I don't like darkness; will you be it for me?

"Night, kid," the invisible Nameless says with his usual murmuring manner of speaking, and after Stiles greets him back in response, there’s a silence. As though this someone is taking a look over him at this point, as the boy squirms under his blanket a little too obviously and the being can somehow sense his small inner chaos. And after a few seconds of scanning, the voice murmurs lowly and with a hint of fun. "I have a feeling there’s something on your mind, sunny boy. Am I wrong, hm?" Stiles could swear he almost saw a smirk in the amused voice, and it irritates him for some reason. The nickname also works in an annoying way this time, rather than in a warming one that brings him a feeling akin to the high familiarity with another person. Why does he come to the boy whenever he wants and act as he pleases? He hangs out in his bedroom, talks to him, and asks him about everything, but when Void is asked back about whatever, he ignores the boy! Keeping the anger with each thought like that, the little boy can’t help with himself anymore. "Why are you here?" the boy asks quickly, holding his breath as his heart pounds so heavily despite his determination, so fast he can hear it in his own ears, and it beats even fiercer when Stiles realizes what exactly he asked. And it could seem to be rude, so he rushes to explain. "I mean... Well, you had never been here before, until this summer, until the moon just threw its miraculous ray of light into the corner of my room, and in some wonderful way, there was your voice speaking up and talking to me for the first time, and—and I was just freaked out by the darkness back then, even more than I am now... And I’ve been thinking, well... how did you appear there? Why exactly then? And who are you? What are you? How old are you at least?" He's a little out of breath as he says his last words, mumbling so fast as if he’s forced to utter the hardest patter as fast as it’s possible, so now the brown-eyed boy calms his rabbit heartbeat down and finally takes a deep, lungful breath and blows out a long exhale. The moment he can breathe steadily again, Stiles can’t stop himself from taking a glance around to see if there’s anything out of the ordinary for his small den, but a quick scan reveals nothing but the same eerie darkness. And that’s probably a good thing right now, because he wouldn’t want to see the stranger’s face and what kind of expression might be on it; he just goes numb in that cold (it’s literally cold in the room, he swears) silence. In efforts not to plunge into this unpleasant feeling, he reminds himself about his condition and his initial theme and tries to will away any anxious energy from inside himself to look more confident. The Nameless makes himself known immediately when the boy seems to him more settled down. "I’m about... like, over a thousand years old, if that’s what you wanted to know." And then he chuckles, like it was funny on the little boy’s part, like a thousand years is nothing, just a little thing to him. It's very shocking, and so astonishing, Stiles gets stuck in the loop of circling that thought over and over again because, well, he didn’t really expect the Nameless to react like that, without any irritated or contemptuous comments, or even answer him. And because a thousand years isn’t what he was ready to hear. The boy, for some reason, is sure his someone hasn’t lied to him. Then again, the thought about the spirit is not erased from his mind, simmering inside him. So he believes him, okay? "Whoa..." is the only thing he can breathe out, as his mind travels to somewhere far away to come up with something more... colorful. This and that: "It’s... a lot." The Nameless’ gentle chuckle sounds once again as Stiles spreads his arms wide and sits up, his back resting against the headboard. Thinking it over, the brown-haired boy crosses out the question about a spirit — the Nameless is undoubtedly not a human and has never been thereof by all means, but the rest of him is still left unknown. And this part is huge. The moment he takes a breath in through his nose and opens his mouth to begin to speak, the atmosphere in his bedroom shifts. A little thing, and yet so clearly noticeable to Stiles, as if he were standing in the middle of a crowd gathered up together somewhere for something, and a wave rolled over all of them, and then their mood changed in a way that only they could feel on a subconscious level. And the boy is guessing what’s coming, trying to predict the invisible stranger’s next words, actions, reactions, or anything else; it’s not pretty easy when his companion is, well, an ethereal and invisible thing. When the voice speaks up, the boy still jolts slightly despite himself. "And what about your other questions..." the Nameless begins, seemingly pondering and weighing his options, making the little boy get rigid with an impatience to hear at least some words to his wonders and worries. Just as the brown-eyed boy’s heart quickens its pulse to twice what it beat a second ago, the invisible being’s voice sounds again, somewhere far too close to Stiles that the boy shivers. "I'm not sure I can give you the answers you yearn to hear, but what I’m absolutely sure of is the feeling I had back then. You were so scared... Yeah, kid, I knew — rather, I felt it — you were afraid of the darkness surrounding you," the Nameless says hastily as Stiles is going to ask about that actually, and after he gets an answer, the little boy’s eyes become wide. However, the being continues. "Like— your fear was so strong and all-encompassing that it drew me in... or rather, drew in this ethereal part of me with which I can talk to you and even..." His voice trails off at this point, like the stranger isn’t quite sure to say it or doesn’t quite want to announce this fact out loud. Stiles wonders why, but he sits still, obediently waiting for the nameless person to continue, as patiently as he only can. "Whatever it was, the moment it happened, when I appeared in that corner of your room, when the moon threw that miraculous ray at me," he takes a pause here, and Stiles huffs at his own phrase; the gentle and soft chuckle follows then, again, but it’s short, so the invisible creature says next, "and when I saw you, saw your big scared eyes, I felt... I decided to just speak up. I thought it would help." The boy frowns at this silly wording, and a doubt creeps into his mind: this someone is not telling him, like there is something more important, something that he is not aware of at all or unable to realize. Something the Nameless is hiding from him for some reason. The brown-haired boy is pretty sure that if he asks, if he expresses his suspicions to him, the invisible being won’t give the answer, will slip away from the question, or will be messing with him. And by the dead silence, it only confirms that he’s right on this point. And he probably shouldn’t even try to wonder about that feeling of his; he already knows that if the Nameless is not willing to do something, he will never ever do it. He's very stubborn, the boy thinks. So, he won’t answer. 