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When Scott, Allison, and Stiles decided to sacrifice themselves in lieu of their parents, Deaton had warned them there'd be consequences. He had told them that it would put a blemish on their hearts, a darkness that they would have to carry forever. He told them that they'd never be rid of it--that once they took it into themselves, it would never go away.
Stiles was okay with that. Not that he really thought it’d affect him much anyway. And it only took one look at Scott and Allison to see that they were okay with the consequences, too.
So they submerged themselves in the tubs--the icy, colder-than-death water--and both sacrificed themselves and saved their parents in one fell swoop. Easy peasy.
(And if Scott and Allison looked at him a little strangely afterward, wondering why he hadn’t shared the same subconscious hallucination dream they apparently had, well, he figured what they didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them.)
It was only a few days later that the dreams started.
He noticed Scott right off. He looked haggard, washed out and sickly pale. The bruises under his eyes resembled a raccoon's markings--which was pretty impressive considering Scott's natural complexion.
Stiles tried to get Scott to open up about it, but Scott always just gave him a grin and told him, "It's nothing. Just a headache."
Stiles wasn't even sure if werewolves could get headaches.
Allison was more elusive, but ultimately Stiles cracked her before he cracked Scott. Two weeks of following her around and awkwardly asking after her health got him an answer of "Nightmares. Just nightmares Stiles. We should have expected as much." Turns out Scott's deal was also nightmares.
It was barely half a day before Scott and Allison began to suspect that Stiles didn’t suffer from the same nightly terrors they did.
But before he could even start faking nightmares to start throwing off their suspicion, Allison's dreams turned harsh, more terrifying than ever. She had waking nightmares, began sleepwalking, started blacking out in the middle of the day and waking up in the woods. She said that she kept dreaming of a door, slowly opening, and the darkness inside scared her. But she ended up going through it anyway, and found herself by the Nemeton, and there were voices...
Well, that was enough information for Chris Argent to go completely bonkers. Between him and Deaton, they narrowed down the suspects to "possession" and brought in an exorcist.
Stiles maybe sort of panicked when he heard that.
"Man, I don't get why you're so upset about this. We'll be there to keep an eye on her; I made sure of that." Scott had his arms folded across his chest in an epic show of heroic posturing that, at any other time, would have made Stiles want to hang all over him and make inappropriate comments.
Stiles had a large duffel bag open on his bed, and he flung clothing and books alike into it. "Good. You keep an eye on her. Make sure the guy knows what he's doing. I'll just be, you know, visiting my aunt."
Scott gave him a look like Stiles had grown another head. "Are you serious?"
Stiles turned to look at Scott. His friend, his brother, the one person that Stiles ever really got along with, was looking at him with this look of betrayal on his face. And Stiles understood it--he did. He knew what it must have looked like, like Stiles was abandoning Allison--another good friend, another person that might get closer to understanding him than Scott ever could.
But Scott didn't understand. "I'm sorry," Stiles said sincerely. "I am, really. I just can't be there."
"Why not?"
Stiles took a breath and swallowed. "I just can't."
Scott glared at him then. After a moment of considering him--sizing him up, Stiles realized--Scott shook his head and all but spat at him. "Fine. Whatever."
Scott stormed out of the room.
Stiles actually felt like crying a little bit.
--
In the end though, it was Stiles's father that did him in. He didn't want to leave before saying goodbye--even if, hopefully, he'd only be leaving for a weekend. But what with things still a bit rocky since the whole "We are on the same page what with werewolves being a thing and all" revelation, Stiles didn't want to jet out of town without at least telling his dad something first. So he found out that his dad was going to be held up late at the department and Stiles decided that instead of waiting, he would just meet his father there. He’d say his goodbye and offer a moderately mediocre excuse, then make his leave. Besides, the Sheriff's Department was closer to the highway.
That plan fell to shit as soon as Stiles walked three feet into the building.
Or rather, Stiles walked three feet into the building and then hit an invisible wall.
