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Derek has always dreamed of Stiles, for as long as he can remember. It’s not every night, and usually he’s just there in the background while the dream plays itself out. There are a few though, standout dreams, technicolor and horrifying in their detail. The first night he slept after the fire. After he buried Laura. The night Boyd and Erica went missing. They’re never good dreams, but they’re not as bad as they could be if he were alone in them. Stiles’ presence is reassuring, reminds Derek that there’s a whole solid world outside of his head, where the fire and ashes of his dreams have already burned away.
He’s gotten used to it, over the years, the Stiles-in-his-dreams. What he doesn’t expect is for Stiles to start dreaming back.
*
“We’re coming,” dream-Stiles tells him. “Just hold out a bit longer.”
They’re driving around town in Stiles’ jeep, driving aimlessly, and Derek thinks he needs to stop letting Stiles pick the dreamscapes, because they always reek of teenage boy.
“You’ve been saying that for a month now,” Derek tells him. He’s pretty sure it’s been a month, but time doesn’t mean the same thing in here. Wherever “here” is.
“Well, it’s not like you’ve been exactly forthcoming with the information there, buddy,” Stiles says, rolling his eyes. “’I might be in South America somewhere’ is not exactly helpful.”
Derek shrugs and looks out the window. They’re driving through Beacon Hills, only not really, in the way that places and things in dreams are never really as they are. The other cars are miniature elephants and every building is the school. Each time they pass it, it’s made out of something different, twizzlers or geraniums or 64-bit pixels.
“I’m in captivity,” Derek says. “They’re not exactly showing me the sites.”
Stiles’ dreams are brighter than Derek’s and there’s always so much going on, but the longer Derek stays there, the more the colors fade.
“We’re coming,” Stiles says again, gripping the steering wheel tight and not taking his eyes off the road. “Don’t do anything stupid before we get there.”
Derek snorts and Stiles punches him in the shoulder. They keep driving.
*
Derek will never forget the first time he sees the boy from his dreams in the outside world. Cora was laughing, screaming for Laura to push her higher on the swing. Derek sat on the bench beside his mother, reading a book. He can’t remember what the book was, something with pirates, he thinks. He was ten or eleven, so it was probably pirates.
The afternoon was golden, everything tinged with a surreal glow. He looked up from his book when his mother called out hello to another woman. The boy ran ahead of the woman, toward the seesaw. He had wild hair and warm eyes, pale skin dotted with moles, and Derek knew him at once. He should’ve been more shocked to see this creature of air and light in the flesh, but it only felt inevitable, as if he’d been waiting for it all along.
Derek remembers being unable to concentrate on his book, trying not to watch the boy as he laughed and dragged his mother around all the play equipment in the park. He remembers feeling disappointed when they had to leave, not even fighting Laura to get the front seat of the car like he usually did.
He noticed the boy around more after that, learned his name and his scent. But he never spoke to him. He never told anyone about his dreams.
*
Derek stands on the end of a pier, looking out over the water. He can hear music from somewhere, something jazzy and soft and slightly familiar, the water on the shore, Stiles’ footsteps behind him. He doesn’t turn, waits for Stiles to reach him, to lean against the ledge beside him.
“Suits you,” Stiles says, nodding toward Derek’s tuxedo. Stiles is wearing a pinstriped vest and a bowtie and Derek suddenly gets it.
“You made me Gatsby?” Derek feels like he should be offended somehow, but mostly he’s just surprised. “And you’re Nick Carraway?”
Stiles shakes his head, leans in further on his elbows to look into the water. Derek wants to pull him back so he doesn’t fall, but he hesitates. He turns his back to the water instead.
“I’m clearly Jordan Baker,” Stiles says, with an easy grin. “Sorry, I'm reading it for school.” He straightens up, moves slightly closer to Derek. “We think we have a lead. Chris Argent knows some people.”
Derek nods. He knows they’ll find him eventually. He has faith in Stiles, in Scott.
“We could go to the party,” Stiles says, waving toward where the lights are shining through the trees.
They could, Derek thinks. It would probably be amazing, better than anything he could think of, but he likes being outside of it, out here with Stiles.
“You have to let me know if you’re not okay.” Stiles grabs him around the wrist, tugs on it as if he doesn’t already have Derek’s undivided attention. “You have to.”
“Why?” Derek asks. He’s not trying to be a dick about it, he just doesn’t see what good it would do.