'Okay,’ Stiles muses in his mind, ‘I can leave this matter and bring up another one.' And so, he takes a deep, deep breath, looks up at the empty, dark, and familiar space in front of him, tilting his head slightly, and whispers. "But why couldn’t you just tell me who you are or what your name is? Or tell me about why you can’t show yourself?" A sigh follows after his words, drowned out and heavy, and the boy has to consider his situation, all but biting through his bottom lip when a swish sounds right on the left side of him, as though someone has sat on his bed beside him. He can’t see anyone when he stares at the spot where, as he suspects, the Nameless is sitting. And when the pause drowns, when there’s no answer, again, Stiles gets angry with the stranger (because what the hell?), even though he trembles deep inside. Not only because of the anger, but also because of some kind of primal fear of the face of the more powerful being beside him to whom he’s going to speak out right now. "Why are you so afraid to tell me? I think I deserve to have at least one answer thanking to our long meeting!" the boy hisses out a little bit louder than he would like to, exhaling sharply when he dives into his own feelings. "I-I don’t understand why you— w-why you clung to me, but I’ve never asked you about anything," Stiles stutters as he lets his long-simmering thoughts out, gasping a little bit. "I just listened to your stories — and they’re very interesting, can’t complain about it — and that’s all you have been doing! And in turn, I’ve never been asking you about anything! And now I want to know: what are you afraid of so much that you can’t say to me?!" And after his small kind of tirade, inhaling and exhaling in gulps, the brown-eyed boy glares at the empty space, clenching his jaws so tight he can feel his teeth gritting painfully. A rage raises its head even higher, threatening to break out and rain down a new wave before the boy gathers himself enough to extinguish a wildfire of overwhelming fury until it can burn him up and make the current situation even worse. He wouldn’t like to wake his parents up to let them know he’s been talking to an emptiness — that’s exactly what it would look like if his dad and mom walked in and saw the picture with their own eyes. He knows for sure when a person talks to someone that others can’t see or hear, it is a bad sign that the person is sick. But Stiles isn’t sick. Stiles is just having conversations with someone even he himself can’t see but can clearly hear and sometimes can feel his feather-light touches. So, yes, he’s not sick like that person; it’s just that his nameless companion doesn’t want to be in sight, doesn’t want to be seen for some unknown reasons to the boy. And the stranger just doesn’t want to explain himself. The brown-eyed boy can’t get it at all; he won’t be able to share his nighttime with anyone! Besides, he’s not the type of person who tells everyone someone’s secrets, who spreads gossips and all that. This someone could trust him with his secret, whatever it is. The boy would never tell anyone about it. He's not a bad friend. Clenching fists in the blanket until it seems to crack from the force of the pulling, the little boy suddenly feels so hollow inside that the scorching, burning, all-encompassing anger dies for counting seconds, giving way to something cooler and more numb, more emotionless. Releasing his grip on the blanket, Stiles can only look away from where he was staring and slowly slide back down to his previous place. Turning on his right side, face to face with the wall, as he pulls his blanket closer, not to hide, though, but just to cover himself from this nameless someone. To show that he’s upset by this treatment of him he’s never deserved. There's a sting under his eyelids when he closes his eyes, causing the boy to sniffle and become quieter so as not to draw attention to himself. Stiles thinks he probably shouldn’t have left the conversation like that, should’ve tried to wait for the Nameless to speak up again, and should’ve listened and tried to discuss the whole matter. Honestly, though, he’s too offended to restart this conversation with a silent (and hidden-from-the-sight) wall. So the little boy gives his preference to a silent real wall, which he could even see if he only opened his watery eyes. He can’t help but feel unfamiliar hurt in his chest, squeezing his lungs and heart. Pressing his lips in a thin line to keep the lower one from wobbling, Stiles doesn’t really expect anything, not an apology or, at least, a few sorry words. Still, the silence steals all breath. Possibly it takes a while before a rustle breaks it, forcing many goosebumps to run down the little boy’s spine before the quiet, low voice sounds after what seems to be forever. "If I tell you who I am, if I tell you why I can’t show myself and what’s the reason for that, if I tell you what I did the reason appeared, if I tell you about— all of it, you won’t like it and, possibly, won’t fully understand, and... I’m—" The Nameless cuts himself off too sharply; it’s suddenly so clear to Stiles, so shocking and so unexpected. His heart is pounding too hard to stand each beat of it, but the boy can’t make himself bother about it as the pause lingers, hanging in the air, thickening the atmosphere, and spreading tension throughout the entire room. The brown-eyed boy turns his head around to peek out from behind the edge of his blanket. A weird and sudden thought crosses his mind then. Or rather, a possible guess why the nameless person is uncertain to talk about this topic. He dares to speak it aloud, narrowing his eyes for a good measure. "You’re afraid that our conversations will be ended if I find out something not good about you, aren’t you?" The Nameless hums at his guess, but it feels somehow bitter and sour, and the stranger must be smiling painfully, even though Stiles isn’t quite sure why he thinks so, but he can feel it in some way. He's stopped from further thought when the invisible Nameless replies. "Yes, you’re right, sunny kid," the invisible stranger agrees, humming again, then something