Work Text:
This world is gonna burn, burn burn burn
As long as we’re going down…
Baby you should stick around
Baby you should stick around
It’s always been a taboo. Something that’s only spoken about in hushed whispers among the normal side of society, and not spoken about at all in the darker side of it. The feeling of blood coating your hands, the indescribable rush that came with feeling a heartbeat flutter underneath your palm and then stop entirely, the absolute awe that came in the hush after someone had breathed their last.
Theo loved killing. He loved what it gave him even more.
Power. A sense of control. The spoils and riches of war. He was a quiet killer, subtle, but had started gaining attention in recent years simply because of how prolific he was. Even earned a nickname, “the Big Bad Wolf of Cali”. And with a nickname, came fanboys. He’d lost counts of the number of times he’d had sex in cheap motel rooms with blood still covering his hands and clothes, the very knife that he’d used in his murders still in his hand as it was used for something entirely different instead. Of course, none of his avid fans realized that he was a black widow, and would kill them immediately after he slept with them, but eventually word got out and that stream dried up, and Theo was left to charming people the usual way.
Some people would still seek him out, out of some stupid misplaced thought that they would be different, that they could capture his attention, but never realized that there were few who could do that, and they certainly weren’t one of them. They weren’t even suitable victims, usually, so he never killed them like he killed a target. Always took the proper care and hid their bodies away, rather than displaying them openly like he did with the others. He could kill them whenever, didn’t have to be a new moon like when he killed normally. And didn’t that just send the police into a frenzy? Once a month he got to watch them scurry around, panic as they looked for a new body that wouldn’t appear until the next day.
Mm. Sweet panic. It was even more wonderful to see it in the eyes of his victims, when they realized what was going to happen and realized that they couldn’t do anything to stop it. Then the struggling worsened, or returned in those who’d thought that cooperating would get them free, and Theo reveled in each futile movement that they made, struggling against their bonds in a desperate attempt to get free. He always chose the innocent looking ones, the ones with wide eyes that looked all the prettier with tears in them, with panic making them slick and wet and ready to spill over.
Sloppy beauty was what he aimed for. Boys who were graceful on accident, who had beautiful features but didn’t primp and preen and present themselves that way. Boys who didn’t know they were gorgeous, or who knew and didn’t use it to manipulate and take advantage. He wanted nothing to do with the boys who knew what they were and were cocky about it, the ones who charmed and took advantage with their looks. No, he wanted the clumsy ones, the awkward ones, the ones that couldn’t lie to save their lives.
It was a goddamn blessing when he found Stiles Stilinski.
Perhaps it was a bad idea to return to his ‘old hunting grounds’ so to speak, but he’d never technically hunted in Beacon Hills, simply been raised here, and returning was satisfying a morbid curiosity about how things were turning out for the more normal of his classmates. His first night back was spent in a club that certainly hadn’t been here nine years ago, scoping out the situation in town and seeing if he could recognize anyone simply by how they’d grown up, and that was when he’d spotted Scott McCall.
There was no way that that doofy, sunshiney smile belonged to anyone else, and his suspicions were confirmed when he saw someone who could only be Stiles, judging by how spazzy he was and how closely he followed Scott around, a doe following a puppy, it seemed. Bambi and Thumper. Theo nearly salivated when he saw those big brown fawn eyes, but when he began to dance…oh. Oh. Oh.
It was awful, except when it wasn’t. Except when Stiles’s hips found a rhythm and rolled in time with the music, back arching as he moved them back and forth in an even rhythm that he could barely keep, but kept all the same. When he tossed his head back and exposed the clean line of his throat and that Adam’s apple, the pale expanse of skin that made Theo just want to mark and claim and do awful, terrible things. And those hands–shaking, blood spattered on them, a knife and a “I’m so sorry I didn’t mean to”–and those hips–rolling against his as they both gasped, bloodstained clothes on the floor by the bed–and those lips–Theo’s bloodstained fingers tapping against them, begging for an entrance that was granted as Stiles parted his lips and began to suck–and those Bambi brown eyes, drawing him in, begging him to hurt.