Stiles sighs. It’s a heavy sigh and Derek isn’t sure what it means.
“I’m waking up,” Derek says.
Stiles grips his wrist tighter. “If I could keep you here, I would.”
Derek feels himself fading, but Stiles’ voice follows him out of the dream.
“They’re a rotten crowd. You’re worth the whole damn bunch put together.”
When he wakes up, he’s smiling.
*
The first time he actually spoke to Stiles was that day in the Preserve, just after Scott was bitten. Stiles became a permanent fixture in his life and he wasn’t sure how to cope with it, with the divide between dreams and reality, so he just didn’t.
Stiles-in-his-dreams was different to the real Stiles, anyway. He was softer, somehow, less sarcastic, actually gave a shit about Derek. It hurt him to look at real Stiles, he couldn’t help noting all the differences between him and the Stiles he was used to. There were other things to think about anyway, so much happening, that real Stiles couldn’t be a priority for him.
Except that he was. They saved each other over and over and Derek put it to the back of his mind, focused on the next thing in front of him. There were always other things to think about, and Derek tried not to sleep too long, tried not to sink into those dreams where Stiles was his comfort. It didn’t help.
There were moments, though. Moments when he wasn’t sure. Moments when he had to stare at Stiles and wonder if maybe the two weren’t so different after all, if maybe he gave this flesh-and-bone Stiles a chance he could resolve the two into one.
And he still doesn’t know what it means. Why is it Stiles, of all people, who is the one who’s always been in his head. Does it even mean anything or is it just one of those random things. Sometimes he wishes he’d have brought it up with his mother or with Laura, asked them why. Why Stiles? Why anyone at all? And sometimes he thinks he knows, and he’s glad he never mentioned it.
*
Stiles is waiting for him on a cloud. He’s sitting cross-legged in the cornflower blue sky; the cloud is unrealistically white and fluffy. Derek has to climb a rainbow to get to him.
“Check this out,” Stiles says when Derek flops down beside him. He reaches into to the cloud, jerks his wrist, and beams of rainbow light shoot out of the cloud. “Cool, huh.”
Derek’s tired, even within the dream, but he tries to muster up enthusiasm. “Is this a sex dream for you?”
Stiles snorts and sends a triple rainbow into the sky. “No way, man. My sex dreams are hot. Hot like you wouldn’t believe. There’s this one with Link and Princess Zelda, man you should see it.” A blush creeps up his cheeks and he clears his throat. He takes his hand off the rainbow beam trigger. “Except not, because that would be weird, right? I mean, that’s kind of outside the parameters of our agreement.”
Derek leans back on his elbows. He wonders if he could doze off within the dream, if that’s even possible. If Stiles would watch over him if he did.
“We don't have an agreement.”
He can’t see Stiles’ face from that angle and he can’t smell him in a dream, so he’s free to imagine whatever he wants, that Stiles isn’t completely freaked out by the idea, that it wouldn’t be unwelcome.
“We’ve found you,” Stiles says quietly. “Tracked the GPS on one of the hunters’ phones. We’re in the car now. Should only be a day or two.”
“I don’t know if I’m okay,” Derek says.
Stiles turns to face him. His eyes are wide and close to Derek’s. “You will be.” There’s no hesitation in his voice, it sounds like an order.
Stiles’ face is too close, he takes up Derek’s complete range of vision. His eyes are the brightest thing Derek’s seen in weeks, maybe ever, the dream gives them a particular incandescence he’s not sure exists in reality.
Derek blinks slowly, lies back and stares up into the sky of Stiles’ mind. Stiles lies beside him. He twines their pinky fingers together and they just lie there, looking into the sky.
*
The first time it happened was in the hottest part of summer. Derek had been awake for days, out looking for Erica and Boyd, and hadn’t intended to fall asleep.
The dream felt different from the start. He was in Stiles’ room, only it wasn’t really. Derek usually dreamed in monochrome, with flashes of color that highlighted whichever horror he was to witness that night. This dream was painted in pastel, eggshell blue and lemon with clear-cut outlines. There was none of the usual sense of menace that pervaded his dreams, only something light and sweet that crept up and wrapped around him. The room was cool and bright, though Derek couldn’t tell where the light came from.
Derek sat on the windowsill, looking into the room. Stiles span in circles on his computer chair but stopped abruptly when he noticed Derek. They stared at each other for a moment. Stiles narrowed his eyes.