brushes his shoulder, a touch all too light, yet both strong and hard enough to be felt. "I wouldn’t like to lose it." "But..." Stiles starts and stops, considering how he should put what he wants to express. And when he notices the way that feather-light touch is gently stroking him over his shoulder, the boy turns around on the other side and waits until the touch is back on his other arm before he finally gathers himself. "You wouldn’t. I mean, I don’t think you did something for no reason. And... uh, I mean, if you did something. And it was in the past anyway; you could’ve changed yourself, you could’ve understood some things from back then..." "You have no idea what my past was like, Stiles," the Nameless confronts him, his tone cold and hard, making the boy swallow through his suddenly dry throat. The ethereal touch seems to squeeze him a bit as well. "But it is the past!" Stiles argues, and it came a bit louder than a whisper, and the brown-haired boy has to cover his mouth with his palm. It takes a few seconds for him to be sure that no one has woken, and then the boy goes on. "Whatever it could be, it was then. Trust me, you don’t have to be afraid about our conversations." "It was a dark one." "It was in the past, and I don’t care." "Why are you afraid of darkness?" The off-topic question leaves Stiles confused and slightly embarrassed at the directness of the raised point (besides, how can the topic with the past be connected with the topic with fears?). He would even blush if he wasn’t so caught off guard that he can only part his lips, as though the boy is about to answer or just say something, but it never comes out. The Nameless probably just wanted to avoid the theme this way, and it works seamlessly. The boy focuses on it, leaving behind all his previous thoughts. After a couple of seconds, he gives an answer earnestly. "Because there might be something scary in there, of course! But why are you aski..." "And am I scary too?" he interrupts. It's soft and without any pressure, but the little boy can’t help but tense at the reminder; he’s not sure about his feelings. Like... on the one hand, the Nameless has always been kind to him, has never harmed him, and has always supported him with just his presence whenever Stiles feels too bad in his own skin or in his own room. And on the other hand, he just found out that the invisible being has some dark past, and on top of that, he lurks around in his bedroom, in the shadows — the very reason why Stiles feels so frightened towards the darkness — and it’s already enough to say, 'Yes, you absolutely are,' but he just... can’t do this. It’s as if something inside him won’t let him say it. And that something is so strong and large that it swiftly takes over Stiles, enveloping and covering all of him with a veil, and obscuring all of his thoughts and senses, making the little boy swallow his answer as it tries to tear out of his throat. The boy wouldn’t be able to fight it, even if he tried. Still, the Nameless waits patiently for what he’ll answer, saying nothing more to let the boy gather his own mind before answering. So, Stiles whispers, all but breathing out, weakly and so quietly that it is barely audible. "No... I don’t think so." The brown-eyed boy sneaks a glance around, looking for any tiny signs that he’s not screwed with this weird kind of game, because he means it, really, but there’s no way Stiles can hide his unsure tinge in his tone. That’s why his heart stutters for an infinite second. And then skips a few beats. "You’re not sure, though. Because you’re scared of the obscurity, and now you have proof that there really is something in the darkness, and it’s me who emerged from there that night, isn’t it?" The nameless being muses, lowly and steadily, even though his voice is soft, apparently so as not to spook him, but Stiles can only nod sheepishly in agreement, even though he knows it’s not really a question. The invisible Nameless serenely continues. "And consequently, it provides that the things the darkness hides are not always bad, if, of course, your words are true and I’m not so scary." The little boy can hear a smile in the whispering voice, easing some of the tension as the touch gets still in its place on Stiles’ arm, while the brown-eyed boy slowly drinks in the spoken words. Playing them once more in his head, Stiles thinks the stranger is partly right, or he’s just trying to blur his brain and judgment so the boy will have all blind belief in him, so he won’t suspect whatever plans the invisible Nameless might have. Trying to make him think that his worries are far-fetched and exaggerated, that the Nameless is what he is with Stiles. The little boy wouldn’t want their situation to be like this, like the stranger has been fooling him all this time for some purpose of the Nameless. Well, if that’s the truth, he certainly won’t have it. None of it. At least, Stiles feels such a fighting spirit, but he has no idea how exactly he should do it. After a minute of inner thinking, the boy remembers something. "Okay, fine, you’re probably right. And yet, at least you know what I’m afraid of, but what about you? I already told you I don’t care about your past and our conversations will be fine, so... what are you afraid of now?" the little boy asks as dispassionately as he can, trying not to touch anything too sensitive, not to cause any trouble. He lets his eyes fall on the covers, lets his fingers pick at them, pull, and tap, looking completely uninterested and making an impression that he doesn’t really care at all, that his curiosity is just his usual demeanor he can’t help with. He knows the Nameless knows it’s just an act. And yet— He really wonders. Stiles would like to know about what his someone is hiding in the shadows so much for his own good. Though the brown-eyed boy is absolutely sure he won’t get any words here, he hopes the Nameless will say something, or hum, or huff — anything but a pure quietness, again. The boy doesn’t have to wait much longer, since the Nameless seems to think it’s not a big deal to answer him, or he just doesn’t consider it a grave point and decides to answer. "That’s just a small part of what I’m afraid of now, Stiles." His voice seems somewhat heavy and blank now, like the invisible being is saying it with hopelessness, with doom, as if all that was alive in him has flown away somewhere far, far away, and now the Nameless is only a worn, tired, and squeezed shell of himself. "My state is different from yours. I’m afraid of the obscurity too, but my own is unknown to me. I’m unable to figure things out; I can’t do anything because I have no