xvi.

trust

Stiles sits across the interrogation table from J'onn Jones, aka Hank Henshaw, aka the Green Martian. The walls are black, the floor dark to match, lit only by harsh, white LED strips that run around the edges of the ceiling. He gives J'onn that weird white person smile. He knows how these things go. He can't be the one to speak first.

J'onn obviously knows that rule, too, because he just sits there and stares at Stiles, beefy arms folded. Stiles props his boots up on the table, still grimy with dust and alien dog blood, and picks mud from under his fingernails, flicking the bits of dirt onto the table. J'onn's face remains impassive, but Stiles doesn't dare brush up against the alien's mind, not wanting to risk discovery. He still has some cards left, after all.

"Will someone say something?" Kara demands over the intercom.

Haha, Stiles wins.

J'onn sighs. "So you know Supergirl's secret identity. Have you told anyone?"

"Why would I do that?" Stiles asks, blinking.

"How?"

Stiles shrugs. "It's a skill."

"That's not an answer."

"I have some experience with secret identities."

"Who do you work for?" J'onn asks, a thread of thought touching Stiles' own. Stiles lets it bounce off the chorus of American Pie, as if it's stuck in his head.

"Technically, no one. I'm unemployed." Stiles winks, but there's no real feeling in the gesture.

"One of these days, you won't be able to hide behind your jokes."

Stiles tips back his head and laughs once. "Man, my boyfriend was slaughtered in front of me, one of my best friends was murdered, and my entire body was hijacked by a malevolent spirit. Joking's the only way I stay sane. You ever met a werewolf, Mr. Martian?"

J'onn unfolds his arms and rests on fist on the table. "You talk of joking and werewolves in the same breath. Real funny. Tell me the truth—how do you know Supergirl's identity?"

"You're literally an alien who fights other aliens for a living. Why's it so hard to believe in werewolves? After all, you've got a werewolf claw in your lab."

"And how the hell would you know that?" J'onn demands. He leans forward, and Stiles can see the tension in every line of his body. Stiles knows he's playing a dangerous game. The wrong word, and he could end up in one of those space age cells. It's too bad Stiles only knows how to play dangerous games.

"Because I definitely did sneak in here. Sorry not sorry." Stiles snaps and shoots finger guns at J'onn.

J'onn glances over his shoulder, through the two-way glass, and has a silent conversation with Alex on the other side. She no doubt leaves to go check on what Stiles has said. "How did you manage that?" J'onn turns his attention back to Stiles.

"Do you have a piece of paper?"

"No—what? Why would I have a piece of paper? Or give one to you if I did?" J'onn is growing more and more fed up, and Stiles knows it won't be long before the alien tries to pry the answers from his mind, and Stiles will be unable to stop himself from reacting violently.

"That's okay. I think I have a Sharpie." Stiles digs the black marker from his pocket even as the simple gesture makes J'onn drop his hand to his gun. Stiles begins to draw on the tabletop, sketching out one of the simpler runes he knows.

"Hey, don't—"

But Stiles is already finished. He touches the rune's outer ring, and the whole thing glows, an orb of light lifting into the air.

"Tada. Magic." Stiles makes jazz hands behind the light, twirling his Sharpie.

There's a knock at the door, and Alex enters the interrogation cell, dressed in her agent blacks. She gives Stiles a look that he can't quite read—there's far too many things wrapped up in it—and gingerly sets a couple of claws and talons in between Stiles and J'onn.

"Let's see," Stiles says as he finally pulls his boots from the table so he can lean forward and examine the artifacts. "Werewolf claw, werewolf claw, don't know what that is, were-jaguar claw—hate those things—and…werewolf claw." He picks each one up as he names it then drops it again carelessly so that they plink against the metal table and roll around, one even threatening to tip right off the edge.

J'onn glares at him and gathers the claws into a neat little pile. "You're the telepathic presence I've been sensing," he realizes finally. "I knew it had to be you." No, he didn't. He's just pretending to feel vindicated. Stiles feels J'onn prep for an attack, sharp shards of thought leaching off the vast expanse of his mind. "You're Void."