“You’re not really here,” he said.
Derek shrugged. “You don’t normally notice.”
Stiles raised his eyebrows, and then started spinning again. “You dream of me often?”
Derek shrugged again. He thought about moving off the windowsill, but he liked this dream, didn’t want to risk disturbing it, forcing it into something else.
“Don't get me wrong,” Stiles said, still spinning, “I’ve dreamed of you before too, but you’re normally a whole lot more shirtless and sweaty.”
“You dream about objectifying me?” Derek asked.
Stiles snorted. “Dream you is much funnier than real you.”
Derek raised his eyebrows. “Dream you is normally much quieter. And you didn’t answer the question.”
Stiles stopped spinning. “You objectify yourself, dude! With your whole…” He waved a hand in Derek’s general direction.
Derek wasn’t sure what was happening. Stiles-in-his-dreams rarely talked and if he did it was more like an echo of speech than something Stiles would actually say. This Stiles though, this Stiles was more like the real thing. A little less manic, maybe, less biting, how Derek imagined the real Stiles would be when he wasn’t faced with constant peril, when he was with friends. Derek thought maybe he should be uncomfortable with the sudden change, the soothing atmosphere and the realistic Stiles, thought he should be questioning it more. He didn’t want to question it, though. He’d been running on adrenaline ever since he got back to Beacon Hills and this was the first time he felt safe enough to really relax.
“You okay there, buddy?” Stiles asked. “Your face is doing something weird and you’re normally on like your 63rd shirtless push-up by now.”
And Derek’s had some weird dreams before, even the ones that weren’t straight-out nightmares were usually pretty messed up, but he never thought in his life that he’d dream of Stiles wanting him to take of his shirt and work out. It was so far from the usual that he didn’t know how to react.
“You want me to do push-ups?” Derek asked.
“That’s how it usually goes.” Stiles slouched down in his chair with his legs sprawled, as if waiting for the show to start. “But do what you like. I’m not in control of my unconscious. Obviously.”
Derek stood up, rolled his shoulders. Push-ups were relaxing, in a way, and if it helped Stiles sleep at night, Derek didn’t see the harm. He went through his usual workout routine while Stiles kept up a running commentary.
He woke up feeling rested for the first time in a year.
*
They’re sprawled out on the lacrosse field the next time.
“Sorry,” Stiles says. “I couldn’t come up with anything better.”
Stiles looks tired and Derek thinks that’s not right in the middle of a dream.
“You don’t need to come up with something every time,” Derek tells him. He’s never learned the trick and he’s never told Stiles how much he appreciates that he has.
“We should’ve found you by now. We traced the signal but there was nothing there, but we’re close. I know we’re close.” Stiles’ voice sounds desperate. He leans in closer to Derek. “I can feel it.”
Derek lets himself fall into Stiles’ gravitational pull. Just this once. Just because it’s a dream. He rests his forehead against Stiles’, and Stiles sighs.
“She’s here,” Derek whispers. “You have to be careful. You don’t know what she’s capable of.”
They never say her name when they talk about her. They never need to.
Stiles pulls back from Derek, just slightly, replaces the warmth of his forehead with his hand, slides it down his face. He cups Derek’s jaw in his hand and stares into his eyes.
“Oh, I know. I know what she can do. And I’m going to cut out her heart and tie it in a bow and give it to you.” His voice is sharp and Derek knows he means every word, but he’s smiling.
Derek rolls his eyes. “Such a romantic,” he says, and he kind of means it.
Stiles brushes his thumb along Derek’s cheekbone. “And don’t you forget it.”
He’s pulled awake with the feeling of Stiles’ lips on his own, and he’s not sure if he’s imagined it, but it keeps him going through the worst of it.
*
Derek thought about that dream, the first dream, the push-up dream, for days. He couldn’t be sure how much of it was real, if any. Even if it was a shared dream, if Stiles remembered it too, did that make it any more real than if it happened in his head alone? They were stupid thoughts, pointless thoughts that he had no hope of answering.
He ran into Stiles while he was picking up pizza for Isaac and Peter, and he couldn’t help himself, he had to know. Because that dream had been different, hadn’t felt like his own, and he can’t imagine any other answer as to why.
Stiles wouldn’t meet his eye as they sat opposite each other in the waiting area, his arms folded across his chest and foot tapping. Derek smirked at him, knowing that if Stiles had something to say, he wouldn’t be able to hold it in for long. Derek could wait.