clue what would happen or how it would affect me." He makes a pause, and it seems to the boy like the Nameless thinks, but he doesn’t have time to linger on this thought. But his next words are a reflection of Stiles’ thoughts. "You could say to me that you don’t know about that too, and it would be absolutely fair. But now you at least have some picture about what could lurk in the darkness, right? For example, me." He says with a gentle note, making the boy guess that he means that sometimes there’s nothing harmful lurks in the darkness. For example, him. "But in my case, I have nothing to find it out for sure. To find out what would come next. To find something light around me. All I can do is talk to you, and even then, I do it with some troubles, as you could notice. Each of our conversations is such a precious moment in my endless abyss of hopelessness, which is basically my prison, where I have been for a long time." The way he tells it, without any stuttering or broken notes in his voice, the way it paints a picture, both so vague and so clear to imagine easily the Nameless’ circumstances, tears the boy apart at that indifference. And Stiles is interesting if the Nameless says it in a metaphorical way or he means it seriously. Since everything is possible with him now, especially knowing what he is. And if the being is trapped somewhere and deprived of the opportunity to live freely, the boy can’t leave this matter like that. He can’t help but ask: “Can’t you get yourself free?” "No." It’s so steady and unemotional that the little boy almost tastes a humility on his tongue. It seems like the Nameless has long since accepted his situation. And it breaks Stiles’ heart in more ways than just one. “Can I— Could I help you somehow?” These words burst out of the boy’s mouth on their own, unexpectedly, without his conscious interruption; and he can’t be bothered with any of it — an urge to give a hand or some other thing to help his someone is completely genuine and powerful. Like a giant surge of a blue sea caused by a solid something falling into the even surface of the water, making it rise up to the very clouds and descend on everyone around the incident. And the same thing is here as well: the Nameless’ problem dropped on him, plunged into him, and forced all of his senses to soar over his mind and made that surge of the urge collapse, but on this occasion it dropped only on the Nameless himself, who is the cause of it. So, the boy can’t be blamed for it. "Oh, kid, the thing is, I think even if you could do something, it would hardly change the situation. It would probably make everything even worse." He snickers bitterly at his own last words, and the weightless touch, which surprisingly has still been laid on the boy’s arm all this time, fades away then, leaving an emptiness and an unexplained cold. "But how will you get free?" "I guess I’ll have to wait for a special moment." the Nameless says, but without that eerie hollow tinge in his voice. "I have a feeling that you’re not gonna tell me about what a special moment is, huh?" Stiles mocks, some of his inner storm is easing up in his chest, and looks up to where, as he suspects, is the Nameless’ eyes are. There's nothing there, naturally. The stranger chuckles, so quiet and so low that the little boy would miss the sound if he wasn’t extremely attuned to the little noises like that. So quiet it wasn’t even a sound, more like a vibration, a stirring of the air. Like a barely there rustle. And Stiles is just glad to be here and hear it for some silly reasons. "I have no idea about this moment myself," the Nameless says joyfully, gathering up the boy’s mocking, while Stiles giggles. The next second, however, all the fun is gone. "I should find such a one soon, it’s getting harder and harder to stay there and in my mind at the same time." The phrase splits everything apart in its path and gets stuck in the air, hanging somewhere there and thickening everything around until it seems to be difficult to breathe and even to blink. A heavy muteness settles between the boy and the invisible, nameless being, like a dense fog that cowls a forest with its thick layer of haze that lingers between the woods, countless blades of grass, and small little stones, between the hard ground and the unreachable sky. It hovers ominously over the innocent creatures in the forest, threatening to engulf the entire peaceful space along with all residing there as well, and swallow all kinds of the light. Threatening to give to a randomly lost soul a feeling of being forgotten. And Stiles feels lost in this forest, in this grayish haziness that surrounds him on all sides, standing on this ground without knowing where he is, in which direction he should go to see his hidden sky — his Nameless. The brown-eyed boy makes the decision to pick from a hat and just follow. He furrows his brows, his eyes traveling over the walls until they catch on his watch that informs him it’s already midnight. Then he rolls onto his belly, sighing shortly. Stiles must have fallen asleep long ago, like all normal people at this time, so he should wrap up the talking, wish a good night, and forget about all of that until tomorrow day, or rather tomorrow evening, when he will be in his bedroom, completely free of his boring homework, to get back to it with a fresh head. And yet, the brown-haired boy doesn’t want to end it without saying something that would push the invisible stranger on an idea that they need to finish up. All at once he realizes that the invisible being is also silenced, and there’s also no annoying or loud noise from the outside, as if the town and nature themselves have decided to keep a silence with the two of them. Belatedly, the boy realizes, too, that the black, always suffocating darkness is not as terrifying as it is almost every night. It’s a surprising thought, but Stiles couldn’t care less right now, especially with him grumbling under his nose and his hands burrowing under his pillow. "Still don’t get it why you brought this topic up..." "It’s all your fault, little sun," the stranger responds right away, with an amusing tinge in his murmuring voice, as if it wasn’t him who said something really bizarre after the boy’s questions and then got quiet, as if he told all of it as an afterthought. "We can say that we have opened ourselves up and unloaded our struggles and our souls to each other, huh? What would you say, little one?" he jokes (maybe even not), and the boy feels like someone’s palm has just tapped him on the back. "I’d say your idea is fitting, kinda like it," Stiles says slowly from where he’s smashed