"Guilty as charged, I suppose." Stiles tips his chair back again, feet up on the table, rocking back and forth on the chair's back legs as if his languid posture might put J'onn at ease even as he hardens his edges for a psychic attack. "You try being possessed by an ancient trickster fox spirit intent on using your body to destroy all your friends, and then it steals your body, leaving you with an imitation," his skin itches, something crawling just below the surface, and he clenches his fists so he won't try to scratch it out here and now, "and you see if you get away unscathed." He smirks, but it's a cracked expression, believable to no one.

Kara, dressed as Supergirl, steps into the room, ignoring the look J'onn gives her for breaking protocol. She flanks J'onn and Alex, though her posture is far less hostile. "Fox spirit," J'onn says.

"It's called a Nogitsune." Stiles shudders. He hasn't spoken of the Nogitsune aloud in forever, and he feels that familiar slide of cold slime within his bones. It eats away at him, a cancer he can't get rid of. He sighs to himself. How long before it consumes something so vital that there's nothing of him left?

"And you're sure it's gone?"

J'onn has hit Stiles' greatest fear right on the head. He doesn't answer. Just gives a smile that could be anything from a denial or an affirmation or just a simple sadness.

"You'll have to stay here," J'onn continues, and the floor falls right out from under Stiles. He barely keeps it off his face. He will not be lost in a blank cell among the endless rows. He will not be an empty face, will not become a Void he can't take off. He caught a glimpse of those features in Eichen House, in that self-same room he could hardly leave, in the countless faces slowly washed free of any personality. He's already so close to his own edge.

"No." Even to his own ears, he can't keep the fear from his voice.

"No?" J'onn repeats dangerously as Alex shifts stances just behind him. His presence is all over the room, a lattice of thought enclosing them all.

"I'm so close to finding Derek's killer. You won't get in my way."

"Is that a threat?"

Stiles drops the chair legs back to the ground so that they hit with a sharp retort, making Kara flinch. "If you have to ask, it must be, huh? Sorry. I didn't mean it like that." Though maybe he kind of did. "It was just a statement of fact."

"Enough!" Kara slams one fist into the table, leaving a dent, leaning forward until she's in J'onn's line of sight, half blocking Stiles from him. "We're not seriously considering locking Stiles in a cell? I mean, come on, this is Stiles we're talking about He's—"

"Weak, defenseless?" Stiles interrupts. "That's what they all think." He immediately curses himself. That's not going to help his case.

"If you're really on the level, then you won't mind waiting in a cell until we sort things out," J'onn suggests.

Stiles bangs his hands against the table before he can get control of himself. J'onn jerks back, eyes glowing red, while Alex's hand flies to the butt of her Night-Night gun. "Sort what out?" he demands.

"This situation," J'onn says. His eyes tell Stiles to sit back down and calm himself, but Stiles' fury is mounting now. The lights along the walls flicker, and there's pressure building in his skull, making his vision flash black and white. The table trembles beneath his hands.

"What situation exactly?" he snaps in a voice like ice cracking off a glacier. "The crazy man with the telepathic powers? The big ol' monster ,Void? Or the friend you don't know anymore?"

One lightbulb shatters, and everyone in the room but Stiles jumps.

"You won't get in my way." Stiles voice drops from crackling thunder to an ice floe oozing through cold waters. He feels jittery and out of control, like there's pressure building in his bones, and they begin to crack one by one, and his head throbs louder and louder, and the colors in the room are wrong, though it's not just because another light has just popped. The contrast between white and black is sharper, so much so that it hurts his eyes, and the blacks are growing larger and deeper and larger and deeper…

Dust sifts down over his head, and he realizes the whole room has begun to shake. He doesn't care. He'll tear this entire building apart before he'll go in another cell. He'll toss these people aside before he lets them get between him and Derek's killer.

"Stiles," the blonde one says, but he doesn't recognize that name anymore.