"What the frick?" He held his hands up--and yes. There was just a... wall. Of energy. Keeping him contained. It pulsed with a kind of sickening feeling that made his skin tingle and burn. He spread his hands to the side, and systematically followed the curve of the energy barrier until he had turned full circle.
"What the frick frack?" he muttered again.
In front of him, one of his dad's new hires--some young hotshot kid with supernatural know-how (he claimed not to be anything, and Scott couldn't smell anything on him, but then again, Scott didn't sniff out Jennifer Blake until she was trying to murder everyone, and they had seen her every weekday for class)--stood up gracelessly, clattering his chair against the desk behind his. The deputy shouted for the sheriff, and for a split second Stiles was glad, because that meant his dad and his dad meant everything was going to be okay.
Then it hit him fully what he had walked into.
He started breathing faster and his vision became sharp and pointed. He saw his father rush in around the corner with Chris Argent and an unfamiliar man in a black leather jacket--probably the exorcist. Stiles was torn between feeling grateful for the sight of his father and despair at the thought of Dad seeing him like this. They ran right up to him, reaching his circular cage right when Stiles really started hyperventilating. He collapsed to the floor.
Up close and distant all at once, he heard his father shouting. "What's going on? Why is my son--someone get my son out of there!"
Stiles heard them arguing, but stopped paying attention to them in favor of trying to keep himself from passing out or suffocating, whichever came first. He drew his knees up to his chest and tried to count his breaths. He got to six.
"Stiles? Son, here. Listen to me. Count with me, okay?"
His dad counted slowly, and Stiles found himself following along. “Breathe in one, two, three, four, breath out one, two, three, four, five...”
"Don't bother. He's just faking it," the possibly-an-exorcist said.
If Stiles wasn't worried about his heart exploding in his chest, he would have glared at the guy. As it was, he kept his gaze steady on his father and tried to breathe with his counting.
When he was feeling more himself, Stiles unwound and let his legs drop to the floor. His father sat back on his heels in relief.
"You done?" the douchebag demon-killer said. Stiles did glare at him this time. The man just sneered back.
His father stood up, fists clenched, a furious look on his face. He leaned towards the guy like he was going to lunge. "You told me this would only work on demons."
Stiles decided to stay on the floor and pretend to be very, very small.
"It does. The werewolves got in fine, didn't they? And whatever that cute redhead is," the exorcist said.
"Banshee!" Stiles piped up. At everyone's confused looks, he repeated. "Banshee. She's a banshee. We figured that out like, a month ago."
“That’s what you’re concerned about right now?” Chris asked.
“Accuracy is important.”
The exorcist and Chris gave Stiles a hard look while his father just huffed in bemusement. Stiles decided it was probably best if he stayed on the floor--what with the inability to run away as long as he was trapped inside the circle.
Because he was trapped. In a demon trap, actually. Witnessed by his father and--oh look! The exorcist was right--all of his friends. Scott, Isaac, Lydia, even Derek (when did he get back??) stood with varying levels of anxiety on their faces near the back of the room. Lovely. Just how Stiles wanted to be found out: stuck in a three-foot diameter cylinder and surrounded by everyone he had grown to care about.
Chris spoke up. "I guess the same sacrifice that left Allison vulnerable also weakened Stiles."
Stiles quickly looked between Chris, who looked angry but composed, his dad, who also looked angry and decidedly less composed, to finally Scott, who just looked guilty. "You told them?" Stiles asked, not bothering to raise his voice because he knew Scott would pick it up.
Scott shrugged lightly, hunching his shoulders in on himself. "I had to. It was important to figure out what happened to Allison."
"Did you tell them everything?" Stiles asked, carefully blank. Everything meaning that Stiles was decidedly absent from whatever white room subconscious nonsense Scott and Allison journeyed through while Stiles was in his own, visceral version of hell. Though, from description, Stiles would still choose his own peculiar brand of darkness over whatever Scott and Allison went through. A creepy all-white room in what amounted to an empty warehouse? Yeah, give him blood and screaming and dripping walls, thank you very much.
