(Author's note: This is my first Teen Wolf story. You can read it without being familiar with the show or the characters, but it is set vaguely somewhere during season 1 or 2. It was inspired by a song by the same name, a dreamy little thing performed by The Belle Brigade. When I heard it, I thought, "That's exactly the dynamic between Stiles and Derek." So I crafted a story to fit the song. The lyrics are at the end, but they contain spoilers for the story, so I recommend you wait to read/listen until you're done reading. Somewhere along the line, this also became a Beatles medley. Lyrics abound. Other warnings include extreme hurt/comfort dynamics, mystical occurrences, explicit messing around (though no actual sex) between a teenager and an older werewolf, and schmoopy romance. Enjoy. -amy)

The day gravity stopped working, Stiles was jogging through the park. It wasn't something he did a lot, the jogging, but Coach Finstock had been adamant that all his lacrosse players would need to meet or exceed threshold levels of fitness. Stiles wasn't threshold anything, unless you counted his grades. Those he didn't bother to work for. Actually, he didn't bother to do much that people told him to do, but in this case Finstock said they were off the team if they couldn't do a quarter mile in under two minutes. So, jogging. Even if he had to picture Finstock being mauled by bears in order to make it tolerable.

He stopped to check his pulse and splash his face with water from the fountain, leaning his hands on his knees and feeling the air burn his throat as he tried to catch his breath. Eventually his breathing grew less ragged, and he was able to focus on something other than the stitch in his side. Jogging usually proved to be an adequate distraction from his life, for which he was grateful. When the girl you'd loved forever still didn't want to admit your existence, and your best friend was suddenly stronger and faster than you knew what to do with - not to mention had a totally hot girlfriend himself - you tended to want distractions.

But as Stiles rested against the crumbling stone of the fountain, it became clear that a distraction was not immediately what he needed. No, he might need to be paying closer attention, with people around him fading away into nothingness.

He stared into the fog through the trees. When he'd left home a half hour before, it had been a reasonably clear day, but now he was having trouble making out details of the park not twenty feet away. He spotted Mr. Werner who owned the 7-11, walking his Australian shepherd. Stiles should have been able to see his lined face, to make out the pattern of black and white on his dog's back, but all he could see was an indistinct, shadowy blur, receding into the silvery-grey mist.

"Mr. Werner?" he called. The figure turned, raising his head as though he had heard a voice from far away, but he didn't respond.

Stiles wrinkled his nose. This was more than a little fucked up. But, honestly, fucked up was kind of becoming an ordinary state of affairs in Beacon Hills. Stiles was no stranger to fucked up. They were practically BFFs.

He took a couple steps toward Mr. Werner and his dog, who had nearly disappeared into the mist, and staggered a little. It wasn't the ground that was unstable, it was the air. It felt warped, wobbly, like he was swimming through warm Jell-O. This certainly wasn't typical for a spring Nebraska afternoon. Stiles thought he heard the sound of distant music. He pushed forward through the coagulated atmosphere. "Mr. Werner?" he repeated.

Now that he was closer, he could see that Mr. Werner's dog standing alone in the park. Stiles bent and grabbed her leash, hearing her uncertain whine.

"Yeah, you and me both, girl," he muttered. "Where's your owner?"

Stiles didn't see him anywhere. The fog seemed to be getting thicker; he could barely even make out the low stone wall that surrounded the park. The dog let out a frantic bark, tugging away from his grasp. With a twist, she slipped out of her collar, leaving Stiles crouching with an empty leather lead in his hands.

"Hey!" he called. Even the sound was muted, spoken into the fog. He couldn't hear an echo, it was just... dead air. The dog had vanished, along with Mr. Werner. The handful of other people who'd been in the park were beginning to fade away into the mist.

Stiles stumbled back to the tree where he'd left his jacket, his eyes on the two kids on the other side of the hedge. As he watched, they lifted off the ground and... well, there wasn't any other word for it. They began to silently float away.

It wasn't as though they were suddenly weightless, hovering there the way he'd seen so many times in science fiction movies. The kids actually fell away, accelerating upwards from the ground, disappearing entirely in a matter of seconds, as though they'd been pushed off an inverse cliff. It happened so quickly that Stiles couldn't even call after them. He could hear Mr. Werner's dog barking, and then that, too, disappeared.

Stiles was scared to death of falling, but when he felt his own shoes bubble and lift up, he stopped thinking and started acting. He looked down and spotted a gnarled root of the tree, pushing between the cracks of the sidewalk, and dove for it, looping the leather lead through the root and cinching it tight. The other end he doubled over and made a slip knot through which he stuck his ankle. The stiff leather rubbed uncomfortably against the skin above his sweat socks, but he wasn't complaining. Not with people floating off into fucking oblivion all around him. He gave up trying not to freak out and started shouting. "Hey! Does anybody hear me? What the hell's going on?"

"Stiles?"

He whipped his head around, as fast as he could move through the silvery sludge that had once been air. "Yeah, it's Stiles - who's that? Danny?"

"It's Derek." The man in question emerged from around the tree, still apparently unaffected by the fickle gravity. He looked prepared for a fight, though, wary and on the edge of angry. "What's happening?"

"No, that was my line, dude. Your line is I've got a solution for this, or maybe, let me explain why people are flying off the earth." He heard the embarrassing note of panic in his voice, but didn't really feel like this was the time to care about it. "Don't you see what's going on?"

Derek scanned the woods, looking intently around them. "I don't see anybody."

"That's kind of my point." He gritted his teeth. "Whatever, just - hey!"

Stiles actually felt it happen this time. As Derek took a step, he tripped over nothing, stumbling, and fell against Stiles. The sleeve of his leather jacket was slippery, but Stiles grabbed on anyway, just in time to feel the tug of the bizarre broken gravity pulling them apart. Derek didn't say anything, but he reached down and curled an iron fist in Stiles' t-shirt. Stiles was pretty sure he'd never seen that astonished expression on Derek's face before.

"Hang on," Stiles said, and swapped the dog collar from one hand to the other. "Hold this. Stronger than my shirt." Derek transferred his grip through the collar, their knuckles knocking in the center.

"What's going on?" he asked, even more angrily than before.

"I told you, I have no fucking clue!" Stiles scanned the park, looking for others. "Hey!" he shouted, waving his other arm. Stiles could still feel Derek's body weight pulling upwards, faint but definitely there. In fact, neither one of them was touching the ground anymore, but the leather lead seemed to be holding against the tree root. "Hey, over here!"

It was an elderly couple, hurrying through the park, looking utterly panicked. Stiles felt a pang of sympathy for them. He wished he could say something, anything that would help them to make sense of what was going on, but considering he couldn't even do this for himself, he just reached toward them, saying urgently, "Take my hand."

"What?" said the gentleman, even as his wife began to lift off the ground. The acceleration happened fast enough that they only had time enough to grasp on to one another before they were gone. Derek made a noise of disbelief.

"Yeah, I know it's crazy," Stiles said, "but I've seen it twice now, so I'm willing to pretend it's real until I figure out otherwise. Did you see anything on your way to the park?"

"The park?" Derek looked around them again blankly, as though he were standing in an unfamiliar city or an empty field, instead of the town in which they'd both grown up.

"Dude, don't you go crazy on me too. I'm totally not spending my last day on the planet with a deranged werewolf. Just... fuck."

The pull of the upward gravity on his ankle was mild, which seemed a little surprising, considering how fast everyone had fallen. Stiles kind of expected his entire weight to be dangling from the loop of leather, but that didn't seem to be happening. Maybe he needed to be a certain distance from the ground before gravity failed altogether, and - what the fuck was he trying to do, anyway? Rationalize something that was already entirely crazy? He took a breath that became a sob.

Derek turned to him, frowning. "It's okay, man."

"In what universe is this anything like okay?" he shouted. Even his own voice was muted, lost in the fog, like he was yelling into cotton batting instead of into open air. He pointed across the park, where he could see more distant figures rising into the air and disappearing into the canopy of the trees. "There's nothing at all even remotely okay here."

"Hey. You're here, you're all right. We'll figure it out. Just take a deep breath. Now... it seems like you're seeing things I'm not seeing." Derek held out wary hands. "I'm not saying they're not there, because something is definitely going on, but... can you at least tell me what you see?"

Stiles closed his eyes, trying the deep breath. Just because there wasn't much else to do, not because he thought Derek Hale had any kind of answers. "Great. Yeah." He opened them again, looking around at the silvery-weird park. He could still see cars parked a block away, but he couldn't make out their color or any details. The cars, at least, seemed to be standing still, so not everything was flying away. "I see... this mist. It's wet and thick and has a kind of shimmer to it. You?"

Derek shook his head. "I don't see any mist. And you said something's happening to everyone?"

"I don't know, man," he moaned. He tried not to hyperventilate. "Everybody's floating away. Mr. Werner's dog took off, and she slipped off her lead, and I just... I didn't want to fall away from the ground. I tied myself to the tree root." He pointed at his foot. Derek seemed to see that for the first time.

"Okay." Derek reached down and touched Stiles' leg, his ankle, like he was climbing down him to the ground. Neither of them seemed to be floating away at the moment, but when Derek attempted to unloop the lead from his ankle, Stiles panicked, slapping him with force. Derek grabbed his wrist. "Calm down! I'm just going to take the other end and put it around my ankle. Like this, through the loop in the root, so we're on both sides of it. All right? Still secure."

"All right. All right." Stiles watched, his hands clenching and unclenching, as Derek cinched the lead around his own leg. Derek wasn't wearing any socks, which seemed like a pretty uncomfortable way to wear cross-trainers, but who knew, maybe werewolves didn't need socks? He tested the hold, tugging upward. It didn't seem like it was going to break or slip. They were safe, for the moment. It wasn't Derek's fault that he had a fear of falling. Stiles chuckled weakly, sitting down on the grass beside the tree and resting his head back against the trunk. "Fuck, man... this is not how I'd planned to spend this afternoon."

"What were you planning to do?" Stiles stared at him, and Derek sighed. "Just talk about anything, okay? What you had for breakfast. Whatever. Just... keep talking."

Stiles tried not to be distracted by the shadowy figures in the mist, rising off the ground at odd intervals, or the quality of the Jell-O air. "Um. I didn't eat breakfast."

"Not really a healthy way to start your day, is it?"

"Fuck you, Mr. Goodbody. If I eat before I run, I puke. I have a big lunch afterwards. Had. Would have had." He pictured his refrigerator floating away, carrying with it his orange juice and pastrami and swiss and rye bread. Not the good mustard, he thought, and choked on an hysterical laugh, gripping the tree root with his free hand. He realized both he and Derek were still holding onto the dog collar, and he let go of it. Derek looked surprised to be holding it, but he set it in the grass beside them. It stayed where he put it, even as Stiles felt another ripple in the air and rose off the ground a few inches before settling back to the grass again. He swallowed. "I, uh... I might puke anyway."

"It's okay; you can if you need to. Stress does all kinds of things to people." Derek seemed far more calm than he ought to in a crisis like this, but it didn't make Stiles mad; he just felt tired. He closed his eyes. "You think you could sleep?"

"Sleep. Yeah, I don't think so." But the suggestion was compelling. Stiles found it hard to open his eyes again.

"I'll be here. Just see if you can, and... I'll wake you up if anything happens."

"Promise?" He hadn't meant the question to come out like that. I sound terrified, he thought with disgust. But Derek's hand on his arm was more comforting than scary, and that was a change he could definitely live with.

"Doesn't look like I'm going anywhere. If anybody gets close enough to talk, I'll see if I can grab them. Until then, there's no point in trying to stay vigilant. Save it for when you need it, huh?"

"Yeah... okay." He tried another of those deep breaths.

"That's good," said Derek quietly. It was the last thing Stiles heard for a while.

When he woke, Stiles heard the music again. It was indistinct, like the figures in the fog, but he thought he could catch the thread of it, and it stayed with him as he shifted and stretched. It was catchy. Any more repetition and he'd be earwormed for days.

He was pretty sure he'd never slept up against a tree before, and his back wasn't really digging it so much. Not to mention his ass. But, really, between flying off into space and having a sore back, he was willing to settle for the latter.

"This is so fucked up," he mumbled. "I don't want to open my eyes. If I don't look, I can just pretend I'm sleeping in class."

"I can just tell you what's going on, if you don't want to look." Derek's voice was raspy; Stiles wondered if that meant he'd gotten some sleep too. It was darker out, but still not night. He shoved the heels of his hands against his eyes.