his face in the pillow, his lips staying a little apart. He takes a deep breath and blows it out, mentioning, "You didn’t really want to share, though. I had to drag it out of you." "I don’t like sharing things like that with someone else." "Can get it." The Nameless huffs, almost chuckles, but to someone else it might be just a sigh, but the boy knows better. There's a significant difference between all of those sounds that no one with untrained ears would notice, but he can. Stiles is already drifting off to his sweet dreams (for he remembers that the invisible Nameless stands guard over his dream) when a long-gnawing idea abruptly clutches at his half-awake mind, preventing the little boy from sleeping. The Nameless... He still doesn’t know his name. He’s had enough, he suspects. And this thought is so overwhelming that it crushes all of the boy’s willpower so that, without his knowing it, the words form themselves on his tongue and escape his mouth. “If we’ve opened our souls up tonight, will you finally tell me your name?” The Nameless laughs lowly, the sound Stiles is used to, used to hearing, used to waiting for it with an impatience, used to the slight vibration and rich spectrum of its tone, used to— just used to. A soft whisper resounds, literally coming out of nowhere against the brown-eyed boy’s ear, sending little shivers down his spine as hot air — like someone’s warm breath — hits Stiles’ cool skin. “You can call me Void.”

***

Sometimes the voice disappears for a while. And this time is just one of them. The last several days of school fly past as quickly as if they were never there at all. Full of many wishes with ‘Merry Christmas’ and all sorts of things like that, full of the classmates talking about how their families are going to celebrate, or where, with whom. Full of cries of coming excitement, of approaching party spirit, of festive mood. Full of chaotic pre-holiday hustle and bustle, of little gifts that some peers give to some particular ones of the group. Favorite ones. But this is all about routine. Another part isn’t quite so... varied. Honestly, it’s usual and banal days at school; there’s nothing funny about them, and yet Stiles has to break through them to get out on his well-deserved holiday with his friend. As the boys finish their last day, they eagerly gather themselves up by their lockers and come out of the building with vast enthusiasm, while the rest of the mass of students, teachers, and some other people who work here walk through and around the two of them. And the boys go past these people in the background with a simple ease, maneuvering and ducking and diving between them all, and then stand almost at the parking lot as the boys wait for Scott’s mom to take Stiles to his home. In the meantime, the two of them have plenty of time to discuss their plan to check out that tree. Of course, if it is there. The brown-haired boy thought a lot about that tree. He thought about his dream and the details in it, or to be more precise, just a specific one: a tree, a big, very, very tall, and very, very wide tree, beautiful and grandiose and apparently extremely old. The boy remembers a magnificent crown, light and dark green; there were yellow spots on some of its leaves where they were turned towards the sun, and there were also bluish ones, coupled with shades of purple where others were looking down to the ground. It was so dense there that even the sky couldn’t be seen through the branches, so broad that it created such a large shade that covered as much of an area as a normal tree ever could, sharing it with everyone who was there, standing under the glorious tree. The rough bark seemed to be so hard and rough and thick that it seemed nothing could even cut through it. It was lightly dark brown, almost like dark chocolate, with specks and lines here and there, uneven and long, deep and shallow. And the roots themselves, wavy and large, peeked out from beneath the ground, bursting out and circling everything in their path, covered with emerald-like moss climbing up on the trunk. Stiles wonders if that oak is similar to the tree from his dream at least the tiniest bit. He’s been pushed to this idea by what Scott told him—that the tree looks like an old oak, judging by those rumors. And he knows that oaks can be that big, though not as big as his magical tree. As the two friends are getting close to the end of their small debate and coming to the opinion that the best time would be after Christmas and maybe the New Year’s holidays to explore the whole preserve (or at least some part of it) and find any proof of the rumors, Scott’s mother’s car stops right in front of the boys, startling them a little. And before both of them jump into the pale and dusty red car, Scott hurriedly mumbles to Stiles that he’ll talk to his mom about the offer of celebrating at their house all together with Stiles’ family, and the boy with brown eyes just nods with a smile. And as soon as they are comfortably seated on the back seat and say their hellos, Scott’s mom drives out of the parking lot to the road and starts talking, so all three of them can dive into a little conversation. All while Stiles swims inside his own head. These mind-wanderings about the oak tree always lead to the thoughts about the Nameless... Void. About Void. The boy has his name by now or what can be claimed as a name; it’s a heartwarming fact, so he’s been calling him that since then. But... when the invisible creature told the brown-eyed boy his name — though Stiles isn’t sure if he was being way too honest here and told him his real name, the boy still thinks that it’s just the way he can call the creature — Void faded. The brown-haired boy knew it the next night as he waited for the familiar whispering voice, but it never came. Never sounded. It happens from time to time; the little boy already is accustomed to such disappearances, but the absence always becomes a special kind of torture for Stiles. Being alone in his own terrible fear, struggling with his own mind, trying to convince himself that it’s only his own bedroom, it’s only nighttime, and it’s only a lack of the light; that there’s not a single thing in the simple darkness, there’s not a single soul in there... being forced to stew in his own juice is the worst thing that could happen to the boy. He doesn’t know why he’s so afraid of the dark. Though he can agree the invisible being’s words about it were partly true. Well, about the obscurity. Sometimes he wants to be close to the moon so as to be with something that would light everything up all around him, that would give him reassurance and a sense