Scott shook his head. Stiles swallowed.
It didn't matter. Not really. The exorcist would try to exorcise him anyway, and when that didn't work—
"Dad." Stiles turned to his father--the man that raised him from human infanthood, the one that always took care of him while he was trapped inside of a small and useless body. John Stilinski truly was Stiles Stilinski's father. "Dad, you have to listen to me--"
"Don't listen to it," the exorcist said. "It's just going to try to trick you."
Stiles clambered to his feet. "Dad, you can't let them do this. Just let me explain."
"Can we do it here?" Chris said, voice raised over Stiles's pleading.
Stiles took a step to stand as close to his father as he could, lifting his hands and pressing them against the barrier even though it burned to do so. "Daddy, please--"
"It's already trapped. It's not going anywhere but back to Hell. It's too risky to try to move him."
The exorcist pulled a flask out of his pocket. It had a cross engraved on it. Stiles backed away until he hit the edge of the barrier closest to the door. The exorcist flipped open the flask and splashed the liquid on Stiles. His skin blistered red and angry on contact, and Stiles screamed out of shock and pain. The exorcist started chanting something in archaic Latin--a spell that Stiles recognized immediately.
Stiles shouted over the feeling of bottomlessness that opened in his gut, like he’d just crested the top of a roller coaster, that sickening weightless falling. His dad was shouting, too, not that Stiles could really hear what he was saying. And Scott, poor Scott, stood with his back on the wall on the far side of the room, a look of horror on his face.
His skin felt like it was melting--his organs flipping and rearranging themselves, his bones on fire. He knew his eyes had flipped to their more natural, shiny polished black, like a second lid closing over them, but he tried shouting, tried convincing his father that it was him anyway. "Daddy, it's me! It's Stiles! I'm Stiles." Stiles sobbed. "It's me, Daddy, it's me."
He could feel liquid running from his nose and eyes and ears. Blood. The spell was trying to rip his soul from his body and his body was rebelling. His mouth filled with blood, thick and sweet and final. "Dad."
"Stop."
The word was almost lost over the rising crescendo of the exorcist's voice. Stiles fell back to the floor, unable to stand, but his father shouted louder. "Stop!"
Chris put his hand on the exorcist's arm. The exorcist stopped--paused, probably--in his chanting. Stiles choked out a sob of relief. His skin no longer felt like it was melting, the fire in his bones slowly receding. He willed his eyes back to human brown.
Behind his dad, his friends slowly approached the demon's trap holding Stiles, Scott with a sort of horrified concern and Isaac with a just plan horrified. Lydia looked curious and a large part disgusted while Derek... Derek looked angry. And confused.
Stiles decided he was in too much pain to try to figure out any more than that. He looked at his father and tried to catch his breath. "Daddy."
"What do you mean, 'It's me'?" his father asked.
Beside him, the exorcist scoffed, but Dad threw up a hand to shut him up.
Stiles tried wiping some of the blood off his face. He probably only made it worse. "It means I'm me. There's no one else in here. You're not exorcising a demon, Dad, you're exorcising me."
"It's trying to trick you. It's pretending to be your son--" the exorcist started.
Stiles spoke right over him."That's what I'm trying to tell you. I am your son."
He held his arms out wide. There was really no hope for it now. His father had already seen it once, Stiles might as well show him again. He blinked his eyes black. "Me. The demon. Been in this empty vessel for the last seventeen years."
After that pronouncement, Stiles expected some amount of shock. Maybe even gasps or horrified whispering. He really wasn't expecting the questioning look on his father's face. "You're a demon?"
Stiles blinked slowly. "Yes."
"Then what happened to my son?"
Stiles took a deep breath. He looked at Scott, Lydia and the others--they all looked mutely curious. Chris, too, looked more questioning than concerned. The exorcist just seemed pissed.