“So, I had this weird dream the other night,” Stiles said, just as the guy at the counter dinged the bell to say Derek’s order was up.
Derek didn’t move to get it. He raises his eyebrows for Stiles to go on.
“My room was all pretty and you were being a jerk. Kind of.”
“Doesn’t sound so weird,” Derek said.
“Well, it was,” Stiles snapped. Then he closed his eyes and sighed, and all the fight seemed to leave him. “I mean, it just felt weird.”
Derek got up, slid his pizza box off the counter. That was enough confirmation for him. “I don’t know what you want me to do about it,” he said. “I’m not in control of your unconscious. Obviously.”
Stiles’ mouth gaped open as Derek walked past him and left the restaurant. Derek even allowed himself a short chuckle on the way back to his car, he didn’t often get to best Stiles.
He was less amused two days later when Stiles showed up at the house with a bag full of books and a sleep-deprived mania. He should’ve been expecting it, but he hadn’t been thinking, had just wanted some sort of proof that Stiles was going through this too, that he wasn’t alone.
“Do you know what this means?” Stiles asked, dropping the bag of books beside where Derek sat on the front steps. “Do you know?”
Derek shook his head, but he suspected. There were words that he never spoke out loud, words that weren’t true, couldn’t be true, and he’d never say them to Stiles. Probably never.
“It means we can communicate with our minds, dumbass. You can be here and I can be home and we can have whole conversations.” He stopped, tilted his head to the side. “Or, I can have whole conversations and you can listen.” He started pulling books out of his bag and handing them to Derek. “Either way we can communicate across space and time.”
“We can’t communicate through time, Stiles,” Derek said. “And we have cell phones.”
Stiles clutched a book tightly, rested it on his knees, then looked to the sky as if asking for strength. “Derek. Do not ruin the awesomeness of this for me, okay. I have a super mind power. Apparently I can only share this mind power with you. It’s not a wolfy thing, because I tried it on Scott and just ended up having a disturbing dream about his mom and my chemistry teacher. Apparently it’s a you-and-me thing, and if I have to share my super mind power with you, we’re going to do it properly.” He resumed handing books to Derek.
Derek shrugged, sat the books on the step between them and took the one Stiles was holding out of his hands. “Fine.”
Most of the books were useless, new age stuff about astral projection and dreamwalking. Derek flicked through them without really concentrating, preparing for the onslaught of questions he knew would come from Stiles.
“Do you know why it’s a you-and-me thing?”
Derek shrugged, put down one book and picked up another.
“Because the closest I could find was that we have some sort of bond, like…” Stiles eyes slid to the side and Derek was pleased Stiles didn’t want to speak those words out loud either. Mostly pleased. “Like you have with your betas, maybe? Only I’m not a werewolf and I don’t really know what sort of bond you have with them.”
“It’s not like that.”
“You’ve dreamed of me before?”
Derek shrugged, picked up another book.
“Give me something to go on here, man.”
“Maybe it’s because I’ve saved your life so many times.” Except that was a lie, because Derek had dreamed of Stiles before he could even control his shift, before he even knew Stiles was real.
Stiles snorted. “More like I’ve saved your life so many times.”
“Either way.”
“I found one website that said you could control it. Control the environment, what happened, everything. You’ve seriously never heard of anything like this before?”
Derek shook his head.
“Maybe if we asked your uncle…”
Derek slammed his book shut and grabbed Stiles roughly by the shoulder, then pulled away when he realized his claws were out.
“No. You can’t tell anyone about this. Promise me.”
Stiles rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah. Nobody can know the big bad alpha is all dream-bondy with the weak human, got it. Wouldn’t want to mess up your street cred.”
Derek let out an exasperated breath. “Nobody can know the weak human is a way to get to the alpha. Tell me you at least understand that much, Stiles.”
“Yeah, I got it,” Stiles said, but he seemed pleased, knocked his knee against Derek’s. “Wouldn’t want you all heartbroken over my untimely demise.”
Stiles came over most days, spent more time there than Isaac or Peter. They didn’t talk about Scott or why Stiles wasn’t with him, mostly they researched. When they weren’t researching the dream thing, Stiles helped him look for Boyd and Erica, or tried to find information on the Alpha Pack. They got used to each other, working in silence most of the time, except when Stiles needed to talk out his thought process.