"You mean you're seeing what I see now?"

"No, but I'm a good liar. I'm very convincing."

Stiles snorted a laugh, but he kept his eyes closed. "Sure, go ahead. Convince me."

The silence felt less oppressive than it had. Even though the strange, mushy acoustics of the air were still present, it felt easier knowing that somebody else was there, experiencing it with him - even such an improbable ally as Derek Hale.

"Okay, so... we're in the park. And people are disappearing all around us, just rising up into the air and dissolving into nothing."

"Yeah, fuck you. You're just humoring me."

"No, I can kind of see it now? Like you describing it made it clearer."

Stiles sighed. "I'd like to say that's reassuring, but hearing people are floating off into oblivion isn't exactly a comforting thought."

"Yeah. Um... I saw Jackson fall away about a half hour ago. I tried calling to him, but he was too far away for him to hear me."

Stiles relaxed a little more. Fall away was just how Stiles would have described it himself. Somehow it made it feel more believable, to think he wasn't just going privately crazy. "I wonder where they went. Like, okay, there's the scientific explanation, that eventually they'd run out of oxygen and the atmosphere would get too thin to support them, but this is already not so scientific, right?"

"I don't see any point in wondering."

There was no way Stiles was ever going to stop wondering about anything. His whole goddamn life was nothing but wondering. Why did my best friend end up the werewolf and not me? Is it really rational to think there's anything to the meaning of life beyond 'do whatever you want'? How come being cute and funny isn't enough to counteract my big fucking mouth? He glared reproachfully at Derek. "What kind of a life is that?"

"Not really a question you want to ask a werewolf." Derek's left eyebrow went up. "I did get you to open your eyes."

Stiles lost his reply as the air rippled and they rose off the ground again, tugging gently at the leather lead looped through the tree root. He grabbed at the grass, clutching wide handfuls of it. After a few moments, they settled back down to the ground again, and he took several long, shaky breaths before speaking again. "Did that... happen a lot while we were sleeping?"

Derek shook his head. "Don't think so. Or, if it did, it didn't wake me up either. I was thinking we should get over to the fountain, though. I'm not motivated to die of dehydration. Unless you really want to, you know, test to see if all the scientific principles are still valid."

Stiles kept his focus on Derek's face, not letting his gaze deviate to take in the liquid silver air. It was nauseating. "No, not really. Or I should say I'm more motivated to not be thirsty than to understand why this is happening. I bet if we unloop the lead, and one of us hangs on to the root, we could reach the fountain one at a time. And, uh, maybe it'd be a good time for a bathroom break."

The fountain, a fancy stone neo-Grecian design, complete with girls standing in stone columns around the periphery, wasn't exactly designed for drinking, but the water was relatively clean and the chlorine taste not too prevalent. Stiles scooped up handfuls and drank until he didn't feel thirsty anymore. The dangers of microbial infection seemed a lot less scary in the face of the immediate crisis.

For the bathroom, they designated a spot as far away from the tree as possible, scrabbling a shallow hole in the dirt beside a bush. Stiles was willing to throw off the soil pH of some random plants if it meant he got to take a leak. But that also led to a nasty realization: the further he and Derek were from one another, the more strongly the reverse gravity pulled on them. It was bad enough to have to squat under a bush, it was worse to have to hold onto the branches with both hands to keep from flying off the surface of the ground while he did it.

"Derek," he said, feeling the panic rise along with his body. Derek immediately tugged on the lead, hauling him in, and put a firm hand on his shoulder. Stiles could see Derek was slipping off the ground as well, but as soon as he made contact with Stiles, they both settled back to the grass. Stiles' relief was so great, he didn't even care that his jeans were still unzipped.

"Well, that answers one question. I'm carrying you." Derek glanced around and appropriated the discarded dog collar. Then he picked Stiles up, prompting him into letting out an unmanly yelp. They glared at one another. "Look, if we're connected, we're not gonna fly away, right? So this is the easiest way to do that, unless you want to hold hands."

There was no simple answer to that, but Stiles stopped protesting, and the trip back to the walnut tree was mercifully short. This time, Derek sat down right next to him, their thighs and knees touching, leaning against the trunk of the tree beside Stiles. He took the collar and unbuckled it. "I'm going to buckle this around our calves," he explained, "then rig the leather lead around my own ankle and back around the tree root. There; that might be more comfortable, and I'm hoping it'll stop the random drifting into the air. It seems that contact is the main thing keeping us down."

It didn't entirely eliminate their floating, but at least they were off the ground for shorter periods of time. It was starting to get dark, but after his nap of indeterminate length, Stiles wasn't tired. Sitting this close to Derek wasn't helping, either. He wondered if he smelled like food. There wasn't anything suitable to keep his attention off their situation. He felt himself shiver, even though he was wearing a jacket and it was only comfortably cool. Derek's arm was preternaturally hot.

"I wonder where everybody else is."

"More pointless wondering. Everybody meaning the people who matter to you, I suppose?" Derek shrugged. "I imagine some them are probably still indoors."

"I wish I'd brought my cell phone jogging. If I survive this, I am totally never leaving the house without it. I'll have it surgically implanted into my rib cage or something." He shifted on the grass, adjusting his butt and removing a pebble from underneath it. "I bet Lydia could figure out what was going on. She's really smart, you know." Derek made what sounded like a chuckle, but it was brief and hard to distinguish from an ordinary cough. Still, Stiles felt obligated to defend her honor. "She is! She's totally not the ordinary gorgeous bimbo she pretends to be."

"A regular Marilyn Vos Savant," Derek murmured. But Stiles wasn't listening. He'd suddenly been hit over the head by the realization that whatever was happening, there was a good chance he would never see any of his friends again. Or his dad. His shiver turned into a shudder, and he wrapped his arms around himself. Derek moved closer, frowning uneasily. "What is it?"

"I'm just freaking out," he said, as calmly as he could manage. "No big. I'm not exactly used to doing it while strapped to another human b - uh, another person, though, so you'll forgive me if I don't really have a script for this. Best ignore me."

Derek tried valiantly to do this for about fifteen unbelievably uncomfortable seconds while Stiles buried his face into his folded arms, muffling his sobs. Finally Derek sighed, saying, "This is fucking ridiculous," and slid one incandescent arm around Stiles' shoulder, pulling him flush against him.

Stiles quickly moved his head to one side to avoid getting a mouthful of Derek's leather jacket - or, better yet, his skin, and wouldn't that be a fun way to begin a night out on the dewy grass? But even in the midst of his humiliation, he could tell there was no point in trying to pull away. Derek was the only source of heat out here, and spring in Nebraska was still frosty in the morning. Trying to survive without heat was as pointless as trying to live without water.

He let himself cry hard for a few interminable minutes, feeling Derek's arm tighten around him. It was far more comforting than he would have expected.

"We don't have any food," he muttered when the tears were spent.

"We can figure it out," said Derek. "You're the goddamn brilliant one, right?"

No, that's Lydia, he thought, but he felt a rush of warmth in his chest at Derek's unexpected opinion of him. It was followed by the equally disheartening thought: she might be gone, too. He clutched at Derek's chest.

"I can't believe I'm crying for fucking Jackson."

"Humans band together in times of danger, just like wolves." Derek's hand rested on Stiles' back, heavy and hot and - no, he was not going to follow that metaphor down any kind of path. "You're already cold."

"I'm... yeah." He didn't feel particularly cold, but he also knew it was a fight he'd lose if he started arguing with Derek about it.

"I think you should plan to sleep against me, if we're going to have to stay on the ground."

The thought made Stiles a little dizzy, but the words were rational enough that he could say, "Yes, sure," without feeling guilty.

There were no stars, no night sounds. They could have been in an airtight box for all it mattered. Other than the grass and the walnut tree, there was nothing that felt normal at all. They strung one another out on the leather lead so that each of them could take another bathroom break and drink more water at the fountain - Stiles figured a full belly of water would make him feel less hungry - before returning to sit beside each other, after which he was even more reluctant to touch Derek again.

He eyed the dog collar with distaste. "Can we just - not?"

Derek shrugged, looking away. "Whatever." His voice wasn't upset, and he seemed willing to accept Stiles' distance without comment.

Stiles put a loop of the leather lead back around his ankle and curled up on his side on the grass beside the tree, feeling hollow and worn out from adrenaline. His muscles ached with tension; he was sure sleeping on the ground wasn't going to help. The grass was already chilly.

"We'll figure this out," Derek said.

Stiles wiped his eyes on the sleeve of his jacket. "How would you know? Is that an Alpha thing? You somehow know stuff before it happens, or what?"

"I don't have an explanation that will mean anything to you. I'm just asking you to trust me. We're going to figure it out."

There was no reason that should have made him feel better. The fact that it did was a little unnerving. He tried to muster some kind of pointless defense. "You're kind of an asshole, you know."

"We're all assholes under the right circumstances."

Derek didn't touch him again, although Stiles could feel the leather lead tug on his ankle occasionally as Derek made a space for himself on the grass. He pressed his hands to his ears and tried to shut out the world, for a few hours at least. He hoped the lead wouldn't break while he slept. He hoped Derek wouldn't wolf out and kill him. He hoped, god, he hoped Scott and Lydia and Allison were okay. He didn't cry any more for Jackson, but he might have cried a little for himself before falling asleep.

The dreams were a hundred times worse than the reality. At least in the reality there was nothing actively trying to get him, and he had water, and he wasn't alone. But Stiles didn't realize just how bad the dreams had been until several moments after Derek had woken him up with a rough hand on his shoulder, saying sharply into his ear, "Stiles - come on."

"Oh, fuck," he gasped, "oh, oh, fuck."

"It was a dream. You're okay." Derek's hand on his arm made him gasp in a different way. His touch was shockingly warm. "Jesus, you're freezing."

"Can werewolves take the Lord's name in vain?" In the whispery dark, Stiles' grasping, flailing hand landed on solid, warm flesh, and it was all he could do not to burrow in under Derek's t-shirt. Derek chafed Stiles' hands between his, then reached to cover his frosty ears and the back of his neck and basically every one of his most sensitive body parts, and Stile practically begged for more.

"He's not my lord. I can do whatever the hell I want with his name." There was that growly early morning voice, the one that got under Stiles' skin and made him absolutely certain he would remember it when the more pleasant dreams returned. But usually when he thought about that voice, he was alone, not being wrestled by a scalding pair of arms into the lap of the growler himself.

"I'm okay now," he insisted, but the arms weren't budging.

"You're staying right here."

There was no doubt that Derek was stronger than him, and could make him do it. Stiles supposed he could explain his difficulties, and maybe Derek would see reason: You see, Derek, I've been having irrational fantasies about you since pretty much the day we met, and for us to extend to actual body contact is kind of freaking me out, and I'd rather be cold than deal with it right now. But the plain fact was, his explanation would have to be true for him to be convincing. Whatever his brain was telling him, Stiles' body was emphatically saying something else, and any moment, Derek was going to feel this against his leg and dump him unceremoniously to the ground. Or possibly bite his face off.

"You see," was as far as he got, before Derek lay flat on the ground, pulling Stiles down on top of him, one hand on the small of his back. Stiles might have added an oh god in there, but Derek just sighed.

"It's a normal reaction to stress," Derek said. "Don't worry about it. Think of it as a physiological release valve."

"A what?" croaked Stiles.

"It's what your body does when you're worked up. Among wolves..." He coughed. "The pack takes care of it."

"The... pack."

"Whoever's around. Male, female, it doesn't matter much to us. It's not a mating urge; it's a social response."

Stiles would have scrambled back to get a good look at Derek's face to see if he was joking, only a) it was too dark, and b) god Derek was so fucking warm and he really, really didn't want to move from that spot, like, ever. Ever. There was a c) in there, but that had something to do with his erection and Derek's erection and he'd never been in a situation where there were plural erections, and what the hell did Derek mean by a social response? Did he want Stiles to... to respond?

Before he could generate any more questions, Derek's arms were holding him tight, tighter. Stiles was already having trouble breathing, and his embrace wasn't helping, at least not in any way he could say aloud. He wondered if he could get away with waiting until Derek was asleep before jerking off quietly on top of him. At this rate, a few good thrusts against Derek's leg would do it, but then he would have creamed his only pair of jeans, possibly the last pair he would ever own.

"I... don't think I can sleep like this," he said honestly.

"Yeah, and I'm saying you don't have to." Derek's hand on his back slid over to his hip, grasping it firmly, and Stiles heard Derek's own breath catch. "Fuck."