"Przemyslaw Eugene Stilinski died when he was three months old. His mother--our mother--traded her soul for his life and ten more years of existence. But it was too late, children's souls being what they are. We couldn't get it back. But since the contract was signed and in effect, we still had to carry out our end of the bargain." Stiles shrugged. "So Melaborath shoved me in the infant's body and told me to play nice. Been here ever since."
John took a deep and shuddery breath. Stiles was half-expecting him to ask after tiny baby Przemyslaw, and that Stiles would have to repeat that it was Stiles that John raised, not that weak sickly baby that could barely hold onto its own body. But his dad just sighed and gave Stiles a soft smile before turning to the exorcist. "Get him out of there."
The exorcist exploded. "We let it out of there, it's going to kill all of us. It's lying to you! Don't you see that?"
John turned to stare at the exorcist, but his question was directed at Stiles. "Why did you stay?"
Stiles blinked his eyes back brown. "Um, stay here?"
John nodded, still staring down the exorcist. The exorcist stared at Stiles, a calculating look in his eye. John continued. "After your mother passed. Why did you stay?"
The answer was automatic. "Because I didn't want to leave you alone."
John nodded, like the answer was exactly the one he was expecting. "Let him out."
"John--" Chris warned.
John waved a hand at him."For about six months before Claudia was diagnosed, Stiles changed. He was clingy and overly attentive to both of our moods. He was obsessed with trying to make us happy. Kept trying to set up ‘moments’ for us, urging us to go on dates. Trying to cook dinner for us, getting her flowers and saying they were from me..." His voice hitched, but he continued steadily on. "After she got sick, I just thought it was intuition. Then afterwards," John actually laughed, even though it was clear to everyone in the room the memory filled him with pain, "afterwards it was like he was possessed. Even though he kept getting underfoot, Stiles was driven in taking care of me. Whether I wanted it or not."
He turned to Stiles finally, and Stiles didn't know if it was surprising or not to see a tear streak from his father's eye down his cheek. "Not even ten years old and my kid had to take care of me."
"Her contract was up," Stiles said softly. "I just wanted your last memories of her to be good ones."
His father nodded. "I know, kiddo. I know."
There was definitely a sniff from the werewolf onlookers. Stiles sent them a glare. In hindsight, it was amazingly effective, as he was still covered in his own blood.
John didn't even bother turning to the exorcist. "For the last time, let my son out."
The exorcist sputtered. It was Chris who knelt on the floor and lifted up the rubber entry mat, revealing the edge of a spray-painted sigil. He unsheathed the knife from his boot and scraped a line in the paint. Stiles could feel the effect immediately, like the first breath of fresh air after opening a window in a stuffy room. He ran to his father's arms, hugging him tightly, his father holding on just as hard.
"I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner," Stiles said into his father's neck.
His father rubbed his hand over Stiles's back soothingly, like he did countless times before when Stiles was upset or needing comfort, or just to show he was proud of him. "I don't think I would have believed you anyway."
Stiles laughed. It was probably true.
Chris dragged the irate and increasingly homicidal exorcist away from the group. Stiles was pretty sure he'd probably have to deal with that guy later, but decided that he could worry about that at some other time. Now he was faced with three concerned wolves and one curious banshee.
“You’re a demon?”
“You’re a demon?”
“Why didn’t you tell us?”
“But seriously, though, demon?!”
Before he could really start answering them, though, his dad nudged him softly in the shoulder. “We should check on Allison.”
Everyone nodded in agreement, even Stiles, who only just remembered the whole reason for this mess.
Turns out that Allison was being held in the Sheriff’s department’s newly installed supernaturally secure holding cell, strapped to a chair and surrounded by a truly impressive variety of glyphs and sigils. The exorcist knew what he was doing, even if he was a dick. He had sussed out that Allison was being possessed by no ordinary demon, but hadn't quite gotten the thing out of her.