He’d never seen someone before who made him want to sin so much, in every way that he could. Stiles was all grown up and god, had he grown up well. He fit so much into Theo’s type that it really wasn’t fair, as if he’d been made for Theo and Theo alone. And fuck did he want him.
That night, though, it proved impossible to get his attention. Stiles was…busy. Flirting, which was just about the worst thing in the world because all Theo could do was watch with anger roiling in his gut as other people put their hands on Stiles, touched him, caressed him, gathered his attention and held it there. People who weren’t worthy of the weight of that amber gaze, nobodies who had no kills to their name, who couldn’t provide for Stiles the kind of life that Theo could. The kind of attention that Theo could. Special, but ephemeral. Because, of course, he’d have to kill Stiles once he was done with him, that was just how it went, and Stiles couldn’t be an exception. Oh, but what an exception he would be…
It was only when he saw someone drag their teeth across Stiles’s earlobe that he decided to take him. Theo remembered being in a museum once when he was younger and reaching to touch the oil paints in front of him when his father stopped him, telling him he couldn’t touch those. That some things were so beautiful that they couldn’t be touched. He hadn’t liked that explanation then, and he didn’t like it now. If anything was going to be too beautiful to touch, it was Stiles, but Theo had far too big plans for that to stop him. Touch was vital.
By the time he was done with him, his fingerprints would be all over Stiles.
It’s all gonna shift, it’s out of our hands
Babe if you could know, you would hatch a plan
That’s my, that’s my man
It wasn’t hard for Theo, not at all. He’d had so much practice with kidnapping victims that even though Stiles was something of an insomniac, it really wasn’t hard for Theo to find an opening, find an easy way to get him out of his room and, eventually, to the cheap motel room that Theo was inhabiting this time around, the kind of place with owners that wouldn’t ask any questions of him. Also the kind of place that couldn’t be trusted to not give him up to the police if they found out, but he would have to push the boundaries pretty far, pretty blatantly for it to get that far. What happened in the privacy of the room stayed in the room.
And in this case, what was in the room was a beautiful boy who was tied to the bed, hands above his head with the rope looped through and around the headboard to hold his hands in place, his legs spread and tied to opposite bed posts, dressed in his sweatpants and t shirt that he’d been wearing to sleep. This motel had a ‘fairytale’ theme, trying to pass itself off as a destination rather than the paltry way-station for truck drivers and maniacs suffering from insomnia that it really was, and each bed had a canopy that was made out of rather moth eaten gauze in pastel colors. His particular room had a lavender theme, and lying like that, surrounded by lilac sheets and with the gauze drawn shut around the bed, Stiles truly did look like a fairytale princess, lost in an eternal slumber to be awoken with a kiss. Theo had to admit that he enjoyed the idea of kissing Stiles awake, of being the one to lift the spell. But the kiss of death would do just as well.
He was in the bathroom when Stiles woke up, but he could hear him jerking and panicking on the bed, the metal bedframe jolting and creaking with each movement, and slowly finished up what he was doing, turning off the bath water and testing the temperature with his hand. Still too hot. Good, he had some time then. He came back into the room, stripped down to just his jeans, everything else already off in preparation, and Stiles stilled when he saw him, those big brown eyes moving rapidly to take him in, calculating. Determining that no, Theo was not here to save him. Theo was the threat right now.
“Good morning, Sleeping Beauty,” Theo said with a slight smirk on his lips as he moved aside the gauze curtain with his hand, moving to sit on the edge of the bed by Stiles. Stiles was breathing hard through his nose, his mouth covered with duct tape, and Theo smiled upon seeing those eyes wide awake, and most importantly, focused on him. No one else around to disrupt this moment, to take Stiles’s attention away from Theo. It was obvious that every single fiber of Stiles’s tense being was focused on him right now, and Theo was reveling in it. God did it feel good.
He studied Stiles for a moment, who had questions clear in his eyes, but Theo wasn’t about to answer any of them. Instead, he smiled once more and got up again, beginning to shed his jeans as he walked back towards the bathroom, stepping out of them and shedding his underwear just as he reached the door to the bathroom and stepped in, out of sight. He left the door open so he could listen to the sound of Stiles’s struggles, which renewed the second Stiles realized he wasn’t coming back. Probably when he heard the sound of the water as Theo slipped into his bath, determined to relax and wash off the grime from traveling through the night as well as several states with Stiles passed out in the back of the car, drugged just to be sure that he wouldn’t wake up prematurely. Theo knew what he was doing by this point, and if he made a mistake, it wasn’t going to be like that. And with Stiles especially, he couldn’t afford any mistakes.