"Okay, wait a second, I think I'm going to have to ask for more words, because this isn't making any sense at all in my head. You want me to..."

"You don't have to do anything. And I won't do anything you don't want."

I want, his body gibbered at Derek's absurd, impossible suggestion, but that was as far as he could go, curled up on his chest and clinging to his superheated body. He felt Derek's hand on his hip, grasping it gently, rubbing circles into the skin with his thumb.

"I've definitely never been fucked in the middle of Delphi Park in broken gravity," said Stiles. "Or any one of those things. Really, you can assume I've never most things, but especially the getting fucked part."

Derek's hand stopped in its motion. It didn't leave his hip, but neither did it shift toward anything more sexual. Seriously, though, Derek could sneeze and it would be sexual, so there wasn't much Stiles could do except try to resist humping his thigh and stifle his whimpers.

"We're not going to do that," said Derek softly. His words were almost lost in the strange acoustic deadpool of the park.

"Of course. Of course not." He was such an idiot. How could he have been such an idiot? But Derek's arms still weren't letting him move.

"It would be irresponsible, with you in the - this situation. But we can still take care of it. It doesn't have to be awkward."

"The hell it doesn't!" Stiles protested, but when Derek moved his thumb a little further south, rubbing against the bulge in Stiles' jeans, he didn't say no, or anything like no. Awkward, yes. Maybe a little scary, but a fuckton less scary than everything else that was currently happening.

He couldn't bring himself to say yes, do that, that's fucking awesome, but he could reach down and unzip his jeans and wriggle them down over his hips. It left Derek holding his bare ass cheek in one palm, supporting him off the cold ground, but the determined way Derek was holding him, not to mention the way Derek's breathing shifted as he moved his other hand to stroke Stiles' cock, he didn't think Derek minded. That realization was strangely not as mindblowing as it could have been. Perhaps it was because there was no way Derek is turned on by giving me a handjob could compete with gravity has reversed itself. In all honesty, he might be willing to accept just about anything as normal at this point.

Working from that frame of mind, it wasn't so hard to fumble at Derek's fly with his suddenly much-warmer hands, nor to reach into Derek's jeans and reciprocate. That, at least, was something he'd imagined doing a hundred times, so actually doing it wasn't such a big step. That was what he told himself, anyway, even as he felt the gravity around them shift, and they both hovered for a good thirty seconds before settling back down. And god, the noises Derek was making... they made up for all the awkwardness in the world.

Stiles slid his thumb over the head of Derek's cock, spreading as much wetness as he could gather. From there, his mind sped forward to I wonder if he would let me blow him, and then to god, did I really just think that, holy shit what am I doing, and finally to I'm going to come all over him and we don't have a shower, and that was where he had to stop and say something.

"Gonna -" was all Stiles had to say, and Derek was instantly rolling him over to one side, still holding him effortlessly in the air, while he shot his load in the grass. Derek was reacting almost as intensely as Stiles was to the climax. He sure wasn't trying to be quiet. Like it mattered with no one around to hear them, but Stiles had had no idea just how hot it would be to hear a guy totally getting off on him getting off. Not to mention feeling Derek, hard and desperate, against his bare ass, and once again holy shit what the fuck. But he was rolling with it, here he went, rolling right along, because Derek deserved his own stress relief, yes, he definitely did. And after all, hadn't Stiles himself just admitted he wanted to be fucked?

"You." He rolled over on top of Derek, his own personal heated mattress, extra-firm. "What can I - I mean, would you let me - "

Derek reached down, placing a hand on top of Stiles' grasping one. "You don't have to do that."

"I don't?" It was too dark to see details, but Stiles could wish for Derek to see his face right now. He wasn't at all sure how to say But this is something I've been thinking about for years, and now I've got the chance, and who knows what's going to happen tomorrow, or if we'll ever do this again, or anything, and you're sure as shit not going to take it away from me. He just clenched his jaw and forced out the words, "I really want to. If you'll let me."

"Oh." Derek's body went still for a moment. "You... you do?"

"Hey, come on, end of the world, last chances, you know?"

He could have kicked himself the moment the words passed his lips, because way to make it clear that Derek wasn't just a convenience or a coincidence. Of all the guys he'd ever fantasized about, Derek had kind of always been pretty close to the top of his list. Of course, he'd also been on the never going to dig guys list, but apparently Stiles' dig-guys-dar was seriously damaged. Or - hey, maybe the same weirdness that had caused the shimmery air and the gravity also switched guys' sexual orientation? Only nothing had happened to his own, so... focus, Stiles. Guy's dick in your hand. Last chances. He took a deep breath, but once again, asking for it was way harder than going for it. He gambled that Derek might let him down onto the cold ground long enough to kneel between his legs, which was what he did.

"Stiles," Derek said, sounding a little desperate, "wait, you really don't - oh, god."

Stiles knew he probably wouldn't be giving Derek the best blowjob of his life, but he also felt determined not to wimp out before the end, because all the guys on the lacrosse team seemed to think that was the worst thing for a girl to do. He hoped someday a girl, or maybe even a guy, might do the same for him. But even more, if he couldn't say any of those words to Derek about how gorgeous and scary and fucking inspiring he was, Stiles hoped that this act might convey some of what he was feeling. He tried to relax his throat and let Derek drive in as hard as he wanted, and - okay, wow, that was unexpectedly really hot too. He heard somebody make an intense moaning noise, and realized eventually that it was both of them.

"Stiles, oh, fuck."

Yeah, that was what he wanted to hear. That awed thankfulness, the appreciation for not only what he was doing, but him doing it. Derek wasn't just getting off on some guy making him come - although he did seem to be doing that, too - but on him, on this guy, Stiles, being here and doing this for him. It made him roll his eyes at himself, the way his heart was leaping around a little, clapping its hands. He likes me. All he did was wrap his arms around Derek's thighs, ignoring the frozen ground, and do what he could with his limited skill and experience to blow his mind.

Derek seemed to get that Stiles wasn't pulling away, or waiting for him to tap out, but that he was sticking around to the end. It made things a little less intense. Stiles didn't feel bad, either, slowing down to take a break, replacing his mouth with his hand. It meant he could watch Derek, too, waking up in the dawn. It was bright enough now for Stiles to see the arch of Derek's neck, the movement of his hips, the way his mouth trembled. Beautiful, along with eight thousand other words describing his physique, filtered through his head, but none of them passed his appropriateness test. Even at the end of the world, there were some things you just didn't say to a guy you were supposed to hate.

Derek didn't give him any warning, or change the pace of his thrusts, until suddenly he was spilling over Stiles' knuckles (and oh, wow, way hotter when somebody else does it). He did open his eyes, though, and once he'd focused on Stiles he silently reached for him, pulling him up to lie on top of him again.

"... yeah," Derek whispered. It was just one word, but it was more than enough. Stiles smiled, and closed his eyes.

When he opened them again, it was daylight, or what apparently passed for daylight in this twilight world. The temperature differential, below and above, was still shocking, but the chilly air could not compete with Derek's ridiculous body heat. The entire surface of Stiles' back and legs, even through his jeans and jacket, were cold enough that he was feeling a little numb, but his front was warm and toasty. His living space heater had done its job.

Stiles was stretched out on his stomach on top of Derek. This would have been embarrassing all by itself, even if he hadn't been hard. Or if Derek hadn't been. But, it being somewhere past dawn, Stiles was, and he guessed the rules about morning wood for male werewolves were pretty much the same as for male humans, so he tried not to lend it a lot of importance.

Then there was the memory of the night before. Not to mention the details of what might have happened to everyone else... but he could only deal with one improbable thing at a time, and the most immediate involved their mutual anatomy. Derek's hands, fastened around Stiles' waist, ran over his spine, up to his shoulders and back down to his thighs.

"Your back is cold," he rumbled. "You'd better turn over."

God. Stiles felt that voice inside his gut, resonating in every cavity in his body. He cleared his throat twice before he could answer. "Pretty sure if I get up and start moving around, I'll be warm enough."

"How much moving around do you plan to do, held down by the root of a tree?"

Derek did have a point. Stiles contemplated the tiedown on his ankle. He could ask to be released, but then he compared it to the possibility of floating away, and decided he didn't have a lot of choice. They were stuck with one another, and Stiles was going to have to live with the embarrassment of his body admitting that, yes, it did find Derek Hale hotter than hot. Embarrassment was actually not that big a deal as long as they were the only two people within shouting distance.

Or possibly any distance. The implications of that idea struck him suddenly and immediately with paralyzing terror, and Stiles found himself panicking again. Derek seemed to understand what was happening, at least, because he just tightened his arms and held on while Stiles struggled and swore and, at last, cried.

"We might be completely alone," Stiles insisted, when he had regained some semblance of control. "You and me. We might be - god. The only people left. On the freaking Earth."

He felt the movement of Derek's breath, slow and measured, just as it had been all night underneath him. "Come on, Stiles. Isn't that a pretty big leap from we're stuck in this park and something weird is happening? I thought you were a rational guy."

"Yeah, well, that was before - everything." Before people started flying off the ground. Before the air got as thick as the pudding in the school cafeteria. Before you let me give you a blowjob, and do you think I could try that again, because I didn't get to finish the way I wanted? He turned his head, wiping the tears off his cheeks onto Derek's t-shirt.

"Maybe your rational brain can remind you that it'd be pointless to panic before gathering more information." Derek's hand came to rest on his ass. "Your back is cold. Turn over."

Well, when you say it like that, I might just have to listen. Stiles didn't argue anymore, because yeah, his back really was damn cold, and Derek didn't seem to mind him putting his cold body parts all over his warm ones. And it wasn't like he actually had a problem with Derek's cock wedged into the crease of his ass.

The sound of Derek's shuddering sigh made him a little lightheaded as Stiles settled against him. Derek's arms kept him just as secure facing the sky, and even though staring up at the canopy of the trees through the fog was a little disconcerting, he thought he might be... safe. Safer than he would be anywhere else at the moment, certainly, but that wasn't what he was really thinking about. Just safe, under any circumstances, because of the man holding him.

Stiles closed his eyes, making a conscious effort to relax his tense limbs, and the persistent melody of last night ran through his head. He didn't realize he was singing it until Derek asked, suspiciously, "What is that?"

"Can't carry a tune," he murmured. "Sorry. Stupid earworm."

"Stiles." Derek's voice was sharp. "Come on."

It wasn't very nice of Derek to get annoyed at Stiles for a little humming, honestly. He sighed, or tried to, but his breath was coming slowly. He actually had to make an effort to continue his respiration at the same pace he'd been breathing in and out. At least it didn't feel uncomfortable. He hummed a little more quietly.

"Sing something else," Derek suggested. He definitely sounded upset now. Stiles shifted a little, stretched out there on his back on top of Derek, and tried to think of another song. It was hard when the melody was so loud in his head. Derek tugged on his shoulder, exasperated. "You're not even trying."

"Mmm." There weren't even any clouds in the sky anymore, just the fog, and the biggest network of branches he'd ever seen. It appeared to go on for miles. Stiles tried to follow one with his eyes into the retreating mist.

"Stiles." Derek shook him again, almost desperately. "You can't - okay, how about I give it a try. You know the Beatles?"

"Huh?" said Stiles, but Derek was already singing. The strange acoustics made his voice sound very close, and Stiles just lay there listening in surprise and staring up at the not-clouds:

watch?v=RpZAFqu0HkE

One day, you'll look
To see I've gone
But tomorrow may rain, so
I'll follow the sun

One day, you'll know
I was the one
But tomorrow may rain, so
I'll follow the sun

He couldn't carry a tune a whole lot better than Stiles could, but it was such a shock to hear him even trying that Stiles struggled to sit up, wobbling a little on Derek's lap. Derek paused, as though he were listening to something, though Stiles couldn't imagine what, before going on with the bridge:

And now the time has come
And so, my love, I must go
And though I lose a friend
In the end you will know

It was stupid, the kind of song his dad would listen to, but Stiles knew the words anyway, and sang along:

One day, you'll find
That I have gone
But tomorrow may rain, so
I'll follow the sun

There was silence around them as the song ended. Derek sat there watching Stiles warily, and finally nodded. "Okay. That's good. More of that. Unless you've got a better suggestion?"