He snaps his coldly burning gaze towards her. He's falling apart. He can feel his skin splitting, bursting at each weakened seam where he cut into himself, though what pours out, he cannot say. All he knows is that it hurts, but he can't scream, can't tell anyone that he's coming undone.

His hand lifts on its own. The air ripples around it. The great Green Martian will release him with his own hand. He reaches out, clashes with that other mind. He sees the alien's face contort, but the world around him is fuzzy and indistinct, consumed by shadow.

Something wet splatters across his neck. He looks round to see the other woman in the room pointing a gun at him. He lifts his fingers to touch his skin as the world blurs, and he wobbles once. He catches himself on the table and struggles to remain upright. The whole room tilts, and then he's falling, striking his head on the ground just before everything goes black.

He floats in the vast openness of space. It's cold, and there are no stars. He cannot move, cannot control his drifting path through the emptiness, but his mind is quiet. There is nothing picking at him, nothing demanding his attention, screaming at him to do this that and the next thing.

But he is also lonely. Without even a sense of self to contain him, he is fading piece by piece, and there is no one left to put him back together. He supposes it's better this way. He has the dim sense of pain and hurt, though he's not sure if it's his own or someone else's. Better that it end, either way. He closes his eyes. He's glad for this bit of piece before the last of whoever he was is gone.

"Stiles."

He doesn't recognize the name, but the voice is familiar. The one part of him he still clings to even as he gives up.

He opens his eyes. A dark-haired man stands in front of him. Stubble shields his cheeks, and his eyes are such an intense green that they bring light to the deep space they float in, consuming the black and turning it into a deep and ancient forest, a great, sprawling tree consuming much of the sky, its branches gnarled and old.

His feet touch down, though he can't feel the grass or much of anything else. His body is made of the void, his form dark and without stars. The other man stands across from him, among the roots of the great tree. He is tall and broad, and his chest strains against the fabric of his shirt underneath the slick leather jacket.

He tips his blank face to the side. "Who are you?"

The man smiles. The expression seems…sad. "My name is Derek."

Claws.

The splatter of blood on leaves.

"I don't know any Derek," he says slowly.

The sadness on the man's face grows, and he feels as if he's done something wrong.

"I don't understand," he says. "Where are we? Who are you? Who…am I?"

The man takes a step forward, but he retreats, afraid of that man's touch even as he craves it. He wraps his night-black arms around himself as if he hopes that will keep him from dissolving.

"I'm sorry for leaving," the man says.

Leaving? Why is this man sorry? Wasn't…wasn't the leaving his own fault? He tilts his head to the side, brow furrowed as he tries to puzzle it out. He sees a bucket of ashes, flames licking into the sky.

"My head…it aches," he says, but it's more than an ache. It's a throbbing, pulsating thing inside of him, radiating pain through his form, those greedy fingers reaching into the cracks, prying them open more and more.

The man steps towards him, an arm raised, but he stumbles back, hands going to his head, clutching it as he trips and falls, curling in a ball on the ground, desperate to silence the clamor within his skull. The man crouches down beside him, but doesn't touch him. He wonders if the man would be able to calm the burning of his skin.

The man is crying. The tears drip drip drip onto his arm. Each drop hurts like a needle driven into flesh, but the cracks consuming his form pause in their hungry tracks. "I'm sorry for leaving," the man sobs again.

One hand flops to the forest floor to lie among the leaves, index finger outstretched. A moment later, the man presses their fingertips together, and the contact makes him shatter, but somehow, it's a good kind of shattering. His cracks consume him, but he does not fall apart. He is released instead, but he is still confused. He has ceased his disintegration, but he is still not sure that he truly exists. He is still void.

"Who was I?" he whispers.

"You were mine, and I was yours," the man says. "You were a spark, and you were a boy with a baseball bat. You had a buzzcut, and you had the spikiest hair I'd ever seen. You were the sun to my moon. You were fearless and smart and oh so wildly dumb, and you didn't know how to shut up. Your name was Stiles."