It was honestly kind of funny to hear Stiles struggling in the next room over, and Theo smiled to himself as he slowly washed, enjoying his time in the hot water. Stiles was a smart kid, he had to have already figured out that Theo wasn’t trying to harvest his organs or something, or they’d already be gone and Stiles would be the one in the tub, waking up covered in ice. So he’d have moved on from there to other possibilities as to why he was there, and who Theo was. Theo didn’t have any fear in showing Stiles his face, because Stiles wasn’t going to live long enough to escape and tell anyone what Theo looked like. Not that he was going to be able to escape anyway, not while Theo was around. Not when he was so experienced with this.
By the time Theo was about halfway done with his bath, the sounds of struggling had stopped, Stiles evidently having worn himself out and now taking a break, or perhaps he’d simply given up for the time being, knowing that he wasn’t going to get anywhere with how carefully those ropes were done. Theo didn’t use handcuffs as a rule because if he could get out of them, anyone could, and it was easier to ensure that no accidents happened if you did the bindings yourself. So rope it was, and Stiles was sure to have some delightful rope burns developing on his wrists and ankles from those restraints. The thought of the contrast between pure pale skin and the rose red of the rope burns caused something hot to coil in his gut, and he smiled as he slowly scrubbed himself down, then sank below the surface of the water, air sinking out of his lungs as he went under.
If we’re gonna die, bury us alive
If they’re searching for us they’ll find us side by side
That’s my, that’s my man
“If you scream, I won’t hesitate to hurt you, understand?” Theo asked calmly, evenly as he looked down at Stiles, feeling much more relaxed after his bath, freshly dried off and dressed. Immediately after he was done and dressed, he’d left, leaving Stiles by himself as he went out to get some food, now sitting on the nightstand by them as he sat by Stiles on the bed. It was always rewarding, in a way, to see the hope that his victims had when he left them alone, and then the absolute despair that they met him with when he came back and they hadn’t managed to escape. Stiles was better at hiding it than most, but it was there all the same, and Theo basked in it a bit as he went about his business before approaching Stiles.
Stiles, who was now looking at him with an intense focus in his eyes, and Theo just knew that he was going to misbehave the moment that tape came off of his mouth. Which was why when he pulled off the tape and Stiles gathered his air to yell, barely even getting a noise out, he was prepared, lashing out to grab a hold of his throat, instantly cutting off his air supply. And suddenly Stiles was gasping, mouth open almost comically wide as he tried to take in as much air as possible, hands automatically yanking at his bindings in a desperate attempt to pull himself free and stop the attack.
Or rather, what he perceived as an attack, considering that Theo wasn’t going to hurt him, was merely warning him as to what would happen if he chose to go down that venue again. After a minute, he squeezed Stiles’s throat slightly harder, really cutting off his air rather than mostly cutting it off as he had before, and then released him entirely, letting him gasp as he needed to to regain his breath.
“I did warn you,” he said calmly, and Stiles shot him a glare, something defiant in his gaze that tickled Theo in just the right way. He liked them with a little bit of fight left, but it wouldn’t be there by the end of this. This only ended with one of them dead.
He picked up the bag of food on the nightstand, shaking it slightly to draw Stiles’s attention. “Hungry?” he asked, and Stiles didn’t do anything to indicate an answer, simply looking at him. “You must be, after spending all that time and energy to get free. How did it feel to realize that you’re trapped? That you’re here with me, for as long as I say so?”
Still silence, and that was no fun, but to be expected. It seemed that Stiles hadn’t changed that much since Theo knew him, was still as disobedient as he’d always been, always looking for a way to bend the rules unless he had to make them break. Funny, how Theo had changed so much in so many ways, and when it came right down to it, Stiles seemed to be the same. Aside from the fact that he was an adult now, all grown up with a body to match that could bring prettier boys to their knees without him having to try very hard. And Theo had already seen that in action once, and the very memory made his jaw clench tight, anger pulsing through him at the reminder of Stiles gyrating against the other teens there, giving them attention and affection and everything that they absolutely didn’t deserve from him. Not now, not ever.