Stiles didn't. The Beatles might be ancient, but his dad had spent enough hours in the car listening to the Greatest Hits boxed set to know most of them. They went through "Eight Days a Week," "A Hard Day's Night" and "If I Fell" in quick succession. Stiles stopped in the middle of the last one when he decided the lyrics were a little too intense for the experience they were currently having:

watch?v=4yjUuX-I0QE

If I trust in you
Oh please
Don't run and hide
If I love you too
Oh please
Don't hurt my pride like her
'Cause I couldn't stand the pain
And I
Would be sad
If our -

"Oookay," Stiles said, pulling away from Derek's grasp to land on the ground. Derek looked somewhat stunned to see him go - as well he might, because as soon as Stiles broke contact, they immediately began to tug upward, bumping against the unstable gravity like an air hockey game. Stiles scrambled to grab at Derek's leg at the same time that Derek threw an arm out to wrap around his shoulder. They settled back onto the grass, clutching each other and breathing hard.

"Don't do that again," demanded Derek.

"Not doing that," Stiles replied immediately.

Derek's face turned, his nose brushing against Stiles' neck, as his other hand went up to cup the back of his head, just holding on.

"At least this works," he said after a moment. "At least... we're sitting on the ground."

Stiles nodded back, slowly. "At least... it's not winter," he offered. "There's grass. This would suck a lot more in snow"

"Yeah." Derek sat back to look across the park, taking in the murky outlines of trees and benches. "At least we've got water."

After that, Stiles couldn't really find another at-least that wasn't depressing (at least I'm not tied to Jackson by the ankle, only Jackson is probably dead by now, aren't I a complete shit for being glad about that) or confusing (at least we're not fighting, and why the hell aren't we fighting, don't we kind of hate each other?). But he didn't want Derek to stop holding his head like that, so he just kept very still, trying not to let his own guilt and bewilderment overwhelm the feeling of safety.

"I... have something to eat."

For a moment, Stiles wasn't sure what Derek meant. Hunt and kill a squirrel was what he'd been thinking they'd have to do, although he hadn't seen even one squirrel since the gravity started to go wonky. So he just repeated the words: "You have something to eat."

"In my pocket. I had a protein bar. I thought we should eat it now."

Hunger hadn't been high in Stiles' awareness, obscured as it had been by terror and cold - and, apparently, arousal - but at the mention of actual food, he felt a flood of saliva burst into his mouth. "Oh," he said, "wow, yeah, that's really, really good news." Then he paused, pulling back far enough to stare at Derek. "Werewolves eat protein bars?"

"Whatever," Derek said testily. "I'm a terrible cook. Do you want half or should I keep it to myself?"

"No, no - I mean, yeah, definitely." Stiles couldn't articulate the feeling of gratitude he was experiencing at the idea that Derek was going share his only, last meal with him. If he thought about it much longer, he was going to cry, and he'd already done enough of that.

He watched as Derek took it out of his jacket and peeled off the wrapper, breaking it in half. It was berry-flavored, which wouldn't have been Stiles' first choice, but he was absolutely not saying anything that sounded like complaining. He took the half-bar and nibbled it slowly, conscious of Derek doing the same. Derek had really straight, white teeth.

"You're a terrible cook, huh?" Stiles watched him bristle, and tried not to grin.

"I don't have the patience for it." Derek contemplated the chewy slab in his hand. "Before, I ate well enough, healthy foods, but now..."

"Huh. Yeah, you probably don't have to worry about nutrition much since the wolf thing, huh? You can eat whatever you want and you still... um." Look amazing was not going to come out of his mouth.

"It's convenient," Derek admitted. "I don't have to work out anymore."

Stiles felt the muscles of Derek's leg contract under his hand, and he looked away quickly. He wasn't sure how far werewolf senses extended to being aware of another guy's arousal, but he didn't think Derek needed to see that look on his face. He fumbled for something else to say that wasn't you're really hot.

"The Beatles?" he said. "That was unexpected."

Derek actually looked offended. "They're classic. Pretty much most of the stupid shit on the radio now is based on what they pioneered fifty years ago."

"No, it's fine. I think I just pegged you for a hard rock kind of guy. Something a little more intense."

This wasn't getting any better. Derek was contemplating him with a little frown. "Don't tell me you put any kind of thought into what kind of music I like."

"I don't know. Maybe?" Stiles wasn't going to list all the things he'd thought about in regard to Derek Hale, but music might have been one of them. "I've got exactly one example of what it means to be a werewolf, and he's pretty much doing all the same stuff he used to do. But you live in a creepy old house, and I never see you around town anymore, so... sure, I wondered."

Derek shook his head in irritation. "You could have just asked."

"Like we've ever had any kind of civil conversation before this?" Stiles snapped. His hand tightened on Derek's calf. "Half the time you're ignoring me, and the other half you're threatening to rip out my throat."

"You're exaggerating."

Stiles gritted his teeth. "I am not!" He tried to twist out from under Derek's arm resting on his back, but Derek hung on, not letting him get away. "Let go!"

"You said you wouldn't pull away again."

It was completely futile, but Stiles struggled anyway, using all the tricks he'd ever learned wrestling with Scott. But Derek was just holding him there, which obviously took no effort at all, and it was so goddamn infuriating that Stiles' anger erupted. "I'm not making any promises to a fucking werewolf who treats me like a second-class citizen just because I don't have superpowers!"

Derek actually laughed. It didn't do anything to calm Stiles down, but he stopped struggling long enough to see Derek smiling bitterly at him. "How exactly am I treating you?"

"You always did before," Stiles insisted. "You're just forgetting it now because it's the end of the world, but you're not being - the way you were. You're treating me way too nice. That's not really how you feel about me."

Derek's smile had disappeared. "You have no idea how I feel about you."

"Trust me, you've made it abundantly clear."

Derek regarded him for one more moment before he closed on him. It could have been a confrontation or an attack, but it ended up being a very tight, very emphatic hug. Stiles made one last attempt to get away before giving up, pressed hard against his broad chest.

"Have I?" Derek murmured.

"Yeah." The retort was weak. Stiles was still holding onto the last portion of the protein bar in his hand. He hoped he wouldn't drop it. It would be the worst thing in the world to see it fall away into the air and know he'd lost his last meal. They sat there together for several long moments while Stiles listened to his own wild heartbeat gradually slow.

"You still want to hit me?"

"I think you're safe now." Stiles shifted a little, and Derek gave him a fraction more space to breathe. "But you're lucky I calmed down."

Derek's chuckle defused the last of Stiles' indignant anger. Now he just felt sheepish. He crammed the last bite of protein bar into his mouth and rested his forehead in the crook of Derek's shoulder, chewing.

"You really think I hate you?" Derek asked curiously.

Stiles considered the kind of animosity he'd felt from Derek when they'd crossed paths with him last year, when Scott's weird fate had begun to overlap with his. It felt like such a long time ago. He swallowed. "No. I guess not."

"Good. Because I don't."

Now he was close enough to the taut tendons outlining the contours of Derek's neck to be considering something else. One-track mind much, Stiles? He sighed. "I'm... kind of an asshole, too."

"No, you're not."

You might not say that if you knew what I was thinking about doing right now. He floundered for something to distract himself. "What if everybody really was gone? If we were the only ones left?"

Derek sighed. "See, this is why I don't bother wondering."

"But if we were," he pressed.

"Okay."

"Who would you miss?"

The silence went on for an awkward number of seconds before Derek replied. "My pack, I guess. Nobody really else to miss."

"Nobody?"

Derek shook his head, focusing intently on something across the park. "My life's not exactly conducive to friendships."

The air wasn't any less thick, nor was the gravity any more stable, but those things seemed suddenly less important in the face of Derek not having anybody to care about. Stiles found his hand on the side of Derek's face, touching his cheek before letting it drop awkwardly. Thankfully, Derek didn't seem angry, just a little uncomfortable.

"So... Scott, then." Stiles tucked his hands underneath his own legs, trying to find a place for them that wasn't somewhere on the stupidly hunky werewolf's body.

"He's part of my pack, sure."

"I'd miss my dad." Stiles decided not to say how much he already did miss him. It'd just make him feel even more sixteen than he already felt.

"Pack's not quite like family. It's more like an extension of your body. When they're away, you can't function nearly as well." Derek scooted along the ground, dragging Stiles along with him, until he was leaning up against the trunk of the walnut tree. Stiles had to wonder if Derek was going to feel sore or stiff at any point from being sat upon, but if Derek didn't tell him, he'd never know. Derek didn't seem uncomfortable; he just tightened his hold around Stiles' waist, keeping him stable as he perched there on top of his legs. Now Derek was propped up, angled against the sloping ground like the back of a recliner. Stiles could do nothing else but recline, his head resting on Derek's chest.

"But it's not really personal," Derek added. "One member's about the same as any other. Not like a mate."

"And you don't have one of those."

"Not since... no. I don't."

Stiles suddenly felt very heavy. He closed his eyes. "Don't see why not."

"People turn up dead around me. It kind of negates the appeal of having a relationship."

He was having a hard time forming words now. "But you're so... ev'rything."

"Everything?" Derek sounded relaxed, even amused, but his body suddenly became tense. "Stiles, what's going on?"

"Jus' tired. Yeah... ev'rything, y'know? Strong. In charge. Pretty. It's th' eyes." He had a vague awareness that he probably shouldn't be saying these things, but he was too fog-headed to care. He could hear the music now, stronger than before, and more familiar. He sang along under his breath, his tongue thick and dry like cotton in his mouth.

"Stiles, I'm losing you, here. Stay with me, man." Derek's hands went to Stiles' shoulders, shaking him, as he let Stiles slip to the ground. Was Derek kneeling over him? That was kind of hot. More than kind of, but he decided he shouldn't say that either. "Stiles?"

Now there were no more words. Only the music. Stiles felt so thirsty; he wished he could ask Derek to bring him a drink, but there was nothing to carry the water in. And anyway, Derek couldn't walk away from him, or else they'd both fly off the ground and into the sky. He didn't want that to happen. He really didn't want Derek to go anywhere. Not just because he was strong and pretty and in charge, although those were all mighty nice things to have in the last person on Earth.

Distantly, Stiles felt the pressure of Derek's body on top of him, holding him down to the ground. He was so grateful, he wanted to say something about it, but the music was drowning out everything else; when he tried to open his mouth, the words just came out as a faint melody. Even the daylight was starting to slip away; he couldn't tell if his eyes were open or closed.

Something was tickling his ear, a buzzing sensation; he put up one hand to try to brush it away, but Derek was in the way. That was okay, though. He really didn't mind Derek being in the way. The buzzing was right against his ear, warm and a little moist.

"Stiles, come on. You can do this. Listen to me."

The words barely made sense, but he could decipher them if he worked at it. Now he realized that moist sensation was Derek's mouth, right up against his ear. He moaned, but he felt somehow trapped under more than Derek's body, and the sound wouldn't come out.

He could still hear Derek's voice, but now it was singing. The music was interfering with the music in his head; the dissonance made him wrinkle his nose. It felt wrong. But the lyrics - the lyrics he recognized:

watch?v=0714IbwC3HA

When I find myself in times of trouble, Mother Mary comes to me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be
And in my hour of darkness she is standing right in front of me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be
Let it be, let it be, let it be, let it be
Whisper words of wisdom, let it be

Derek's voice was getting stronger, or maybe it was the familiar song that was overtaking the cloyingly sweet one in his head. Stiles followed it like a beacon, reaching for the lyrics one at a time as it slowly unfolded into a recognizable pattern. By the time Derek got to the third verse, he was singing them too:

And when the night is cloudy there is still a light that shines on me
Shine until tomorrow, let it be
I wake up to the sound of music, Mother Mary comes to me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be
Let it be, let it be, let it be, yeah, let it be
There will be an answer, let it be
Let it be, let it be, let it be, yeah, let it be
Whisper words of wisdom, let it be

His hands had gone up to touch Derek's cheeks again, but he couldn't bring himself to pull them away. Derek's face was wet. Why was his face wet?

"Thirsty," he whispered. Stiles felt Derek's body shaking as he was gathered into his arms. He tried to turn his head to see more than Derek, but it was still dark. Was it night already? "You're freaking out."

"Shut up," Derek whispered back, his voice rough. He knelt to unfasten the lead from his own ankle, but he left it dangling from Stiles'. He could feel it dragging behind him as Derek stood, lifting him, and carried him cautiously across to the fountain. Derek didn't put Stiles down on the stone surface; he just leaned over so Stiles' face was level with the water, letting him drink. No hands, like a dog. Like a wolf. Derek didn't drink like that, though; he held Stiles close to him with one arm while he scooped up water with his other hand.

"I still can't see anything except you." The words were coming easier now.

