they end up falling off the couch and onto the floor, laughing.
“C’mere, cuddlewolf,” Stiles says later, when they’ve crawled back up onto the couch. Derek’s settled between Stiles’s legs. Of the two of them, Derek’s the one who craves human contact, who will settle next to Stiles when he’s playing video games and slowly integrate his arms around Stiles’s waist until it’s useless to try to gank any more assholes in the Mass Effect multiplayer anyway.
Derek makes a grumpy noise – he pretends not to like Stiles’s nicknames for him, but Stiles totally knows better – and curls up with his cheek against Stiles’s shoulder. Stiles reaches up to scratch gently at Derek’s neck.
“Sorry I was such an asshole,” Stiles says.
“If it’s just that you want something weird up your ass,” Derek says, “We could order from that website you found.”
“After the warming lube fiasco,” Stiles says, feeling sorry for his dick reflexively, “I think we should stick to what we know. I like what we know."
“You’re the one who was trying to trick me into shoving a weird mystical penis marriage-cueball up your butt,” Derek says. “I’m just trying to be supportive of your kinks.”
“You make it sound so gross,” Stiles sighs.
“It is pretty gross,” Derek says, unimpressed.
“Yeah,” Stiles says, “But I think it was extremely romantic that I wanted to be married to you so much that I would have let you do it.”
“You should’ve just put a ring on it,” Derek grumbles, getting sleepy now that they’re both calm and happy.
“I’m going to,” Stiles tells him. “Maybe I’ll get Lydia to help me plan the proposal.”
“Because when I said ‘private’, what I actually meant was ‘anywhere that we can be observed by our hundreds of nosy friends,” Derek says.
“If I have to be the one to come up with the proposal, I get to be the one to decide how it goes,” Stiles says. “You can look grumpy just as well in a hot air balloon as in the Preserve.”
“No hot air balloons,” Derek says repressively, but he’s also repressing a smile, so Stiles knows he’s totally winning this battle.
He says, “You want to marry me,” and maybe he sounds a little bit amazed, because Derek doesn’t even roll his eyes.
“Of course,” Derek says. “I’ve just been waiting for you to notice.”
*
Over the next three months, these things happen:
They have celebratory graduation-slash-make-up sex on the couch, during which Stiles definitely does not get jizz in the face again. (He’s going to start wearing sunglasses if this keeps up.)
Scott passes his finals. Stiles punches him in the stomach, and they wrestle until Scott’s inevitable victory. Scott says, “Pizza rolls?” and Stiles says, “You’re paying.”
Stiles gets a job studying environmental advocacy groups with a small think-tank based at a conservation NGO in Beacon County, and stops spending twelve hours a day surfing Wikipedia and driving his entire social circle insane.
He tries to propose to Derek at the high school swimming pool – “It’s romantic because that’s the first time I had a boner when you were around” – and then does propose in the Preserve, on the Hale property, which is the first place they met after Scott became a werewolf. Derek says yes.
Scott gets pulled over fifteen times for going his habitual three miles over the speed limit. Allison eventually buys Stiles and Derek an Edible Arrangement that says I’m sorry for whatever he did. Please accept this heart made out of strawberries and call your deputy friends off Scott before he gives up driving completely. Stiles does, and as an extra favor to Scott doesn’t tell Allison anything about what happened. (He makes a calendar reminder so that he'll remember to do that for their ten-year wedding anniversary instead.)
They name the cat Gordy.