of safety in the total obscurity. That would give him a sense of permanence. Because when something is permanent, it’s not unpredictable. Because the moon never fades, it’s always stuck on the black sky, and every morning it goes down to make way for the bright, warm sun. Instead of the constant unknowing, where his special someone all the time goes missing in moments like these two nights and all the others that happened during these months. It happened rarely, lasting only a few days or a week at most, but each time it was sad and bad all the same, creating a hollowness somewhere inside the alone boy. The one Stiles has ever felt before, not until the first meeting and the first disappearance of the being he can finally call Void now. It really did never exist, this hollowness; Stiles lived as normally as any other child; he played, he ran, he grew up, and he got scratches and bruises like any other boy of his age by playing at some dangerous places. He was a normal boy. A normal boy who was and still is afraid of the darkness. Even now he’s not quite sure where it comes from, what exactly has triggered it; all he remembers is how one late evening, when he was about four or five years old, he was playing with a few guys on the playground. It was very dark around; his parents and the parents of the guys were sitting on benches further down from the main area where they were playing hide-and-seek around a huge slide that had several walls that each child could climb on. Or hide behind. The whole thing cast thick shadows on the safety surface of the playground, behind which black spaces consumed everything under the slide. And when it was Stiles’s turn to look for them, when everyone took their places and the little boy counted to twenty, when Stiles opened his eyes and went looking, it was then that everything occurred. He looked for his bunch as they sneaked somewhere around, while in the distance the adults talked among themselves about something that only they understood, barely noticing their kids. Stiles stepped carefully into a black, black shadow spot after he had quietly rounded a corner of the slide’s wall with small steps on it, and then he stopped, squinted, and took a look around. He found nothing there, so the boy turned around on his heel and went to the next wall, walking under the very slide that the glow of the streetlight couldn’t tear through at all. So, standing in an almost pure darkness, in a blind zone in the middle of the dark, standing between the inside side of the wall and two steel columns, Stiles ran with his eyes all around and stretched out his arm to grab a pillar to orient himself. Shrugging, he turned his head and took a step forward, reaching out his other hand and waving it from side to side. The boy put his hand down when he didn’t feel anything and was about to take a step again when the wall suddenly shook and was drummed, and two boys jumped out of nowhere with eerie, loud screams. Stiles immediately sprang back with a high-pitched yelp and hit his left eyebrow against the pillar, painfully and so hard that the column made a loud, resonant ring. The pain shot into his very brain and spread all over the boy’s head, short but strong and sharp. Stiles bent down in half and covered his watery eye with his palm. Laughing and giggling sounded around him, filling his ears with that disgusting and horrible noise, while his bottom lip trembled by both trying not to cry and wishing to let the tears flow from under his eyelids. But as much as he was hurt, the boy didn’t want to show how betrayed he felt, how scared he was, or how offensive their act was. Stiles just straightened up and removed his hand from where it was covering his eye and brow. Then he smiled crookedly at three of them (the third one was drumming on the other side of the wall) and walked away, leaving the boys a little confused, even though they still giggled. Stiles knew it would soon be a stark bruise on his eyebrow, so he saw no point in hiding the story of it. And that’s why — right after he got back home with his parents, and they noticed on a light of the house the reddening peck on their son’s face — he told them how the guys on the playground freaked him out and he hit his brow with all his might. His dad and his mom felt sorry for him; his mother kissed him on the aching spot on his eyebrow, and his father picked him up and said that he was proud that Stiles didn’t cry in front of those fools, that he just left them instead, didn’t show his pain to any of them. He said that no one should know about your pain or fear or any of your weakness so that no one human being would know how to hurt you even more or how to push you. And his father praised him for not picking a fight, because that would only prove how much they got to him. For some reason, Stiles didn’t feel much better after that monologue. After dinner, they all were in his bedroom, sitting on the bed in their pajamas, ready to go to sleep, his mom smearing some salve on his ripening bruise as he lay under his blanket while his dad held his ankle. But when his mother and father stood up and both of them kissed him on the forehead and wished him a good night, when his father turned off the light and closed the door, when the little boy was left completely alone in the purest darkness, Stiles felt for the first time that something was wrong in his bedroom. For the first time he felt a suffocating feeling; for the first time he didn’t feel safe in his own room. He felt the unknown of the darkness very keenly, subconsciously waiting for something to rush at him like those dumb boys. For the first time, Stiles felt a fear. It's already been almost four years since that event, but it’s still stuck in the boy’s subconscious: the darkness means only danger and pain and, of course, the obscurity. It got under his skin so much that the brown-haired boy became afraid of every dark corner in his house, on the street, and of every dark place in every nook and cranny. No, it didn’t start all at once. In the beginning he acted as usual — he walked by day and evening, slept at night, and walked through the lightless halls of the house. But time passed, and things changed. Evenings turned into horrible moments of the whole day, nights into nightmares, and walking through dark halls turned out to be the realest torturous challenge for Stiles. Eventually, the brown-eyed boy stopped going outside when evenings came, stopped sleeping well at nights, and tried less to walk in the dark halls. It got worse in moments when Stiles was... alone. In moments when Stiles felt utterly vulnerable and absolutely