"Yeah, I don't really know what that's about, but your eyes look funny." Derek grabbed for the crumbling edge of the fountain with one hand as the gravity bumped them upward. It wasn't ideal, but there wasn't anything else to hold onto. Stiles wrapped his arms more tightly around Derek.

"Get back to the tree," he begged.

"Stiles, I really think we should try to go someplace else. Figure out what's going on. Get out of this park."

"No!" he shouted. It hit the dead air and was absorbed. Shouting wasn't allowed in this world. "We're going to fall."

"Not as long as we're connected," Derek insisted. "I can carry you." But even as he spoke, the air warped and tugged sharply at them. Stiles muffled a scream against Derek's shoulder. Derek's fingers pressed into his back as they walked, his voice dropping to a soothing murmur. "Okay... going back to the tree. We're not falling. See? We're here now."

Stiles couldn't even make a joke about being tied up, he was shaking so badly. Just the sensation of Derek's hands leaving him as he moved them to Stiles' ankle, looping the dog leash back through the root of the tree, was enough to send him into panic. Derek sat cross-legged on the ground next to the trunk and sighed, settling Stiles back on top of his legs.

"What's with the music?" Stiles mumbled. "I didn't know you could even sing."

Derek's laugh sounded a little hysterical. "Trust me, I don't. The shower's my most significant audience."

Stiles' initial dreamy thought about showering with Derek was cut short by the cold realization that there was no possibility of taking a shower anymore. Somehow that hit him in a way that the more vague, more sweeping end of the world concept hadn't.

"Well, you did something when you sang to me. I've got words again." He adjusted his hold on Derek's neck, and the shift made Derek catch his breath. "Am I - too heavy?"

"No," Derek said emphatically. "Not too heavy."

Stiles wondered if he should try to figure out what was upsetting him, but the question slipped away as he moved again and felt the insistent pulse of Derek's erection under his thigh. He paused only a moment before dropping one hand to rest on Derek's taut abdomen.

"Uh... another stress response?" he guessed.

Derek nodded, not meeting Stiles' eyes. Stiles dared to move his hand lower until his palm rested over the bulge in Derek's jeans. The sound he made was definitely in the category of hottest things ever.

Stress response. Stiles wasn't sure about what had happened the night before, but he was absolutely positive that he himself hadn't been hard five minutes ago. And he knew equally well that himself being hard was all about Derek Hale, not about the the end of the world. Would that matter to Derek? Would he still be on board with getting Stiles off if he knew it was because Stiles thought he was sexy, instead of believing it was due to some generic physiological reaction to fear?

He wasn't sure he was willing to risk finding out, because Derek was already unzipping his jeans and working them down his legs. He watched in tense anticipation as Derek slipped the leather lead off his ankle long enough to take off both Stiles' jeans and his own, folding them underneath them as a thin cushion against the soil.

"Like this," said Derek, pulling Stiles back into his lap, but this time facing him. Derek's legs went under his, their knees both bent, until he was tucked in close enough for the skin on the inside of their thighs to brush. One hand would have been enough to stroke both their cocks at once, but Derek just took Stiles' in his hand, ignoring his own. That didn't seem fair to Stiles, and he reached down to wrap his own fingers around Derek's, and -

"Oh, fuck, that's hot," he breathed, leaning into Derek's touch. He made a little thrust with his hips, bumping the taut skin beneath Derek's balls with his ass, spread wide beneath Derek's stroking hand. Now it was Stiles' turn to gasp. "More of - that."

"Yeah?" Derek brought his hand, supporting Stiles' back, up to his mouth. Watching him lick his fingers, getting them slick, made Stiles dizzy. "You sure?"

"More of that," Stiles insisted, thrusting again, and arched up and into Derek's fingers as they touched the ring of muscle around his asshole. His response was immediate, and the meaning behind it was obvious. It wasn't protect me from the scary gravity,or you've got really pretty eyes, or even I've been having fantasies about you for years. This was, very clearly, fuck me now. Only even Stiles knew that wasn't something you just did with spit. Or, for that matter, in the middle of the park in broad daylight, but that hardly mattered anymore. What the hell did people do before there was lube, anyway?

Derek didn't seem worried about the lack of lubrication. He was simply working one thick, wet finger into Stiles, watching his face with intense scrutiny, as though there was nothing else he'd rather be doing than sitting half-naked on the grass, fooling around with another guy. Stiles decided there was no way Derek hadn't done this before. Just the thought of Derek doing this with some other guy, werewolf or human or whatever, made Stiles both incredibly jealous and more turned on than he knew what to do with.

Stiles apparently wasn't the only one to be having the latter reaction. When he whispered, "More?" Derek's eyelids fluttered shut, and both his hands stilled. At least Stiles had the presence of mind to keep the grip of his own fingers constant around Derek's cock as he came.

"Wow," was all Stiles could get out before Derek's hands resumed their motion, his purpose renewed. He also got a possible answer to his earlier hypothetical question as Derek's fingers swept up some of his own come, working it into Stiles' ass with methodical care. Stiles wondered if this process should hurt, or feel weird, but all he wanted to do was moan and spread his legs a little wider.

"Still okay?" Derek asked, leaning over him.

Oh my fucking god, yes. Stiles took these embarrassing thoughts and put them into action in a way he actually knew how to do, reaching up with his clean hand and coaxing Derek's face down, crushing their lips together. Derek made a surprised sound into Stiles' mouth, but he didn't try to pull away, and even opened up to accept the kiss.

"You're... mmm, god..." Stiles felt another wave of sensation at the touch of Derek's tongue. "You're pretty much welcome to do that any time."

Derek put a hand on his shoulder, giving him a little push onto the grass as he climbed out of their sitting position to kneel over him. "Kiss you?"

The kissing part was almost hotter than the finger-in-the-ass part, but... he bit down on a whimper. "Actually, I meant... the other thing. What you're doing right now."

Luckily, Derek didn't seem to want to stop the kissing part either. "Holding you down?" Was he smirking?

"Fucking me," Stiles said distinctly. "Fucking. Me. Any time."

"Yeah?" That was definitely a smile. Stiles had to redirect his gaze away from it to avoid giving him a stupid helpless smile back, and found himself completely distracted by the way the muscles in Derek's upper arm were shifting as he drove his finger in with more force. Stiles' eyes rolled back into his head, and he moaned again.

"Yeah, like that, and I'm gonna come, fuck, like that..."

Derek had words to say in return, lots of surprising, encouraging words, like I'll do you like that as often as you want, and you're so hot,along with several others that were swallowed by the thick air. Just the experience of Derek on top of him, kissing him, with one finger in his ass and the other hand stroking him off was plenty. Stiles let him do all of this, feeling a little overwhelmed but definitely not willing to tell him to stop.

Even after Stiles came, Derek was still right there beside him on the cool grass, nuzzling his neck, whispering more words into his ear, holding him to his chest. He didn't seem to care about where his fingers had been (in-fucking-side him) or what was coating his hand (Derek casually wiped his come onto the grass), or even Stiles' incoherent noises in the aftermath.

"You," Stiles finally got out. "Since when do you want -?"

"Since you never asked," Derek said, kissing him again. "Since you probably don't want to know. And I'm not even going to ask if you had your sixteenth birthday yet."

"Werewolves care about legality?" Stiles said, completely baffled, and Derek laughed aloud.

"Not actually very much," he admitted. He dropped his head onto Stiles' shoulder, his breathing slowing. "And... since when do you want...?"

"Since kind of always." He thought about how aware he'd been of young Derek Hale around town, back before he'd become a werewolf, rich and full of himself and completely gorgeous. That was when Stiles had just started to be aware that guys featured in his fantasies as often as girls. He shook his head in disbelief. "Way before I was actually doing anything about wanting. And... it was kind of a non-issue? I mean, I assumed you were straight."

"Stupid assumption."

"I'm full of those," Stiles agreed. "I think I'm going to have a minor freakout now, if you don't mind."

"If that's like the one you had yesterday where you cried, I think I know how to deal with that."

Derek's solution was to kiss him breathless, which carried Stiles easily through the crying and shaking and well into starting to get turned on again, but Derek stopped before that could go too far. He retrieved Stiles' underwear and jeans and helped him put them back on, disconnecting the strap from his ankle quickly enough that Stiles didn't even feel worried about the unstable gravity.

"This is kind of fucked up," Stiles said drowsily, letting his eyes close against the waning light of the day.

"Do you think so?"

"No, I mean - not this." He placed a hand on Derek's chest, feeling his steady heartbeat. "I'm just saying, we're in the middle of this fucking crisis to end all crises, and I'm..." He shrugged, feeling embarrassed.

"What?" Derek prompted gently.

"Um." He let himself glance over at Derek's insanely pretty face. "Happy."

Derek nodded. "I think... you get to feel that way. I think you can have that."

"Until we die of starvation."

His arm tightened around Stiles, pulling him close. "I'm not going to let that happen."

"Not really something you can promise, is it?" But he let Derek say it, let him hold him. The warmth of his body provided something he needed. More than one thing, if he was going to be honest. In that moment, he actually felt safe, safe enough to allow his eyes to close and drift into a blissful, uncomplicated sleep.

Stiles' words were gone again when he woke up, blanketed by the wistful music. He was cold on one side and warm on the other, one leg thrown over Derek's side but still lying on the ground up against the trunk of the walnut tree. He realized he didn't actually care all that much. The music was far more interesting than his body temperature.

Not more interesting than Derek, though. He'd guess it had only been a few hours since they'd fallen asleep, because it wasn't completely dark yet, and still, his body was completely attuned to the sensation of Derek's thigh between his own. He wondered if he should really be feeling this lucky in the midst of a life-threatening crisis, but he did. He no longer was scared to lean in and kiss the side of Derek's neck, and when Derek stirred in sleep, opening his eyes, he wasn't worried about how he might respond.

It wasn't as positive as he'd expected. Derek touched Stiles' throat lightly, looking concerned. "Stiles?"

Stiles tried to respond, but the words came out as a weak fragment of harmony line. It had been part of his dream, he realized, the song in his head. He'd listened to it enough times now to be able to hum along and harmonize at the same time. But that didn't make sense, did it? How could he sing more than one note at a time? His throat was so terribly dry, he could barely swallow.

"Stiles," Derek said again, urgently. "You can't... we can't stay here any more. We really need to go."

What about the gravity of the situation? he wanted to say, but he couldn't even laugh at his own joke. He just hummed hoarsely and shook his head.

"You said yourself, we need food. We can't just hang out here and pretend everything will be okay."

That was kind of exactly what Stiles wanted to do, no matter how pointless it was in reality. Because maybe it sucked, being alone in this park, watching everyone else disappear, but the guy he was alone with made it feel more than okay. And there was the following stultifying thought: if we leave the park, this is almost certainly going to disappear too. He shook his head more vigorously, his throat choked with anxiety.

Derek's face darkened, peering into Stiles'. "I'm not going to leave you here. But this... Stiles, it isn't right. I mean, really not right. You can tell, can't you?"

Stiles hesitated, then nodded. Even in this already fucked-up situation, he guessed he knew there was something extra-fucked up about being struck dumb by music. Derek nodded, looking somewhat relieved.

"Okay. So... you've got to trust me here. Not because I'm any smarter than you - because I'm not - or because I'm older, or because I'm the pack Alpha, or for any reason other than because I'm asking you to. We have to get away from this park."

Stiles rolled his eyes upward to stare at the sky. Derek followed his gaze.

"Even if we fall."

Stiles made a little musical riff that could have been a moan. His arms moved, encircling Derek's waist, grabbing on and burying his face into his chest. In a world like this, where a person could fall off the flat ground into nothingness, it seemed almost pointless to hang onto a fear of heights, but he had no idea how to put it down.

"Hey." Derek's voice was soft. "Do you trust me?"

That was a hell of a question for a guy like Derek to ask a guy like him, at a moment like this. How could he possibly say yes? And yet, here he was, nodding his head, as though the world made any sense at all. Even if he'd had words, he wouldn't have had the capacity to explain himself anyway. And when Derek leaned in and kissed him, hard, he experienced that same safe sensation he'd felt hours before. Maybe things didn't have to make sense for him to trust what he felt.

He let himself drop into the kiss, allowing Derek to carry him with his body, his mouth, and they both responded with simultaneous groans. Derek's breathing lengthened, growing harsh, and he tightened his arms around Stiles, his lips increasing the pressure until they became bruising. Finally, they pulled apart with a little gasp, staring at one another.

