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I had the biggest smile on my face reading this! Okay, so…I changed it a little. And it might have gotten a little corny, forgive me.

“What is that?” Derek asks, looking down at the- the…oh my god. Is that a- is Stiles-

“What does it look like, dumbass?” Stiles says, waving the, yes that is definitely a ring, in front of his face. “I’m asking you to marry me!” 

Derek feels his mouth drop open, blinking his eyes awake, sitting up. “But, we’re- we’re-”

“In love? Dating? Officially legal?”

“I was going to say asleep, but yeah, that- wait, what?” 

“Legal, Derek. We can get married in fifty states and say fuck you to the world.” 

Derek frowns, a bemused smile tugging at his lips. “Stiles, it was already legal for us to get married. It’s been legal for two years. I thought you didn’t-” He feels his heart speed up horribly in his chest, the old ache from when Stiles first voiced his opinions on marriage resurfacing, turning him sad, confused. “You always said you didn’t want to get married.”

“I lied.”

“You said it was stupid.”

“I was wrong.”

Derek frowns again, unsure why he’s feeling so vulnerable all of a sudden. “Stiles, it’s okay. I know how you feel about marriage. I know you think it’s a stupid tradition. I know-”

“But you don’t think that,” Stiles interrupts him, climbing into his lap, taking Derek’s face in his hands. “I- fuck, Derek. I’ve been up all night, watching as people can finally, finally get married. There was this one couple, they had been waiting fifty years. Fifty! And that’s when I realised. I realised I don’t want to wait. I don’t want to go through life not being your husband. I may not care about churches and all that shit, but I do know I want to stand up with you and tell everyone we know how much I love you. That, I know.”

“I don’t understand,” Derek shakes his head, pushing him away. Stiles lets him, but Derek can tell he’s hurt. 

“You don’t want to?” he asks.

“It’s not about making a statement, Stiles,” Derek sighs, tensing, wanting to fucking cry. 

Shit.

“I don’t want to say fuck you to homophobia. I just want-” he shrugs, crossing his arms in front of himself. “I just want to get married. I want to eat cake and dance and look at you and know you want to marry me because you love me, not because it’s finally legal in fifty states. I don’t want some banner saying ‘fuck you’ on it during the ceremony.” 

Stiles’ eyes widen. “You think I want to marry you to make a statement?” Jumping up from the bed, he almost trips over himself, but catches himself just in time, throwing his arms around Derek’s neck, pulling him in and pressing his forehead briefly to his. “Derek, I- shit. Look, I’ve had this ring for years, okay? I bought it on our second anniversary.” 

Derek blinks. What? “But you never- you know I would have said-” but he can’t finish it, can’t say yes, because he’s imagined it so many times, watched too many times as Stiles has scoffed and rolled his eyes at every movie wedding procession they’ve ever watched and every real life engagement party they’ve ever been invited to. 

“Marriage terrifies me, okay? But not- not for the reasons you might think,” Stiles whispers. “It’s just…easier hating it.” He sighs, pulling Derek back towards the bed with him until Derek is straddling him. 

Derek isn’t too sure why Stiles likes this position when he’s trying to tell Derek something serious, but Stiles is always so restless, so energetic and twitchy, that Derek can understand the need to be weighted down. To be anchored. It makes him feel special, that he can do that to Stiles, for him, and he goes willingly, pressing his face into the crook of Stiles’ neck, waiting. 

He’ll always wait for Stiles, he realises. As dumb as that sounds.

“My mom-” Stiles swallows, clutching loosely at Derek’s back. “They were so happy. I always thought marriage was this awesome thing. I thought it was some kind of fairytale and then my mom died and I realised it wasn’t. I realised marriage was just about hurting people. I watched as my dad crumbled, how he would twist his ring on his finger, a bottle in the same hand. I watched as Scott’s dad left. I- if I loved you less, I would have proposed the day I bought the ring.”

“That…doesn’t make any sense.”

Stiles laughs once, pulls back, tilts Derek’s chin until he can see his eyes. “I don’t want to lose you, okay? If I loved you less maybe I would have risked it, but I don’t ever want to argue with you without making up. I don’t want to ever stop having sex with you. I don’t want to stop laughing and taking you on dates and loving you so damn much it hurts. I want to be your boyfriend forever. I don’t want to be married, I just want to be…yours.”

Derek smiles, shaking his head, watching as Stiles relaxes as he sees him understand. “You know it’s not true, right? That marriage ends relationships. It doesn’t strengthen them either, marriages aren’t relationships. They’re just a way of…” He snorts. “Well, I suppose it is a way of saying fuck you to the world. But not- more like…’fuck you, I got him first’.” He feels himself blush then, hating it when he gets “corny”, as Stiles puts it, but Stiles’ eyes light up, his nose nuzzling softly at Derek’s jaw. 

“You’ve always been the exception,” Stiles whispers. “I’m still terrified, but you’ve always been…I’d never made love before you. I had sex. So much fucking sex, but I never…” He ducks his head. “I’d never laughed…during before. I’d never thought about holding someone after. I’d never thought about…forever.”

“Oh,” Derek breathes, unable to help grinning, because oh. Not that he didn’t kind of know that already. Stiles always looks at him like he can’t understand his own feelings, but he’s never told Derek before. For someone who talks a lot, Stiles keeps a lot of things private, bottled up. It’s something Derek is pretty sure only he knows about him. “That’s pretty romantic, as far as proposals go.” 

Stiles’ head snaps up, almost butting Derek’s, but not quite. “You mean, is that a-”

Derek laughs. “Yes.”

“Yes?”

“Si. Oui. Ja. Tak. How many languages do you want it in?” 

Stiles’ mouth drops open. “You learned Polish for me?”

“I’ve been teaching myself the odd word,” Derek says, heart flipping when Stiles’ eyes go soft.

“I’m so fucking in love with you,” he whispers, kissing Derek, pulling him down so he’s completely lying on top of him, laughing and grinning, fumbling for Derek’s hand and slipping the ring on his finger. 

“I know you can’t promise, not really,” he says a little later as they slip back under the blankets to sleep, turning serious again. “But…you’ll never leave me, right? You’ll grow old with me? You won’t…die?” His eyes are wide, worried, like a little kid’s and Derek kisses him.