Stiles.

He feels a spark ignite within his chest, the click of something falling into place, and he slowly crooks himself upright. There are stars on his hands, braced against the leafy ground. He looks at the man, looks at him fully, sees the splash of stubble and the glass-green eyes, the sharp curve of the jawline and cheekbone. There is a name there. The man has already said it once, he just needs to find it and put it into place.

He stretches out a hand to touch the man's cheek. The name is waiting for him. Derek. It tastes like sun tea and books left out on the coffee table. Another piece clicks inside of him. He smiles. There are constellations across his chest, so bright they burn, the tracks of his tears a cold repercussion.

He cups Derek's cheek with his starry-black hand and leans forward, pausing as their breath mingles. He cannot bridge the final gap. Derek does it for him. Their lips touch, lightly, then firmer and firmer, hands griping hair, cupping necks, tasting with a hunger Stiles hasn't felt in a long time.

Stiles. He has a name again. That's nice.

He and Derek tip over, crashing to the ground amid the leaves and the pine needles. Derek slides his hands all along Stiles' torso, and each inch he touches bursts into sunlight through branches, filling up the void that covers his skin. He helps Derek peel his leather jacket off, quickly followed by that tight v-neck shirt. He presses his hands against Derek's chest, the firm muscles there, remembering all the times he's done this before when they were both alive, in their bed, in their cars, on blankets deep within the woods.

Derek squints against the light coming off Stiles' skin as they break apart for a moment, hands going to his hips, fingers slipping just beneath the waistband of his inky jeans. Derek's lips flutter against his neck, his collarbone, each gentle brush, each nip of tooth a spark that knocks another piece of him in place.

The smell of pomade in the morning.

Boots hooked over Derek's lap.

The sharp crack as a coffee mug shatters against the floor.

His hands find the buckle on Derek's belt while Derek distracts him by sitting up, sliding his fingers along Stiles' spine. His skin splits along the vertebrae as his back arches, his head tipping back, eyes filling with stars and broad green leaves. Fingers claw at the ragged seam, burrowing out from deep within his skin, seeking freedom. It hurts, burns, but it's a good kind of pain, one that fills him up, straining his muscles, and he's afraid that he'll simply explode and be lost forever.

Derek kisses him, drawing a line from his collarbone up to his lips, and Stiles tastes peppermint gum and leftover sweetened coffee. He draws some of that pressure from Stiles' frame so that he can breathe much easier. He feels like he sits more solidly in his bones than he has in a long time. They lower back to the ground, Stiles chasing Derek down, and he presses his hips up so that Stiles can help wiggle his pants off.

Derek's hand is a sun against Stiles' stomach, fingers spread wide, small claw tips digging into skin just slightly so that Stiles' breath catches, shivers shooting up and down his exposed spine. Derek flips the two of them over so that he's on top, his weight pressing Stiles into the leaves. Stiles has missed that weight. He loved the feeling of it on top of him, holding him together when he was usually so ready to shake himself apart.

He'd lost his form to the void, but Derek reminds him not only that he exists but how he exists, and though his body may not be wholly his own, Derek loves it all the same, his hands happy to cup his thighs, to draw his knees up to clamp around Derek's own waist, his teeth nipping at Stiles' neck, his hair tickling Stiles' nose. Each bit that Derek touches reminds Stiles that it belongs to him, even the ridges of the scars along his arms as Derek gently caresses each one with his calloused fingers.

They curve together, melding into one for one final time. Stiles gasps at that first moment of contact, his nails digging into Derek's back, and they move together, their breath the only sound within the forest. Star bursts bloom deep within his stomach, spreading their long fingers through his body, meeting with the talons arching out of his raw and pulsing spine, and Derek helps those tendrils of 'Stiles' grow and tighten with each scratch of his claws and puff of breath across the ear, each press of his hips.