"Okay," Stiles whispered. It wasn't much of a response, but it was a word, and Derek seemed to appreciate that. He nodded.

"I'm going to unhook us from the tree root. Then I'm going to pick you up, and we're going to walk across the park to the road, over there, next to the blue car. Do you see it?"

Stiles couldn't see much of anything, not with the darkness around them, but he could see Derek, and he trusted him. He did. He nodded.

Derek acted quickly, dropping the leather leash on the ground. He got to his feet, drawing Stiles up beside him. Stiles could barely stand, he felt so weak. He wanted to ask for water, but he was pretty certain he'd used up his quota of words for the afternoon, and had to settle for looking longingly at the fountain. Derek either didn't notice or was ignoring him. He hoisted Stiles into his arms, cradling him like a baby, letting his head rest against his shoulder.

"Are you ready?"

The music was making it hard to hear. He forced himself to raise his head and look into Derek's face once more before nodding.

"It's going to be okay."

Stiles hung on around Derek's neck as they took the first step away from the tree. They'd gone about a dozen paces before gravity threw the first curve ball. He swore as he felt it tugging at them, but Derek leapt in to offer calm reassurance. "You're not in any danger. I promise. I'm not going to let go."

Yeah, so we can both go careening off into space together? Stiles had no idea how that would be any safer than doing it alone, but it did make him feel better to have Derek's arms around him.

They kept going, Derek taking slow, measured paces across the grass. By the time they hit the sidewalk on the other side of the park, every other step was landing into squashy, buoyant air.

"It's all right," Derek said, nearly lost now in the cadence of the melody. Stiles could barely see Derek's feet in front of them as they stepped off the curb into the street. And then there was no street. They weren't standing on anything anymore, and Derek was still calm.

"How do you do that?" he asked, startled by the sound of his own words in his ears. Derek let out a shaky sigh.

"Maybe I can explain it later. Still trust me?"

"Yeah." He couldn't see any features of the park anymore, no trees, no fountain, no grass or sidewalk or anything, just Derek's arms, holding him, and the chalky, voluminous billows of air. It didn't feel like they were falling. Stiles was a little startled to realize he felt calm now, too. He closed his eyes. "Yeah, I do."

Derek's voice dropped to almost nothing. "Thank you."

The only sensation after that was the melody, and his own voice saying I'm the one who should be thanking you. His skin was numb, but it wasn't cold. For a little while, he tried wondering why he couldn't see or hear anything, but he thought maybe Derek had the right idea about not wasting time on wondering. It wasn't getting him anywhere.

Stiles let himself drift while the tune looped back on itself, over and over, an endless number of repetitions. He lost himself in the sound, until he wasn't even sure where he ended and the music began.

He had no sense of how much time had passed when he tried flexing his fingers, or the things where his fingers would be if he still had them. He was still so thirsty.

Is this the right one? ... Stiles?

The voice startled him. It was familiar, but it wasn't Derek's, and it didn't seem to be in his ears, but rather all around him. Stiles couldn't exactly feel his head, but he tried attuning his face toward the sensation of sound.

"What's going on?" he asked. His own voice landed close to his face, still not traveling very far in the murky, liquid air.

We're going to get you back.

"Back from where?" He wasn't even sure if the person speaking could hear him.

Can you tell me what she wants?

"She?" But as Stiles listened, it became more distinct, and he understood: the music. It belonged to someone, something, and it was very close now, right there with him. It was the music that was holding him now, not Derek. He felt a sense of loss. "Where's Derek?"

He's right here. The tree, Stiles. What does she want?

"The... tree?" He had a sudden vision of himself, stretching his hands to the sky, like a little kid pretending to be a willow, swaying in the breeze. Holding - something. What was it? A bowl? No, a basket. Only it was broken, one side spilling water out and down to the ground. If he'd had lips, he would have licked them. "I'm not sure about any tree, but I'm really freaking thirsty."

There was a pause. The water. Derek... that's it. The caryatid, do you see? There, on the side of the fountain. The figure's basket, it's broken, crumbling. No, I know, it's a metaphor, but - I think this might be it. Another pause. Stiles, Derek's here. I'll be right back with something to bring the water to you. Just hang in there.

"Uh... hanging?" He wasn't sure what else he could do, lost in the music as he was. "Derek?"

Another pause, and then... he still couldn't feel anything physically, or hear any words, but Derek was there, beside him. Stiles was instantly awash in gratitude. Wherever this place was, Derek seemed to be elsewhere - and yet he hadn't really gone away. He hadn't left him.

"Hey," he said softly, hoping Derek could hear him. "Do you know what the hell's going on? What's all this about a tree?"

Stiles couldn't hear any words, but he could sense Derek's response. He seemed worried, and maybe a little... embarrassed? Annoyed? Whatever was causing it, it was exactly him. Clearly weirdness was persisting, but Stiles still appreciated knowing he was there.

"You found another person, at least?" he said. "We're not alone in the world, huh?" Then Stiles realized where he'd heard that voice before. "That was Dr. Deaton, wasn't it? The veterinarian? Did you see anybody else?"

Now Derek seemed uncomfortable. Stiles felt a surge of unease.

"Dude, where are we?"

I have a hose, Stiles, came Dr. Deaton's voice. Derek, help me set up a siphon from the fountain.

The fountain. Did that mean they were back in the park? Had they even left? "Dr. Deaton, is the gravity back to normal? Is everybody else okay? Did you see Scott? What about -"

Everybody else is fine. You're the only one we've been worried about. I hope this will do the trick. Tree spirits can be vicious.

"Tree what?" But the words were lost in Stiles' overwhelming relief from thirst. The oppressive air immediately loosened its constriction on him, and he sighed into the melody. "Whatever you're doing, that's a lot better. I mean... she. She thinks it's a lot better."

Can you tell her we can't fix her basket, but if she releases her hold on you, we will agree to bring her water?

The words made no sense to Stiles, but he tried to say them anyway, letting them come out wrapped in music. The cadence changed, becoming hopeful, but Stiles thought he could still feel some reticence. "Um... I'm not sure she believes you."

You're going to have to convince her, Stiles. Tell her why you want to go home.

Home. Stiles knew he hadn't been gone any longer than a few days, because he was still alive, and one half a protein bar wouldn't have sustained him longer than that, but the longing for his family, his friends, was crushing. He doubted a tree spirit - if that really was what had a hold on him - had family or friends, but he'd spent enough hours immersed in the song to understand a little of what she valued. The branches, stretching to the sky, connecting with the world. The roots, networking beneath the ground, giving him stability and support. That wasn't so different from what he missed.

And, now, there was the music itself, the blanket that had kept him warm and calm and safe. Stiles wove a few licks of "Helter Skelter" into the tree's melody:

watch?v=av4x6nZlefc

Do you don't you want me to love you
I'm coming down fast but I'm miles above you
Tell me, tell me, tell me, come on tell me the answer
You may be a lover but you ain't no dancer

Maybe she wouldn't understand lover any better than she did family or friends, but it was clear her music was as essential to her as the fluid that surrounded her. And Stiles wasn't sure if he'd really been breathing sap or resin or whatever it had been for the last three days, but he sure as hell could tell how much she'd needed that drink of water.

Every day, he promised fervently, whatever you need, I'll make sure you get it. Just let me go, so I can get what I need, too.

He could sense her considering him. Then the music rose, surged forward in a tumultuous wave, rolled through him once more, and with a graceful, ponderous lift, released him into silence.

The first couple times he tried to open his eyes, the brightness and clarity was too much, and Stiles finally managed to control his arms well enough to wad the pillow up over his head. He didn't smell very good, but it was so great to smell things again, anything, that it didn't matter. A shower, he thought, attempting another glance before squeezing his eyes shut again. And pillows, and heated air, and good mustard, and Lydia.

Each time he looked around, he was alone, until the last time, when he finally emerged from beneath the pillow and saw Dr. Deaton seated beside his bed. He pressed a stethoscope to Stiles' chest.

"Easy," he murmured, slipping his other hand behind Stiles' back, helping him sit up. "You've been in bed for three days. I don't really know how you'll react to being in thrall to the caryatid for that long."

Stiles' first reaction was, apparently, to throw up all over Dr. Deaton's scrubs. Deaton didn't look too upset, though, and helped him wipe his mouth.

"I would have thought," Stiles said, his voice coming out hoarse with disuse, "that there wouldn't be much in there to puke."

Deaton gave him a sympathetic smile while he checked Stiles' eyes and ears. "She drank a lot of water. How are you feeling now? Any dizziness?"

"No... I don't think so?" He shook his head, rolling his neck. There were too many questions he wanted to ask, but he was afraid to hear the answers to most of them, so he started with an easy one. "What's a caryatid?"

"Like a dryad, except it inhabits a walnut tree. They've been represented in Grecian columns for centuries as women holding baskets made of living reeds, to carry water. This particular one was more than a little unhappy. No wonder; the fountain in the park has fallen into disrepair. Her basket apparently can't hold water any longer."

Stiles wasn't exactly sure how a stone basket could hold water to begin with, but by now he thought he knew better than to try to make logical sense of the magical. "She sure was thirsty. But what did she want with me? I mean, I was the only one... caught, right?"

"Dryads draw energy from their environment. I can only suppose she was desperate enough to try to consume your energy, since she couldn't get to the water." Deaton cocked his head. "Derek found you in the park, hallucinating and telling stories about broken gravity. He brought you to me."

The mention of Derek's name made it impossible to avoid asking some of the more complicated questions. "So... I haven't been trapped under the tree in the park for three days."

His smile twisted as he checked Stiles' range of motion, gently rotating his wrists, his elbows. "Not in the literal sense, no. But you've been absent from the world from that long, and the danger was very real."

"And... Derek wasn't in the park, either." He couldn't meet Dr. Deaton's eyes, but the veterinarian spoke briskly.

"Derek has mostly been in this chair for the past three days, actually, trying to decipher your words. His connection with you was profoundly important in finally determining the cause of your illness. You have to understand, you couldn't interface with anyone or anything but him. It was his idea to share the food he carried in his pocket; you may not have survived otherwise. He was able to break the caryatid's spell several times with his own music."

"Yeah... the music." The Beatles. Jesus. Talk about the Magical Mystery Tour. Stiles held his breath, then forced himself to ask, "Did he sleep here?"

"I wouldn't know," said Deaton blandly. "I went home each night."

Which could mean that it had all been a dream... or could mean it had really happened. Stiles tried not to wince. "Where is he?"

"Gone to get your father."

That was the last thing he expected to hear. "My - my father?"

"Derek said you missed him."

Fuck. I am not going to cry. I am not going to cry. I am not... Stiles gulped twice, and managed, "Can I... have a glass of water?"

"I'll do you one better." Deaton rose and headed for the door. "I have chicken broth on the stove. Your stomach will need you to start easy."

Stiles sat on the bed, shaking, touching all the parts of his body. They had been absent from his consciousness for long enough to make him glad he had them all, even the embarrassing parts. And speaking of embarrassing parts... he wondered if his guy virginity was still intact. It was unnerving not to know if it had been part of the hallucination, but even more daunting to imagine asking Derek about it. He squeezed his eyes shut again, refusing to give into despair. This is ridiculous.

"Stiles," he heard, and opened his eyes to see his dad standing at the foot of the bed. Derek was behind him, hovering in the doorway.

For a moment, Stiles didn't know where to look. There was his dad, rushing over to the bed and gazing at him with terror and relief and so, so much love. And there was Derek, with - god, for one moment, Stiles thought it might be much the same expression, but when he looked away and back again, he was back to being cold and closed. It was impossible to know what was real. And, anyway, there was no way Stiles was going to trust his own perception for a while.

"Dad," he said, letting himself be hugged. He looked up at the doorway, but Derek had disappeared. Meanwhile, Stiles' dad held him at arm's length, regarding him with exasperation.

"Of all the crap you've ever gotten yourself into, this has got to be the crappiest." He shook his head. "But you look a lot better than I expected you would, from the description I got."

"I have some influence at the hospital," Deaton offered casually, coming back into the room with a cup of soup. "I was able to convince my contacts to interface with the sheriff and inform him about your virulent but treatable infection, and why it made prudent sense to keep you here until we could be sure you weren't a danger to yourself or others."

"It sure is good to see you're okay with my own eyes," his dad added. He reached out a hand across Stiles' bed to shake Deaton's head and take the soup from him.

"Yeah," said Stiles faintly. He opened his mouth and let his dad feed him. Seeing things with my own eyes is a good start.

The silence was disconcerting after hearing the tree's melody on repeat in his head for the last couple days, but try as he might, Stiles could barely recall the tune now. Once his dad got him home and commanded bedrest and peanut butter sandwiches, he found himself reaching for something to fill the empty space in the too-thin air.

"Dad," he asked, not even hesitating, "do you have that Beatles CD boxed set?"

Stiles loaded the discs into his computer methodically, downloading them, creating a playlist. He closed the door to his room. Finally, he took a deep breath and set the whole lot of 144 songs on shuffle, lay back on his bed and closed his eyes, listening to all the words drift through his consciousness. There were several moments when he thought he might want to turn it off, but the silence would have been worse.

He lost any semblance of self-control when Ringo started singing I wanna be your lover, baby, I wanna be your man, and Stiles jacked off to thoughts (or were they memories?) of Derek's finger inside him. It took an insanely short amount of time. After that he huddled under his sheets and kept his miserable hands to himself while the inane tunes repeated over and over. That had been his reality for the past three days, after all, so it was comforting, in a way. "You Like Me Too Much" almost made him smile:

watch?v=uCWq2xOYBp0

I will follow you
And bring you back where you belong
'cause I couldn't really stand it,
I admit that I was wrong,

I wouldn't let you leave me 'cause it's true,
'cause you like me too much and I like you.

But oddly enough it was "All Together Now" that made him break down bawling:

watch?v=AxjyrRVH1iY

One, two, three, four
Can I have a little more?
Five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, I love you

A, B, C, D
Can I bring my friend to tea?
E, F, G, H, I, J, I love you

Sail the ship
Chop the tree
Skip the rope
Look at me

(All together now) All together now
(All together now) All together now
(All together now) All together now
(All together now) All together now

Black, white, green, red
Can I take my friend to bed?
Pink, brown, yellow, orange, blue, I love you

The soft knock on the door halted his tears, and he took a moment to blow his nose and turn the music down before calling, "Come in."

Scott seemed worried, but once he got the door closed, he smiled. "Hey, man. You look a billion times better."

"You saw me while I was...?" Stiles wasn't even sure how to describe what had happened. But Scott was already nodding, moving to sit on the side of his bed.

"Yeah. Pretty much as soon as Derek found you and brought you to Dr. Deaton, he told us. Me and Allison, and Lydia and Jackson, were in and out a little bit every day."

Stiles was startled. "Jackson was there?"

"Yeah." He grinned. "I wasn't there for the part where Derek apparently told you he'd seen Jackson disappear? Like you had described in your hallucinations? But I heard Jackson was a little pissed that he had to be the one to die, even though Lydia thought it was kind of awesome."

Stiles remembered how he'd cried about Jackson's death. It made him angry to realize it hadn't been real, not any of it. "What the hell, Scott? Why didn't you guys just tell me what was really going on?"

Scott stared at him. "First of all, tell you how? The only person who could talk to you was Derek. Even Dr. Deaton couldn't get through to you until the caryatid had you completely, and he's, like, some kind of magician or something. And second, you were barely hanging on to reality as it was. Dr. Deaton said you were in danger of a mental breakdown pretty much the whole time."

That gave him pause. "Really?"

"Yup. In all the stories he'd ever heard of a person being assimilated by a dryad, they lost their mind within the first day. He thought it was Derek, being there, kind of being your tether, that helped you hang on as long as you did." Scott hesitated, then added, "We had to make him leave, to go eat. I think he felt guilty that you couldn't. Eat, I mean."

"He gave me a protein bar," Stiles mumbled. His face had to be flaming red by now. Scott nodded.

"That was strange. Like, Dr. Deaton tried to give Derek things to give you, but you didn't even see them? I mean, you couldn't see anything anyway, your eyes were all cloudy, but you didn't even respond to things Derek tried to give you. Then when Derek realized he'd had the protein bar in his pocket all along, he tried it, and you ate it, and..." Scott swallowed. "Dude... we really thought you were going to die."

"Yeah, I thought you were dead too. Gone, anyway. I didn't know what was going on. People were just falling off the earth. It was totally freaking me out."

"I bet," Scott said fervently. "You and your fear of falling, holy shit. But your brain kind of came up with a solution, right away, with the dog leash."

Stiles wondered, if Scott knew about the leash, how much of the rest he knew. He felt his blush intensify as the Beatles sang "If I Needed Someone," filling the silence between their sentences:

watch?v=v9B4UD0Rp2c

Had you come some other day
Then it might not have been like this
But you see now I'm too much in love

Carve your number on my wall
And maybe you will get a call from me
If I needed someone

"Fuck," Stiles choked, hunching into the force of the lyrics' emotional punch. Scott reached over and pulled him into an awkward, fierce hug as he began to cry again.

"It's okay," said Scott, but Stiles groaned, fisting his hands in Scott's jacket.

"No... it's really, really not. I mean... do you have any idea what's going on?"

"Does it have to do with -" Scott sighed, giving his back a little pat. "Well, I can guess it might be about Derek?"

"Yeah."

"Yeah," Scott echoed, "but that's nothing new, right?"

Stiles jerked his eyes up to meet Scott's. "Um... what?"

"You've been... I mean, since we were kids, practically, you've had... a thing for him." Scott rolled his eyes. "Don't tell me you didn't know."

Scrambling for a hold on reality - that felt familiar, too. "No, I - I knew. I didn't think you did."

"Yeah, some kind of best friend I'd be if I didn't realize who your crushes were. I can only imagine how hard it would have been to be around somebody I had a thing for, forced into contact with him for days."

Judging by Scott's embarrassment, he probably knew more than he was saying, but Stiles wasn't going to wonder anymore. He was done with playing around. "He... we had a..." He gestured into the air uselessly, watching Scott's eyes widen. "In the hallucination, he and I were... messing around. More than that. There were feelings. It was... intense."

"Oh." Scott's eyes darted to the door, then back again. "Um... wow." His voice dropped. "Derek likes guys?"

"Trust me, that was my reaction too. But I don't know if it was just me imagining it, or if it was real. I still don't know."

He nodded. "So you'd better talk to him, huh?"

If he wanted to talk to me, wouldn't he be here already? But Stiles guessed that was an unfair assumption. Probably. He sat twisting his own fingers while Paul and John sang together:

watch?v=h43nuGSd1m4

You don't need me to show the way, love
Why do I always have to say, "love"?
Come on (Come on)
Come on (Come on)
Come on (Come on)
Come on (Come on)
Please, please me, whoa yeah
Like I please you

"Stiles," Scott began, but Stiles shook his head, cutting him off.

"It's way too fucking complicated. And maybe nothing happened, and I'd just be making things weird between us by bringing it up. I can't... I don't think I can talk to him, Scott."

Scott stood up. "I guess it's your decision. But..." He looked helplessly at Stiles. "You didn't see him when you were in there, in thrall to the caryatid. He barely let anybody else near your bed. He was completely focused on keeping you grounded. He couldn't break you out of her control, but he could stay there with you, and he did. For three days."

The description made him feel like crying again, and Stiles was determined not to do that. He crossed his arms across his chest, hugging himself. "Well, he was literally the only other person in the world. I didn't exactly have a choice about whether or not I could depend on him. He gave me food, he gave me... um. He kept me warm at night." He dug his nails into his arms, the memories (fantasies?) vivid in his mind. "He dealt with my... stress responses."

"Yeah. I don't think any of that was made up." Scott went to the door, pausing as he opened it. "Call Lydia, okay? She and Jackson know you're safe, but I'm sure they'd want to see you. And Allison and I will come by later, if you're awake."

Stiles didn't bother to turn the music back up after he left. He stretched out on his side, realizing the fact that it had been hours since he'd woken up and he hadn't called Lydia yet probably meant something. He was relieved she was okay, too, of course, but she felt a lot further away now, she and Jackson both. Lydia wasn't the one making him listen to stupid, ancient British rock music and cry.

I miss him, he had to admit. Imaginary or not, he was right there next to me for three days. I was scared to death, but I was still happy. It seemed like a reasonable risk to gamble being more scared to get more happy.

But he didn't move off his bed, and he didn't pick up his phone, which had Derek's phone on speed dial at Scott's long-ago insistence, even though he'd never called it. When his dad came in and offered him dinner, he went to the kitchen and ate as much as his shrunken stomach could manage, then returned to his room to breathe the normal air and listen to the normal music and feel like a complete idiot. When Allison and Scott came by later and his dad knocked on his door again, he pretended to be asleep until they went away.

Eventually, he brushed his teeth - which was still an amazing experience, he would never take that for granted again - and took another shower, and lay down in his bed. He left the Beatles music on shuffle, but when all of it had been played and it was silent and dark in the room, Stiles was still awake.

He gave up on sleep around twelve-thirty, got out of bed and threw on some clean clothes - the clean ones he'd put on earlier were probably still clean, but the opportunity to have clean clothes was enough to make him want to put them on - along with his freshly-laundered jacket. He filled a gallon milk jug with water and capped it before heading outside and closing the front door behind himself very quietly.

It wasn't a long walk to the park, but it didn't look anything the way it had in his head. The landmarks were all there, but the colors were wrong, and it seemed strange to see everything with such clarity. There was a moon, nearly full, and he could see details better than he'd been able to do in the middle of the day in his memory. He wondered if caryatids might ever try wearing glasses.

The tree was there, of course, and the fountain, right where they should be. The grass was still damp where Dr. Deaton had used the hose to siphon water from the fountain, but Stiles uncapped the bottle he held anyway, dumping it onto the familiar root where it rose out of the ground like a handle. He hadn't imagined the root.

"I hope this isn't too much water," he said, breaking the silence, "but if it were, I bet you'd find a way to tell me you'd had enough."

There was a faint whisper in the leaves. Stiles put a hand on the trunk, feeling the striated surface of the bark.

"I can't hear the music anymore. It's kind of a relief, I guess, but... I was just wondering if you remembered me. I was thinking not. Do trees have memories?"

He hesitated, then leaned in and pressed his cheek against the tree.

"It's really quiet out here with no music," he whispered. "Funny how you can get so used to something after only three days. On the other hand, beds and showers and food are really nice. And indoor plumbing."

"And your cell phone."

Stiles didn't shit his pants, but he might have made a completely undignified shriek at the sound of Derek's voice behind him. He spun to face him.

"God!" he shouted. "Way to take years off a guy's life. And I've got a hell of a lot fewer of those than you do."

Derek didn't look particularly sorry. "You're not in any danger from me."

"That's not my point." Stiles wasn't exactly sure what his point was, actually, because Derek was just a few steps away from him, and he really wanted nothing more than to charge into his arms. Instead, he glared at him.

"You haven't surgically implanted it in your rib cage yet," said Derek.

"No. What?"

"Your cell phone. You said you were never going to leave the house without it again."

Stiles put a hand to his pocket and felt it, empty. Derek took a step toward him, and Stiles backed up against the tree. "My dad won't miss me. He's asleep after a double shift. I knew better than to wake him."

"I'm not talking about your dad." Derek sounded aggravated.

There wasn't any more room to back up any further. Stiles hoped Derek wasn't going to take any more steps toward him, because it would be even more undignified to have to try to dodge and outrun a werewolf in the dark.

"You're telling me it's hard to find me? This is Beacon Hills, not New York City. And I bet you can smell me, anyway."

An odd expression passed over Derek's face before it hardened. "All right. I found you. I thought you might have some questions for me, and I didn't think they were the kind of questions you'd want to ask in front of your father."

No, that was a conversation Stiles definitely wasn't looking forward to having. Scott might be completely okay with the idea of his best friend liking guys, but he suspected that would not be his dad's reaction.

"Okay, fine," he retorted. "You lied to me for three days. Tell me why I should trust you now?"

"I told you I was going to lie to you."

"And that's supposed to make me feel better?" It did, actually, even if he didn't want to admit it. He could understand why Derek had lied, if Dr. Deaton's supposition about him being in danger of losing his mind was true. But Derek telling him he was going to lie... that was better than him pretending he was telling the truth. He sighed. "Did you see any of what I saw?"

"No." Derek watched him, not approaching any more closely. "It was all in your head. I had to guess. But Dr. Deaton said what I said might shape your reality, so it made it easier to predict your reactions. And..." He paused.

"What?"

"I don't know if it was the tree, or something else, but I could... feel some of what you felt." He seemed embarrassed by this admission. "I knew when things were going bad for you, even before the music took over."

"Okay."

"I'm just saying, there was a connection. Dr. Deaton didn't have an explanation for it, or for why you could hear me and no one else. There was nobody else who could help."

"No."

Derek let out an angry breath. "I wanted to help, okay?"

Stiles still didn't understand why Derek was telling him all this, but he nodded. "Okay. Thank you. I guess I would have died without you."

"You're welcome." Derek glanced at the tree. "When you were... gone. At the end. After I persuaded you to let go, and you lost consciousness. We came back to the park. Dr. Deaton wanted me to show him the tree, and that's when we figured out what the caryatid was after." His eyes slid away. "I... you couldn't hear me, and I thought... when we were in physical contact, that's when I could ground you. So I came up to the tree, and I... kind of hugged it. And then I could hear you. And it seemed like you could feel me, a little."

The trunk of the walnut provided a welcome support. Stiles' knees weren't so stable with Derek this close to him. He nodded, not trusting himself to speak appropriately.

Did you really touch me? were the words waiting behind his lips. Did I really suck your cock? But what kind of question was that? So he didn't ask anything at all, and the silence eventually stretched too long. Derek cleared his throat.

"I'm sure your dad wouldn't want you to be out by yourself at night."

"I'll go home," said Stiles. "Where else would I go?"

The corners of Derek's mouth tightened, and he turned to walk away. Stiles felt the panic rise in him, just as he'd felt when the gravity was unstable. But I made that up, he reminded himself firmly. It wasn't real. Just let it go. He watched Derek make his way through the park, back down the sidewalk. It was a long time before he disappeared from sight, with no silvery mist to obscure him, but by then, Stiles was already crying.

When he got home, he put the empty water jug beside the mat of shoes by the front door. He'd go back tomorrow, but the obligation didn't feel like a burden. He shucked his clothes to the floor of his room, and was just about to crawl back under the covers when he saw his phone sitting on his desk. It was still plugged in. Stiles reached for it, disconnecting it from its cord, and touched the button to view the most recent message. It was a text from Derek, sent almost two hours previously.

I can't sleep without knowing you're okay.

Stiles let the phone slip to the bed next to him, his fingers unable to grasp. It might be preferable to be a tree, if it meant he didn't have to worry about lungs filling with air and a heart that beat a regular rhythm.

It was a good long while before he felt able to pick the phone up again and formulate a response. Even then he had to read Derek's text over six or seven times before he had the courage to type his reply and press send.

I miss you, too.

He turned off the lights that still seemed too bright and sat in the starlight, his shades open, listening to the sounds of the night. It wasn't the same as it had been in his insulated caryatid world, with the frogs and the faint traffic noises and the wind, but it was better than being alone in his room.

When he first felt it, he wasn't quite sure it was real. But it was persistent, enough for Stiles to lean forward, seeking with his eyes and ears, all the senses he hadn't had as a tree, and whatever other ones that might exist outside of those.

"Derek?" he called.

There was no verbal response, but he didn't need ears to hear it. Derek's presence resonated inside him. Stiles sat immobile, taking it in, letting it fall on him like sunlight. He didn't need to wonder if it was real or not; Derek had told him it was, and he trusted him. Even now, after everything that had happened, he still did.

And then he heard him singing:

watch?v=OVEFD2nl2Og

If you let me take your heart
I will prove to you
We will never be apart
If I'm part of you

Open up your eyes now
Tell me what you see
It is no surprise now
What you see is me

Stiles couldn't tell if the music came from inside or outside him, but the lyrics were as clear as his own voice. He grinned. "Really can't carry a tune," he murmured, and laughed at Derek's mock outrage as he sang along:

Big and black the clouds may be
Time will pass away
If you put your trust in me
I'll make bright your day

Look into these eyes now
Tell me what you see
Don't you realize now
What you see is me
Tell me what you see

Now the music was obviously coming from the street, and Stiles could hear Derek's footfalls. The music wasn't competing with anything else. It wasn't a weapon anymore. It was just for him. Stiles closed his eyes, smiling, and listened.

Listen to me one more time
How can I get through?
Can't you try to see that I'm
Trying to get to you?

Open up your eyes now
Tell me what you see
It is no surprise now
What you see is me
Tell me what you see

When he opened them again, Derek was standing on the sidewalk facing his window. The curve of his mouth could have been a frown, if Stiles hadn't known exactly how he was feeling.

"I see an idiot on my sidewalk," Stiles called.

"Very astute observation. Can I stop singing now?"

"I bet the neighborhood would appreciate it." He felt his heart stutter and race. "I can... let you in the back."

Derek's head ducked in a nod, and Stiles pulled on a robe before racing through the house to unlock the back door, shifting from foot to foot. This time he didn't hesitate, and when Derek stepped into the house, Stiles' arms were right there to meet him.

"God," whispered Derek into Stiles' neck, his voice coming out broken. "I wanted to give you some time with your father, space, whatever you needed, but... I waited as long as I could, and then when you didn't -"

"Now who's the idiot." Stiles held him closer. "I didn't even see your text. I was scared and angry, and I'm sorry, but all I've actually been doing is sitting here listening to The Beatles and missing you."

"You - really?" Derek sounded so uncertain, so surprised. Like Stiles wouldn't - like he thought Stiles would ever not -

Stiles stood back and cupped Derek's face in both hands, feeling his own cheeks ache with the force of his smile. "If I had to choose one person to keep me from falling off the earth, to stay here with me? It'd be you."

He would have gone on to explain the security of feeling grounded by Derek, the way he'd made him feel absolutely safe in the midst of overwhelming uncertainty, but then Derek was leaning in and kissing him, and words became irrelevant for several minutes.

"C'mon." Stiles took a couple steps backwards, and Derek followed. "More comfortable places in here."

Derek shook his head, but he was smiling. It was an unusual enough sight that it made Stiles smile, too. "I'm not spending the night in your bedroom."

"Hey, don't flatter yourself. I didn't even invite you." But he paused in his doorway, eyeing his unmade bed. "Why not?"

"Because you're sixteen and your dad doesn't even know I'm here. Because you need rest more than you need sex right now." Derek's own glance at the bed was definitely longing. "And because my self-control might already have been stretched a little, sleeping underneath you on the bed in the vet clinic for the past two nights."

Stiles let go of Derek's shoulders, holding up his hands in a pacifying gesture. "I can do self-control. Just... for a little while." He sighed at Derek's disbelieving eyebrows. "I can put on some clothes if that would help."

Derek's eyes, then his hands, moved to the gap in Stiles' robe, tucking underneath to rest on his chest. They were so, so warm. Stiles' sigh turned into a quiet moan.

"No clothes. I want to feel your skin." Derek's breathing was a little uneven. "And we can tag-team on the self-control - although I might have been thinking about your comment about fucking you in Delphi Park nonstop since you mentioned it."

"God," Stiles moaned. He shifted their weight to press the bedroom door closed before leaning Derek up against it to kiss him again. "I can't believe I actually said that. So all that stuff... we really did all of it? Not hallucinatory sex?"

"I can't say for sure you didn't embellish in your head," Derek pointed out, "but I can reassure you now that both of us definitely got off, on more than one occasion."

Stiles was so distracted by the memories (definitely memories, now, and wasn't that a relief) that he didn't realize he had Derek's jeans undone and halfway down his legs. Derek didn't seem to want to tell him to stop, though, and when Stiles gave him a wide grin and dropped his robe, Derek hurried out of the rest of his clothing.

"Hang on," Stiles muttered, closing the blinds with a tug of the string. "The same neighbors who would be glad you stopped singing would be equally glad not to have to see you without clothes on." I think I'm going to save that for me, if you don't mind.

He ran a hand down Derek's chest to his stomach, almost afraid to look. Here, even in the darkness, he could already see plenty, and it was clear his imagination hadn't done Derek's body justice. But it felt familiar, both to his hands and his other perceptions. It was this familiarity that gave Stiles the courage to guide Derek to his bed, take both hands, and pull him down to lie on top of him.

Whatever tension had remained between them was erased by the contact of their naked bodies. Stiles felt Derek's sigh of relief as he gathered him up, every bit of skin touching as much of Stiles' as he could muster.

"This is perfect," Derek assured him. "Not that I don't want to do amazing things to you - god, the things I want to do - but this is enough."

Stiles knew exactly what he meant. He just hummed his pleasure against the hollow of Derek's throat, feeling the incredible heat of his body at last, without any clothing in the way.

"I won't be upset, no matter what the answer is," he said, "but you have to tell me... when I was in thrall to to the caryatid, how did it happen that I felt cold while my body was indoors?"

Derek's hands rested briefly on every part of his back before moving on to touch someplace else, mapping the surface of his body with his fingers. "You managed that all on your own, somehow. You were freezing from the moment I brought you back to Dr. Deaton, and you kept kicking off all the blankets we put on you. Eventually I had to hold you down, and just like with food and communication, you only responded to me. Good thing Deaton had a leash and collar available in the clinic for me to loop around our - ohhh."

Stiles enjoyed the sound of Derek's words coming to a halt as he brushed his knuckles over Derek's cock. "I came up with so many jokes about being collared and fettered, you know? But none of them were remotely appropriate, not with me already on my knees, between your legs." He watched Derek's eyes dilate as he stroked him slowly. "Speaking of that..."

"Time - later," Derek gasped. "Definitely want that, but... right now, stay right here?"

Stiles nodded, closing his eyes. He had Derek Hale naked in his bed, arms fastened around him, and they were not letting go. There was nowhere else he'd rather be.

Epilogue

The look Scott gave him as he slouched past him into the American history exam was definitely sour. "What are you worried about?" he muttered. "You're not the one in danger of failing."

It was true, but not failing wasn't exactly Stiles' measure of success. Actually caring enough about his grades to want to do better than that was new enough for him. It didn't hurt to have a large, warm, immovable motivating factor in his life.

I'm not exactly freaking out, he conveyed, and Derek's reassurance came forth, blanketing him with warmth and calm. Stiles took a deep breath and followed Scott into the room, sliding into a seat behind him.

There was no way they could use their connection to cheat on a test, not that Stiles would choose to do that anyway. But they'd learned to finesse it a little, in both directions, enough that Stiles could ask for a hug remotely and receive one from Derek in the middle of class. He let himself relax into it, appreciating the quality of what it really meant to be tethered to the ground by another person.

"Mr. Stilinski," Mr. Harper said with bitter disdain, "you might direct your attention to the paper in front of you instead of the idle thoughts in your head."

Stiles was able to control his expression enough to appease Mr. Harper, while enacting an elaborate personal vendetta against him in his head. Derek, who'd had Mr. Harper himself when he'd been in school, was greatly amused.

Okay, maybe Stiles was a little more distracted than he would have been if he hadn't had an amazing empathic werewolf boyfriend, but it was a clear net gain when he considered how much happier and calmer he was with him. There was just no contest. And he guessed, by the ease with which he answered the essay questions about the 1765 Stamp Act and the Second Continental Congress, that his grades would reflect that.

Mr. Harper watched him suspiciously when Stiles walked by to drop off his exam. "You seem excessively smug this morning, Mr. Stilinski."

That may have something to do with my seventeenth birthday last night, he wanted to say, and my boyfriend disposing of my inconvenient virginity. Just to see Mr. Harper twitch. He could feel Derek's facepalm from here, so he just smiled blandly. "Do I? I suppose I must be especially pleased to be acing your exam today."

Mr. Harper quirked one eyebrow at him. "Just as long as you don't allow your confidence to overwhelm your good judgment."

"Trust me," Stiles said, letting his smile broaden. "My good judgment has me well in hand."

watch?v=-w2tiK9-rRY

If I had to choose one
Person to keep from
Falling off the earth to
Stay here with me
I'd hold on to you my
Foot tied to a tree you'd
Bid farewell to falling friends I'd
Fasten you to me
Fasten you to me
Held down by the roots of a tree

The air would settle down
Our feet would meet the ground
You'd find that I was not so frightened
We would get along
You would sing me songs
And I would think of gentle harmonies
Carried by the breeze

We'd get mad and take it out on one another
Just 'cause there'd be no one else around
I would want to fight you even though you're much bigger
You would laugh until I settled down
I would say you're lucky I calmed down
You'd wait till my senses came around

If I had to choose one
Person to keep from
Falling off the earth to
Stay here with me
I'd hold on to you my
Foot tied to a tree you'd
Bid farewell to falling friends I'd
Fasten you to me
Fasten you to me
Fasten you to me
Held down by the roots of a tree

- The Belle Brigade, "Fasten You to Me"