But, he reminded himself as his jaw slowly loosened, unclenching again, none of them had him now, and he smiled at Stiles, who had watched every minute shift in his expression with keen eyes that Theo was sure were examining him to see what he was up against. What kind of psychopath had taken him. But as Stiles was eventually going to learn, Theo wasn’t a psychopath, far from it. Psychopathy implied that there was something wrong with him, that there was something in his brain, some switch that had been flipped from normal to psychotic and now he went around kidnapping and killing his peers for fun. No, that wasn’t it at all. That wasn’t what he did or why he did it.
“So,” he said conversationally, shaking the bag again. “Food?”
After a pause and a few beats of Theo’s heart as Stiles looked at him with such innocent eyes–oh, did he know how scared he looked?–Stiles nodded, and Theo smiled, opening up the bag of food. Already, this was deviating a bit from his usual MO. Okay. More than a bit. After taking a victim, his turnover rate was a few days at most, and he certainly didn’t feed them. But for some reason…ah, Stiles just got to him in a different way. Made him feel differently than he had about any of his other victims. He felt as if Stiles deserved special treatment, needed to be handled differently because he was so different himself, so different for Theo, and so different from anyone that he’d met so far. Killed so far.
Theo opened up the bag of food, removing a boxed hamburger, then two, and then a large order of fries, flattening the bag out as a tray that he put everything on, arranging it neatly. Some would say obsessively, but Theo didn’t consider himself to be obsessive, not at all. Maybe in the fact that he was careful, particular in the way that he did things and in what victims he chose, but that was about it, and that was understandable, wasn’t it? He needed to be in order to succeed at what he did, in order to get away with it, continue on with his life’s work. Which it really could be considered at this point, considering he wasn’t interested in doing anything else concrete, only working part time jobs when he needed to to make money for these escapades. In the off season, so to speak.
“Which one do you want first?” he asked lightly, like this was a normal conversation and he wasn’t about to hand feed the captive that he’d kidnapped yesterday and had plans to kill within the next few days. No, everything was totally fine, 100% copacetic, and he wanted Stiles to start to feel that way, to lull him into a false sense of security before that final clock struck and he ended the game between the two of them. It was more fun, if they thought they had a fighting chance. And he desperately wanted to see what Stiles looked like in the middle of desperation, what those Bambi eyes would look like when bright with urgency. Oh, he loved his work.
Stiles was gathering himself up to speak, and Theo waited with baited breath, wanting to hear the voice that he hadn’t gotten a chance to hear yet, that it seemed he’d scared away, and rightfully so. Stiles had a reason to be scared, but Theo was going to be so sweet and kind that he would start to believe he was imagining things. That was the plan, at least.
“The burger,” Stiles answered after a moment, voice tremulous and oh so sweet, a pleasant tenor that Theo couldn’t help smirking at, enjoying this altogether too much. This was a high for him.
“Glad to see I didn’t scare that pretty voice away forever,” Theo said, turning his attention to the food as he popped one of the boxes open, pulling out a decent looking burger that at least looked edible, rather than some of the things he’d been forced to eat on the road in the past. Stiles was practically getting spoiled here, honestly; a hot meal and some time to enjoy being alive before Theo took it all away from him. None of his other victims had received this treatment, and Theo did have to wonder what exactly it was about Stiles that made him so special, that made Theo think about possibly–
No. He wasn’t thinking about it, wasn’t going to do it. It wasn’t a possibility. Things would go the way they had to, and that included Stiles getting the same end to his story that every single one of Theo’s other victims did, no matter how he felt about it. And he didn’t feel anything about it.
He was surprised by the sound of Stiles’s voice again, asking, “Is that why you took me?”
He turned to him again, watching him with curious blue eyes, and saw that Stiles was cautiously looking back at him, those doe brown eyes fixed on him. He really was quite the dear, wasn’t he? Or rather, deer. “Is what why I took you?” