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It started with a whisper.
It started slowly. It was barely noticeable, like the changing shape of a cliff turning into a beach. The constant erosion, never ending, push and pull. Over and over and over again. Until something snapped inside him, like the rock that was barely holding on crashing into the waves. It got swept away never to be found again.
Which is why Stiles was so shocked to see the body at his feet.
But not, like, shocked shocked. Just. Mildly surprised he actually went through with it.
The blood was congealing on his hands and he looked down casually at his red stained by stuff that shouldn’t be on the outside of bodies.
Oh, was all Stiles could think as he was looking down at it.
*_-_*_-_*_-_*_-_*_-_*
When he looks back on it, it started with his mother.
She got sick. Really sick. The kind of sick that doesn’t get better. Her brain was deteriorating and breaking and just… gone. And it took too long before people believe that what was happening to 7 year old Stiles meant that something was wrong with his mother. It took too many bruises and lies and tears before Stiles’ dad with his new Sheriff badge and longer hours noticed something was wrong.
And by then… it was too late.
*_-_*_-_*_-_*_-_*_-_*
He had gotten good at pretending to be normal. And by the time he was almost 17, he had almost convinced himself he felt like the others did. Scott was such a bright thing, such an emotional influence, that most people skipped over Stiles with his too long limbs and fast mouth and focused on the much easier to understand person that is Scott.
It was all going okay, he could pretend so well. He could pretend his respect for Lydia was love. He could pretend he cared about Jackson being a dick. He could pretend that whenever something bad happened to the people bullying Scott that he hadn’t done a thing. He could pretend that he didn’t feel an itch in his very blackened soul to do something very permanent to Mr. Adrian Harris.
He could pretend until he couldn’t anymore.
*_-_*_-_*_-_*_-_*_-_*
Scott got turned.
Stiles wanted to see a dead body, his fascination too much to resist, but he needed a reminder of what he shouldn’t do. So Stiles took Scott with him, to remind him not to play with the body if they found it. And then Scott got his whole life turned upside down.
And Stiles’ mind started to slip.
*_-_*_-_*_-_*_-_*_-_*
There was fighting. There was blood. And there was opportunity to do massive amounts of harm.
He got to plan and then execute the killing of Peter Hale, the known sociopath of Beacon Hills. He got to bring someone to the brink of death and watch as they fell over it.
It was a rush and he wanted to do it over and over again.
But… Scott was there and he couldn’t. He had pretended for so long. For his father to not lose another person. He only truly cared about his father. He was the only tie he had to when he was a child, to when his mother wasn’t sick anymore. He couldn’t, physically couldn’t, do anything that would hurt him. It would break him to where even he couldn’t figure out which piece went where. He had cracks, splinters of himself in the wrong places, but he wasn’t fully broken.
Not yet.
*_-_*_-_*_-_*_-_*_-_*
When more people had to die, Scott didn’t seem to mind when they started dropping around them. Stiles told himself it was okay. It was okay to kill them, or put some manoeuvres and intentions out to have them dead, because it would protect more people. It was okay.
And when Lydia started acting crazy, Stiles noticed because he noticed a lot when he was watching. Watching to learn how to be normal. Watching to make sure no one knew about him. And he reacted as he thought he should react if he was normal and madly in love with her.
When Peter came back… oh, when Peter came back, it was beautiful and perfect. Stiles felt somewhere deep inside him, where only cobwebs and dust had been before. The intelligence, foreplanning and the beauty of his resurrection, destroying everything around him to burn brighter right back to life. It was majestic . It was awe inspiring. It was… perfect.
Stiles was like a moth to the flame and Peter was burning so bright.
*_-_*_-_*_-_*_-_*_-_*
He sniped at Peter. He taunted the man. He was a cruel as he could be, because Peter would take it and take it and then he would give it back. It was fantastic, to let all the vitriol out, to be as cruel as he could be and still know that even if he cracked Peter, he wouldn’t break. Peter was made of flame hardened glass, an elegant twisting masterpiece with sharp edges that cut and made Stiles bleed beautiful blood-tinted pain. It made him want to wrap his arms around him and let Peter cut him to ribbons, just to see if the man could find the darkness underneath his human skin.
He wanted to burn as bright as Peter.
He wanted to make the world burn with them.
*_-_*_-_*_-_*_-_*_-_*
“Stiles.”
“Peter.”
“You’re scaring the kids.”
“Oh.”
*_-_*_-_*_-_*_-_*_-_*
When it came time to rid ( killkillkill ) the next threat to the town, Scott was too busy. So Stiles went instead, baseball bat in hand. When Stiles felt like he was being watched, he kept going. When the creature's’ skull was split, brain leaking onto the dirt of the forest, feeding it, being useful in the end to give life in its death, he finally went still. When he felt the familiar burn of Peter at his back, he felt his mask slip until his eyes were blank.
Peter smiled.
Zdzisław smiled back.
*_-_*_-_*_-_*_-_*_-_*
If you look into the history of his Polish side, you wouldn’t notice the discrepancies. You wouldn’t notice the men dying earlier, the records showing drownings, accidental burnings, suicides or just missing. When Stiles looked, he saw it. He would look at his father and see nothing amiss, but then he’d look at his memories of his mother and feel something inside him burnburnburn until he felt like he would burn everything inside him until he a shell. As Deaton had gotten less subtle about giving him side eyed looks, Stiles… well, Stiles was always a curious person. And Peter was a wonderful enabler.
*_-_*_-_*_-_*_-_*_-_*
Spark.
“I want it to burn.” He would say into the dark, wrapped in the warm of the other.
“Me too.” He would say back, remembering the flames on his skin.
*_-_*_-_*_-_*_-_*_-_*
The Spark was in his mother lineage. It was a darkness born within that should have turned into a Light flame. Something went wrong with Stiles apparently, because his darkness had consumed it and made it an inferno, made the black hole inside him hot enough to be the sun and just as destructive. There was no light to make it good. There was no light to make it sane. There was just enough darkness to burn it all down.
*_-_*_-_*_-_*_-_*_-_*
When Stiles looked down at the body at his feet, he was interested because this was supposed to be his best friend. Scotts blood was just as interesting as the last person Stiles had opened up. He had thought there would be something more about it.
Peters arms snaked around his waist, not minding that he was getting blood all over his clothes as well. He looked over Stiles’ shoulder and smiled at the blood on his hands.
“Can we burn it all now?”
Zdzisław breathed in the coppery air, relaxing against the only thing that burned as bright as him.
“Yeah, I’m sick of this town.”