The stars with Stiles burn brighter and brighter, consuming him, banked only by the silver glow coming off Derek's skin. Derek moves his hips faster and faster until Stiles can't see but for the kaleidoscope of constellations pouring off the two of them, and Stiles grips Derek's dark hair, desperate for that final piece of him to click into place, that bit that's been missing for so long, the part he thought he'd never find again. He whispers Derek's name in his ear, letting his breath rush over the delicate skin, and Derek shudders, his silver glow condensing over his palm which he sinks into Stiles' chest, offering up a bit of soul to the heart that had forgotten how to beat, taunt muscles relaxing, quieted minds slipping back into the easy darkness of rest.

Stiles wakes up slowly, struggling to throw off the heavy arms of sleep and the drug still clinging to his skin. His limbs are locked, trembling with the effort of pulling free, any calm gained from the drifting quiet of his dream torn away as he begins to panic and worry that he'll be trapped in this state forever.

With a tremendous jolt, he rips himself free, panting, heart thundering as he sits upright. He squeezes his eyes shut and tries to breathe through it, tries to reclaim the quickly fading dream. It slips out of his fingers, leaving behind only the impression of calm and peace.

There's cold metal under his hands and digging into his ass, and when he opens his eyes, he's in a many sided glass and grey metal cell, illuminated by harsh white light strips along the ceiling. An itch sets into his bones as he looks around, his breath picking up again as the walls begin to close in. He leaps to his feet, the itch driving him to motion, and he pounds on the glass wall of the cell. He can't tell which one is the door.

"Hey!" Stiles yells. "Hey! Let me the fuck out of here!"

There's no answer, and he continues to pound on the glass until his hands ache. He staggers back, feet stumbling to the rapid beat of his heart until his knees strike the metal bench, and he sits down heavily. His pulse roars in his ears as the walls draw nearer and nearer, and he throws out his arms as if that will stop it. He grips his head, holding back a scream. There's a force building beneath his skin, dark and oily, but he fights it, remembering how it consumed him, gobbled him up oh-so-eagerly, and he doesn't want to feel that way ever, ever again.

Stiles understands now, the idea of a code. He used to sneer at them a bit—just do what needs to be done, save your friends at any cost, defeat the darkness even if you have to dip into it yourself, but he can't lose himself like that again. He'd been standing on a cliff's edge for so long, and when he finally fell off, he thought it was a relief.

It was not.

Stiles takes a long, deep breath, trying to calm the trembling in his fingers, to push that pressure back down. He envisions a box, pictures pushing a long, black tentacle into it. The tendril fights him, squirming and writhing and slipping between his fingers, but he grits his teeth and forces it down, down, down until he's able to slam the lid shut and latch it. It worries him, how flimsy that little metal clip is, but he can't conjure up a heavier padlock no matter how hard he tries. The box rattles in his hands, and he takes one finger and burns the triple spiral of the triskelion into the lid. He sets the box on a pedestal and leaves it there, still rattling.

His heartbeat steadies when he slams the lid shut, and now, he breathes a little easier. It takes him three tries to convince his eyes to open, and the moment he does, he begins to panic again. The box jumps and shakes within his head, but he ignores it, counting his fingers one to ten, crooking each knuckle with every number until he can mostly breathe again.

Stiles stands. He can't stand the feel of the metal bench beneath his legs. A red light flashes in one of the cell's many corners, set right up by the ceiling, and he stares at it, unblinking. He flips it off with both hands. He may have just decided to be a less shitty person, but that doesn't mean he has to stop being a dick.

"Let me out before I die by prolonged panic attack." He goes for a smile, but it's a poor effort. "I'm nice now, I promise. I locked all that ickiness up in a little, wooden box."

The light winks at him, but no one answers.

"Come on. Let me out. I don't like small spaces."

He holds back that flash of rage, fueled by panic, but it's a titanic effort, and that box within his head trembles. His smile is a rictus mask that hurts to keep in place. He focuses on breathing. One breath in. One breath out. But that attention, that care, only makes him more aware of the heavy walls encasing him.

Stiles studies the walls until he figures out which one is the door. There's a card reader on the other side, and there's no rattle to the hinges when he gives it a good shove. He tries to think. Sans a display of his powers—tempting, oh so tempting, box rattling, head pounding—what would get their attention enough to come down here? Property damage, maybe. But what to damage? The bench is welded to the ground, and the camera's out of reach. He digs into his pockets. They've been emptied, all his little vials and baggies gone, no doubt off in a lab being analyzed and turning up jackshit, and damn, he shouldn't have shown them what he could do with a Sharpie because that's missing, too.

In his left sock, however, he finds a tiny nub of chalk. Praise his paranoid, pack rat tendencies. Stiles turns his back to the camera, poised to start drawing, but he pauses with his fingers just above the floor. Is this magic separate enough from that darkness inside him to warrant using? This magic—the magic of runes and potions and powders—is not born of him but sparked by him, coaxed to life by his will like embers in a hearth.

Stiles decides it's a completely different entity from the tentacle locked in the box. Satisfied by that, he lights a fire.

The rune, drawn in chalk on the metal floor, alights when he touches the outer circle, a bright and merry flame that grows as he pours more will into it. He shifts so that the camera can see what he's done and gives the winking red light the biggest shit eating grin he can muster.

Stiles leans against the wall, finger still on the circle so he can keep feeding the rune power while he waits. Smoke begins to fill the tiny cage, the air holes too small to properly carry it all away. It takes three minutes before someone finally bursts into the white room surrounding his cage. J'onn, Alex, and Kara rush into the room, and Stiles cranes his head around to give them a wave.

"Hello," he says. "Let me out, please."

"What the fuck are you doing? Put that out," J'onn snaps. He wears Hank's face rather than that ridged green one, and his brow is heavy with anger.

"Open the door, and I will."

Alex plants her hands on her hips. "You're only harming yourself with that."

Stiles' grin turns toothy. Of course he's only hurting himself with this. That's the whole goddamn point. Kara is the only one who realizes this. He can see the moment in her eyes when she realizes that he'll smoke himself into unconsciousness to get them to open that door if he has to. If there's one thing Stiles has in abundance, it's stubborn will, and he'll win this, even against the vast mind of the Martian.

Kara knows this. She opens the door.

J'onn snaps at her to step back as she moves towards the card reader, but she gives him an absolutely furious look that makes him back off. She swipes her card, and the lock buzzes, swinging open under her hand. Stiles waits until it's fully open before he takes his finger off the rune and darts through, expecting J'onn to try and shut him back in.

Stiles presses himself against the outer wall of the cell and edges away from the trio, struggling to hold his hammering heart in place. "Thanks, Kara," he says. "Sorry about earlier. I lost myself, I guess. I'll try not to let it happen again. Scout's honor." He sketches an X over his heart. "Where's Clark?"

"Of dealing with a minor alien scuffle," Kara answers.

"You owe us a full explanation," J'onn snaps.

Stiles cocks his head to the side. J'onn keeps edging towards him, and he does not like that. "I think I already gave you a full explanation, didn't I? Werewolf boyfriend, Nogitsune body snatcher, Essyolyte murderer, and a revenge quest." He wants something to put between himself and the others. A table or a desk or something.

"What about Deucalion and Eichen House?" Kara asks. Alex has yet to speak since he stepped out of the cage. Something has shifted in the way she looks at him, a suspicious slant that will probably never go away because he is a liar and a monster and a violent shadow of a man.

"Oh shit. I forgot about all that," Stiles says as if the brightness of his words might push away that sudden wash of darkness. "So this is funny. Deucalion is the leader of an Alpha Pack. They're a big old bag of dicks. Tried to get Derek to kill all his Betas in order to join their Pack. Eichen House…" He stops. He hates talking of Eichen House. "Happened during the Nogitsune ordeal. Any other questions?" He flicks a smile, hoping that if he's helpful he'll stay out of the cage.

"How do we trust you?" J'onn asks, and Stiles shrugs.

"How do you trust anyone? You simply decide to."