defenseless, when no one could save him if something happened, attacked him, or leaped on him, or anything. Those moments still continue to exist, and the boy still feels all the same way. Subconsciously. He understands with his brain that it all is impossible. At least he did, until one fateful night. The night that confirmed the little boy’s convictions that the darkness forever hides something in its unfathomable pall of deep shadows, endless and frightening, and only on very rare occasions, mesmerizing. Yes. Sometimes, the darkness seems to be like a shimmering veil, thin and seemingly translucent like a fragile lace of a voile hanging over a window frame, but thick enough to hide things not meant for outsiders’ eyes behind its (only at the first glance) useless piece of fabric, riddled with many tiny holes. The flowery tracery is visible at moments when his special someone hovers close by to Stiles, and then those intricate lines and little round curves take on a certain beauty and even a distant kind of perfection. But it’s still a veil; the boy isn’t fooled. And yet he has experienced it a few times, and all of them with Void — the being of the darkness itself. Stiles is more than sure of it. The being that emerged from dark nowhere, that has never shown himself, that appeared — and still does — only in the evening shadows, only at night, when everyone and everything should be deeply asleep. Except him alone. The being that should frighten Stiles with his invisibility and bodilessness, but Void does exactly the opposite — the being entices the little boy to chase every little sign of his unreal presence, lures him to himself like the truest beacon on a small islet pointing ships where to go, like the brightest source of light for a lost mole. But at the same time, the being that tells him something almost like a fantasy world, that talks to him at night when he can be with the boy, that brings Stiles a calm in the nighttime the little boy hasn’t felt ever since he was four (or five), brings it with just his unique voice. Maybe Stiles misses those stories of his. Oh, the stories. Stiles could listen to them forever, really. There is something about them all that makes the whole essence of the boy give full of it into them, freeze, and get stuck in the plot, as the picture draws itself with every single word that flows from Void. It's as if the brown-eyed boy himself is one of all those magical characters, like he’s a part of it. And he likes this strange new feeling: to be a member of something big and grand and... celestial. To be special. And that unacceptable thought always evokes shame in Stiles because he can’t put himself above anybody else, can’t think about himself above anybody else. They say it’s wrong to do so. It would raise a revulsion from people if they knew; it would cause dislike and disgust. But he's just a little boy, nothing more, nothing less, and he understands that; he may like a feeling of beauty, and who’s more beautiful than celestial creatures? At least, that’s how humanity thinks about some kinds of gods, right? Well, he saw his beings in a few dreams, unlike those people with their unknown gods. Maybe the brown-haired boy is digging in it too much and seems not to be able to stop anymore, to stop to get bogged down in Void’s legends, to stop to get lost in the limits of this whole situation. Like... he’s been playing a little bit too much with this imaginary world, and now he should come down to earth — come down to the previous fear and bored present and try not to crash against its ground. When his mind leaves the senseless trace of its wandering that’s leading to nowhere, the boy finds himself still in the car, sitting next to his friend, who’s talking to his mother. Listening to them, Stiles pretends to be in the subject. It turns out to be something about lacrosse, by the way. After a couple of minutes, their little band is approaching the Stilinski’s house, which means he has to say goodbye to Scott and his mom and thank them for driving. And what he does when Scott’s mother pulls up, then the boy opens the door, jumps out of the pale red car onto the rough concrete with his backpack into his one hand, and shuts the door. Stepping back from the road, the brown-eyed boy can see through the car’s window how Scott is waving at him with a wide smile on his lips as Mrs. McCall whirls the wheel to turn the car around and drive away. The second the red car disappears in the distance, Stiles shifts and moves to the house. The door opens surprisingly even before the boy can knock, leaving him with his hand hanging in the air right in front of his mother, who’s holding the door handle. A warm smile stretches her lips. "Hey honey, how’s your day going?" she asks him first, stroking him over his hair as Stiles comes in and crouches to take off his shoes. "Hi, it’s all good, but there’s nothing interesting in there,” he hurries to say, because he remembers right after 'nothing' that there is actually one thing the little boy needs to talk to his parents about. "Uh, by the way... I want to ask you both about something when dad gets home." His mom looks slightly confused, although her smile is displayed on her face, as though she is thinking about something else right after his words but doesn’t want to show it. The brown-haired boy keeps it in his mind instead of asking her 'what’s it?' or getting tangled up in this thin thread of probably some tangle. So Stiles just hangs his jacket on a hook on the stand, turning his back to his mother. "Sure, son," his mother agrees before speaking up again. "Is it something I could try to guess, hm?" A slight joking hint softens the sharp edges of this fleeting change of the mood in the hall. "It’s about Christmas, mom." "Oh." That's the only one thing his mom utters, and then she makes a humming sound, like it was such an obvious thing, but the idea, for some reason, didn’t cross her mind; a second later her smile is just as bright as it was when he walked in. "Well, let’s wait for dad, and now, go get changed in your clothes, honey. It's a holiday!" she exclaims, smirking, and goes to the kitchen, leaving the boy standing at the door with a strange feeling of suspicion within him. The sun is long gone by the time his father comes home from his shift, all tired and exhausted. By this time, Stiles already is losing all his patience, wishing to tell, ask, and get a yes in response. He lies in his bed, a new Batman comic in his hands, the lamp on his nightstand helping him read the letters on the pages with its glow, while the wind swishes on the outside. With each passing minute, the brown-eyed