The dreams became more frequent as Stiles got stronger at controlling them, always trying something new, pushing himself. Derek found himself keeping a semi-regular sleep schedule, if only prevent Stiles’ constant nagging that Derek needed to sleep so he could master his super mind power.
They got used to each other, and Derek found that he didn’t mind it at all.
*
“We’re right outside,” Stiles whispers from where he’s curled up in the back of the jeep.
Derek crawls in and curls up beside him. “Why are you whispering?”
“Duh. Because we’re right outside.”
Stiles shuffles in closer, buries his face in Derek’s neck. He’s so warm, and Derek wants to stay here, to live tangled up with Stiles inside this dream.
“How are you even asleep?” Derek imagines Stiles would be keyed up, bouncing off the walls, ready to attack.
“I made Scott hit me over the head. I wanted you to be ready.”
Derek tightens his grip on Stiles. He wishes this was real.
“Don’t do anything stupid,” he says. “Stay at the back. The others can heal, use them as shields if you need to.”
“We’re going to be fine,” Stiles says against Derek’s skin. “We’re all going to make it out of this.”
“I’m in a dark room at the end of a corridor.” Derek knows they don’t have much time, Stiles will wake up any moment, and he wants to stay there, he does, but he wants Stiles to be safe, prepared, even more. He tries to remember details. “They have six men in the open and four hidden. I don’t know where she is, but if you see her, stay as far away as you can.”
He can feel Stiles fading.
“I’m coming for you, Derek. Just hold on.”
*
Stiles stopped appearing in Derek’s dreams while he was possessed. Derek stopped sleeping. Sleep felt empty without Stiles there, and the driving need to free Stiles, to save him, was like a possession in itself.
Derek didn’t think they’d lose, couldn’t think it. He couldn’t lose Stiles after everything. But they lost enough, too much, and Derek couldn’t see how the pack would ever really recover.
But they didn’t lose Stiles. Stiles came back to them.
Stiles was back, and Derek was taken.
*
The light is too bright and Stiles is covered in blood. They’re in the back of the jeep, but it doesn’t feel like a dream. Stiles keeps touching him.
“You’re okay, you’re fine, you’re okay,” Stiles whispers, over and over, as if he can will it to be so just by saying it.
“I’m fine,” Derek says. His voice is hoarse and it hurts to speak, but Stiles’ heartbeat is like a hummingbird’s and Derek needs him calm. “I’m okay. Why are you covered in blood?”
He can feel the engine vibrate beneath him, the momentum of forward motion, so he assumes someone’s driving, that the rest of the pack are up front, but he feels as if they’re in their own little world, Derek stretched out in the back with his head pillowed in Stiles’ lap.
“It’s your blood, you jerk,” Stiles says through gritted teeth, but his hands are soft on Derek’s skin, running over places where Derek can feel himself healing.
“Everyone’s okay?” Derek asks.
Stiles nods. “And we’re both awake, look.” He holds up his hands so Derek can see five fingers on each, then puts them back on Derek as if he can’t stand for them not to be touching.
Stiles shifts so they’re lying side by side, facing each other. He feels too far away, so Derek moves closer, and Stiles wraps his legs around Derek’s, tangles their fingers together.
“I thought I’d never see you again,” he whispers and Derek squeezes his hand.
This would be enough for him, Derek thinks, if this is all that Stiles has to give him. But Stiles kisses him then, a soft, quiet kiss that tastes of blood and promise.
“I don’t have her heart for you,” Stiles says, after a while. “I promised, but I didn’t get it.”
“Doesn’t matter. You have mine.”
Stiles groans and wiggles against him. “No, you did not just say that. Oh my god, you are the worst.”
Stiles’ heartbeat jumps at the lie and Derek smiles.
They drive all night. Just before the border, they stop for food and gas. Derek’s feeling better, so he gets out to stretch his legs. Stiles trails close behind.
When they go to get back in the car, Stiles tells Scott he’ll drive.
Scott raises an eyebrow, looks over at Derek. “You sure, bro? You both look wrecked.”
“I’m sure,” Stiles says, taking the keys from Scott and directing Derek to the passenger seat. “I think we’ve both had enough of sleeping.”
He tries to fist-bump Derek as if he’s made some hilarious joke, but as they start to drive, and Stiles curls his hand around Derek’s, Derek thinks maybe Stiles is right. For the first time in a long time, maybe reality is better.