very_uninterested | (no subject)

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Being engaged feels weird.

Well, no, it doesn't feel weird, but it does make David feel as if he's finally skipped ahead to the part of his life that's meant to make sense. Which is the weird part, since he's living in a magic city and is friends with people from movies, like the actual fictional characters, and his store is on a ley line, and his sister and best friend aren't here, so none of it truly makes sense.

But he has the store. And he has Patrick. And he actually has friends. Now those friends need to be told that they're about to be dragged into the most amazing wedding planning this city has ever seen. Not to mention the most amazing wedding. They're going to be involved, they have to be involved. They really have no choice in the matter.

He's in a good mood -- obviously he's in a good mood, he's engaged and he's had engaged person sex recently -- and so he's wearing a pleased, thin-lipped smile when the door of the store opens, a musical little bell tinkling overhead.

"Hi," he says, that smile growing wider. As wide as his smiles ever really get. Maybe he purposely flashes his left hand with the gold rings having taken place of the silver. Maybe he wants someone else to be the first to start the conversation.

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"Ugh, yes," David says with a sigh that sounds borderline inappropriate. It's just that design, really good design, with someone who gets it is one of those things that makes him unbearably happy. And he hadn't expected to find that in his friendship with Derek, but it's a relief to have it somewhere.

Schitt's Creek had been a barren wasteland of people who knew anything about design.

"I knew I could count on you," he says, patting Derek's chest with both his hands.

Derek can't help but to huff out a laugh as David presses his palms to his chest, and he reaches up to put his own over them for a moment, holding them there before letting go and reaching for his coffee again.

"I'll get to work on it soon," he assures David. He's not the best at sketching things out beforehand, but he has a few ideas already. David is particular with most things, so he doesn't really want to do anything wedding related without his distinct approval. "I can keep it at my place until you need it, too. I have a lot of space."

Being in Darrow so long, along with having a knack for stocks and owning two pretty successful businesses, has made Derek pretty comfortable monetarily. It isn't anything compared to what the Hale fortune used to be, but it's enough to afford him a quiet place with a big backyard right on the lake, so he certainly isn't complaining.

"When did this happen, anyway?" He asks after a moment. "Tell me the story."

"Just a few days ago," David says. He's honestly surprised he kept it together for this long, not telling people about it, and it isn't because he'd wanted to keep it a secret but because he and Patrick had wanted to luxuriate in their newfound engaged status. Just the two of them.

But a few days is all he was able to muster. Now he wants to plan.

"Okay, so the day we opened the store, I had all these... memories, I guess," he explains. "All the months and months of our relationship Patrick had experienced that I had missed out on. I just remembered it. I sort of thought I was dying at first."

"Ah, yeah. I've heard of that happening," Derek replies, nodding thoughtfully. He's been here long enough that he's known that it's something that could occur, and has talked about it with people afterward. "Not to me, though. And for the record," he adds, glancing upward as if addressing whatever nebulous Darrow overlord may be listening, "feel free to keep it that way."

Sometimes he desperately wants to know what's going on back in Beacon Hills, if Scott and Stiles and everyone else is alright, if they handled the alphas, but it's been so long that if given the choice, he would just leave it be. He's not even sure he would have survived that fight, anyway.

"I thought you seemed a little off, but I figured it was nerves," Derek says with a shrug. "So, you remembered him proposing to you the first time?"

"I remembered everything," he says, waving his hand around to somehow express he really does mean everything. An entire relationship he hadn't even known he was capable of having.

It's nice to know he's been wrong about that.

"And with everything he'd done and everything he'd dealt with after getting here and realizing I didn't remember any of it, I thought he deserved the proposal this time around."

"Was it like a montage in your head, or was it all just suddenly all there?" Derek asks, mildly curious about one of the few things Darrow has to offer that Derek hasn't yet been privy to. "I haven't gotten any memories, but I did spend one week as a woman, and another as a fifteen year old. That one was actually kind of nice, because I didn't remember anything after being fifteen. I could use another vacation from my memories."

He lets out a slow sigh and then shakes his head a bit, because this conversation isn't about him. After taking another sip of his coffee, he gives David a wry smile. "That must have been hard for him. I'm sure he was thrilled. Having someone say yes to that question is-- there's nothing better."

Derek never got to make it to hearing I do, but at least he got to hear that yes.

"It was just all there. I thought I was having a stroke and was about to die," he says, which is just a little bit dramatic, but also the truth. Everything had just suddenly been there and the dissonance in his head had been achingly confusing. Even now, he finds himself sometimes having a tough time reconciling the two sets of memories he has and it's easier if he just pretends all the stuff from Schitt's Creek happened before he arrived here, rather than simultaneously.

"It was pretty great," David agrees. "I mean, I knew he wasn't going to say no, but you never really know, do you?"

He'd been convinced, irrationally, that Patrick was just going to break up with him on the spot.

"I suppose you don't," Derek replies, feeling his expression go a bit wistful. He had been so nervous to ask Barry to marry him, but it had gone even better than he could have expected. He swallows hard and bites his lip, shaking off the vague melancholy to give David a genuine smile instead.

"I am so happy for you guys," he says warmly. "Truly. And whatever you need, you can count on me.”

If Alexis or Stevie were here, they would be very prompt in telling Derek he'll likely live to regret that. They would be right, too, but David isn't going to be the one to tell him.

He needs this, after all. He needs people like Derek and Celeste to keep him distracted every time he thinks about getting married without his family.

"You and Celeste get along, right? I mean, as much as anyone gets along with Celeste," he says. "Because you're both going to be in my wedding party and I forbid fighting. Real fighting, anyway."

"Yeah, we get along," Derek says, laughing at the question. "As much as she gets along with anyone, I suppose."

It takes him a moment to fully register what David has said, and he blinks in surprise. "Wait, I am?"

"Obviously," David answers.

Stevie isn't here. No one can ever replace her, even if he would never actually say that or know the right words to make it sound meaningful. But he's spent a long time now waiting for her to come and he has to accept that maybe she won't. He can't spend his whole life waiting for that.

So other friends will have to fill her shoes. Or fill the shoes of other friends, really, since he's only just said no one can replace her.

David's gaze sort of drifts for a moment, and Derek knows that he's probably thinking of Stevie, who he's heard so much about, and everyone else who won't be able to be there. Still, it's nice to know that David thinks so highly of him, and Derek can't help but to smile.

"I'm honored," he says sincerely, reaching out to give David's shoulder a squeeze. "Seriously."

"Oh, you probably shouldn't be," David answers. "If I'm actually getting married, I want pageantry that takes months to plan and being in the wedding party means you have to be involved with all that."

At least he knows he's a lot. David has no pretenses about who he is, because people have made him very aware of it for most of his life and while he thinks he's better than he used to be, when it comes to self-esteem, he knows he's not exactly the king of confidence when it matters.

"I know who you are," Derek says with a smirk, letting his hand travel back to give the back of David's neck a reassuring squeeze. It's a move reserved for the people he's closest to, and David has somehow become of them.

He drops his hand and steps back to pick up his coffee again, and after taking a sip he smiles teasingly at David. "I'm not going to say I'm not slightly terrified, but I've faced much bigger terrors than any groomzilla. I can handle it."

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