boy feels the way the holiday is unfolding, picking up steam and taking over his brain. Even the super cool comic can’t keep him occupied as it usually does. If they agree to throw a party with Scott and his mother, it will be an unforgettable party; it will be the first time in his short life that he will spend Christmas with someone other than his parents. It is very exciting, he suspects. Another comic ends up faster than Stiles would like it to, and the recently purchased stack is getting smaller and smaller, and the wait seems to get longer and longer with every passing millisecond. Even though it may not seem like it’s as big of an event as the boy imagines it to be, Stiles can’t help but taste the anticipation on the very tip of his tongue, a little tangy and spicy. He's saved from the next wait at the same moment when he hears a soft thud of the front door from downstairs, which means only one thing: his dad has come. Probably very spent (his father works so hard to take a weekend at Christmas), but the brown-eyed boy needs so much to tell his parents about his and Scott’s offer and listen to what they will say. He has never thought about why they don’t spend time together on any other holidays than birthdays. That’s a real shame, the boy can tell, and he’s full of intent to fix it. At least one time. This time. So, when his dad finally finishes all of his home things and goes downstairs from his bedroom to the kitchen, when his mom calls Stiles to dinner, when he himself sits on his chair to the left side of his father’s seat and across from his mother, Stiles forms a sentence in his head now. But he’s saved from pushing his brain here because the question falls earlier than he can come up with something to say. "Mom said to me you wanted to tell us something," his dad starts to speak, causing the boy to turn his head to him. "So, what’s it, son?" His father smiles at him as he puts some salad on his fork and looks at Stiles, while Stiles himself catches a glimpse out of the corner of his eye of his mom glancing briefly at him with expression on her face close to the curiosity. "Scott and I thought that it would be awesome if all of us threw a party all together." He says and waits for reactions; his mother narrows her eyes, and her expression is lit by a smile, and his dad curves his brow up, waving his fork to prompt the boy to go on. "And what are you two offering?" "Maybe we could go to a Christmas party at Scott’s and his mom’s?" Stiles asks sheepishly, shifting his rice all over the plate and speaking up yet again. "Or we could have them over..." "Ah, okay, son," his father says with a short chuckle, sipping tea from his cup. Stiles' eyes go wide all at once, even though he has no idea what’s so surprising about it, and he can’t stop his mouth at this point. "Okay?" His mom takes the talk in her hands just as Stiles’ brain got a short circuit, drawing the little boy’s attention to herself. "Honey, we’re going to talk to Mrs. McCall. To see if she has any plans that Scott doesn’t know about," she explains, but before the brown-eyed boy can even utter anything else, she raises her hand to show she hasn’t finished. "We don’t mind, of course," she continues, and his dad makes an agreement sound at the back of his throat, "but we need to discuss this with Melissa herself. And later, we’ll tell you everything. Sounds like a plan, doesn’t it?" Stiles nods in full agreement as his father extends his hand in the boy’s direction, and Stiles takes the hint right away, throwing his own in response until their fists collide. His dad takes in the sight of a cool, content guy and gets back to his food, while the little boy and his mom giggle at him. The next part of the dinner passes in a fun and easy mood. He talks about his comics he has just read; his mom readily engages in the offered topic, listening and adding something from time to time. His dad can only just smile, roll his eyes from time to time, and continue to drink his tea, which has long since gone cold. Preoccupied with captivating conversation about moments when Batman fought his enemies and helping his mother around the kitchen, Stiles misses the second when the night comes into full swing — another time for sleep comes again. Maybe Void will join him... He’s so sick of harboring hope in moments like these — when the boy has to wait and wait and wait for any sign of particular someone’s presence in his room, desperately hoping that tonight will be a different one from the permanent silence and pure darkness. And the second he realizes that all of this is of no avail, he throws his efforts out into the window, not torturing himself anymore. After all, it always ends up with a familiar vibrating sound of the voice or whispering murmur; Stiles just has to... wait. Which is ironic, really. And it gets a little hard to fall asleep as the exiting realization floods him that tomorrow he and his mother will be looking for a gift for Scott, well, and Mrs. McCall, of course, but a gift for her will fall on his mom’s shoulders. A new thrill crawls under the boy’s skin, forcing him to think so hard about what he could buy — Stiles is aware that it’s his mom who actually will spend the money, but, hey, let the boy be a little dreamy — for Scott. Harder than he probably would normally. The little boy finds it very fascinating. His dad will be at the station doing his deputy business, so the burden of presents lies just on Stiles and his mother. Which is fair, the boy suspects. So, he has to gather full strength before tomorrow. Tonight, the darkness doesn’t send its spells on him; it just seems to exist here, in his bedroom, with Stiles, as though it is his real roommate, doing something on their own across from him, not paying their attention to anything around. The boy doesn’t dare to complain about its behavior as he turns off his true lamp and climbs into his bed, already ready to drift off. And in such an motionless air, it becomes easy to close the eyes, to breathe in and out, to just calm down the rushing to somewhere in his heart, to let the tempting haze pull him in. A dream will be blurry, without a coherent theme, just a blurry wandering through some distantly familiar places that the little boy has never seen in his town. That night he will seem as if he felt like a soft, gentle brush, not unlike a form of palm, smaller, softer, and as though even, somehow, warmer, dropped on his forehead. Someone’s touch. It will seem to be very cold despite the warmth of its owner. Will seem like an imprint of goodbye. Will seem to be like the last. Will seem to be absent. Maybe Stiles is just dreaming.