Stiles decided to wait outside the door while the exorcist did his thing. No one gave him a second thought for wanting so. He watched through the little viewing window instead as the exorcist did some pretty amazing chanting and spell work, complete with bloodletting and burning of thickly smoking herbs and all sorts of hullabaloo that Stiles didn’t usually get to see, what with usually being the one strapped to the chair.
Allison writhed and screamed, but after a few heart-wrenching moments and some long-winded chanting—not to mention a truly gross amount of vomit and other bodily fluids--Allison was back to normal. Her father rushed to her side, the exorcist popped his back, and everyone was happy. She looked up weakly, and Stiles caught her gaze, giving her a thumbs up. She snorted back at him, but she looked amused.
Everything revolved around caring for Allison for a while—not that Stiles minded in the least. The wolves were eager to touch and reassure themselves that she was unharmed. They eventually got her out of the restraints on the chair.
If Allison wondered why Stiles remained outside the door while everyone else was inside, she didn’t seem to make indication of it. Stiles figured they’d get everything between them hashed out later. For now, he was just glad to have Allison back.
--
Sure enough, the questions came in earnest later. It started with Scott, which wasn’t surprising, and Lydia, who he wasn’t expecting to actually show up at his house. Scott showed up first, arriving early the next morning before school, a bag of donuts in his hand.
Stiles took one look at the bag and its friendly logo and shook his head. “My dad can’t have any of those.”
“I know.” Scott at least looked a little sheepish. “Can we talk?”
They brought the bag with them up to Stiles’s room, where Stiles flopped down on the foot of his bed while Scott took his desk chair more sedately. The bag he left on Stiles’s desk.
Stiles waited for Scott to start speaking until he couldn’t stand the silence anymore. “You wanted to talk?” He tried to keep from fidgeting his knee.
Scott shrugged, looking sad and lost and puppyish all at once. “Why did you never tell me?”
Ah. Stiles took a breath. “I, um. I didn’t think you would believe me.”
Scott gave him a disbelieving look. By the tilt of his eyebrow, Stiles knew Scott was reminding him of the whole “werewolf” fact.
Stiles rolled his eyes at Scott. “You were only bitten last year, dude.” He sighed. “And after, if you believed me, I wasn’t sure if you’d still want to, you know.”
Scott cocked his other eyebrow at Stiles.
“I didn’t know if you’d still want to be my friend,” Stiles said, the words sounded childish and stilted in his own ears.
But Scott just smiled at him, the “everything is going to be okay” smile. “Dude, I’ll always want to be your friend.”
“Even though I’m evil?”
“You’re not evil.”
Stiles waved his hands over himself. “Dude, kind of the definition of evil here.”
Scott rolled his eyes. “You’re not evil,” he reiterated. “Harris is evil.”
Stiles blinked. “Oh. True.”
Scott grinned and held out his arms. “Hug, bro?”
Stiles practically flung himself into Scott’s arms. Scott laughed, holding onto him tightly as the force of his momentum spun the desk chair—and them—in circles.
And, because Scott is an awesome bro, he helped Stiles eat every single one of those donuts to hide their existence from his father. And they were delicious.
Lydia appeared at his doorstep in the afternoon. He may have ogled slightly, but mostly because her calm and poised presence after avoiding him in the halls all day completely confused him. He let her inside without comment.
It turns out that she was just gathering her questions, presenting him with a neat and ordered list, starting with what demons were, and going on to ask how did they operate, what was the structure of Hell, what attributes did they have versus regular humans and/or other supernatural creatures… Stiles ended up having to set a standing weekly appointment with her to try to answer all of her questions. Frankly, he liked her thirst for knowledge the best of all her features.
His dad didn’t seem to have any questions other than “How do you make your eyes go like that?”
Stiles blinked. “Um, like that?”
John nodded. Stiles shrugged. He just did. It was like blinking. He blinked. Boom. Demon eyeballs.
His dad still came back to that question every now and again. Stiles still didn’t have a better answer for him.
Derek, though, was the most surprising. He cornered Stiles one day after school by slipping into the passenger seat of his Jeep.
"I always thought you smelled a bit like sulfur," Derek started. He raised an eyebrow at Stiles in silent defiance of standard human greeting practices.
Stiles raised an eyebrow back. "And you didn't tell anyone?"
Derek shrugged. "I thought they knew."
"That I was a demon?” Stiles laughed. “I’m a bit better at keeping that kind of information to myself than you may think.” He glanced at Derek, squinting his eyes at him. “How did you know, though?”
Derek listed off his fingers. "You’re amazingly accepting of the supernatural, even in the beginning; your first solution is always violence; you think dead bodies are cool; and you’re crafty. And the sulfur." Derek folded his arms across his chest. "But when you didn't do anything nefarious, I thought you were safe."
Stiles snorted. “You thought I was safe?”
Derek shrugged. “You were dedicated to keeping your dad and Scott safe.”
Stiles hummed in agreement. “True.” He’d do anything to keep Scott and his dad safe. Anything.
“You kept me safe, too,” Derek added softly, his gaze firmly fixed somewhere on his own knees. “Why?”
“Because,” Stiles answered, and stopped. He really didn’t have much of an answer past ‘because.’ He frowned at himself.
Derek gave him an incredulous look and Stiles found himself blushing. Goddamnit. Goddamn everything.
“Because you’re tenacious.” Stiles decided finally. He looked at Derek, daring him to respond. Derek just stared back, silent. Stiles huffed and rolled his eyes. “It’s true.”
They shared another long moment of awkward silence. Derek stared down at his lap, frowning. Stiles turned back to watch the students get into their cars or catch their rides or bus, free from school for another day.
“Have you ever killed anyone?” Derek blurted out. Stiles whipped his head around so quickly he may have given himself whiplash. It’d heal, though. (His body may not heal as quickly as a werewolf’s, but he wasn’t without his own brand of supernatural factors.)
“Where did that come from?”
Derek had the unmitigated gall to blush.
When no other answer was forthcoming, Stiles sighed. “In this body? No. Not directly.” He scratched the tip of his nose.
Derek sighed and nodded, small little movements, barely noticeable if Stiles hadn’t been watching him intently. He had no idea what that was about. Would it really even matter if he had? Scott, sure, he knew why Scott would care about something like that, but Derek? Besides, Derek had dated at least two murderers that Stiles was aware—who knows how many more when he lived in New York—
“What? You only attracted to people that kill other people, is that it?” Stiles laughed at his own joke.
Derek pinned him with a glare that actually managed to scare Stiles a bit.
“Oh my god, I was joking—but you don’t, right? Only like murderers?”
“No,” Derek declared hotly, and the tips of his ears were red. Stiles actually thought they looked kind of cute. Hell, Derek’s whole everything was kind of cute.
“I think you do!” Stiles crowed. He laughed again. “You have a thing for evil.”
“I do not.”
Ignoring Derek’s protests, Stiles started up the Jeep. He twisted his head over his shoulder so he could back up out of his spot in the parking lot. “You do,” he sing-songed. “You like evil and I am evil and now you like me.”
Derek rolled his eyes so hard his head swiveled in a loop. “Oh my god.”
“Not God, baby,” Stiles needled with glee. “Demon. The devil. El Diablo.”
“I regret everything.”
“Honey, I haven’t even gotten started yet.” Stiles pulled out onto the main road, merging in with the rest of traffic. There were so many things he could do now, wanted to do now. And not just with Derek, (although this most recent revelation has certainly spiked his imagination), but with everyone. His dad, Scott, Allison, Lydia… Things were so much better now that they knew. Hell, his love of puns and evil cackling was looked at with fondness instead of derision now—that alone was worth it.
He turned to Derek and grinned with all his teeth. Yeah, things were definitely looking up.
END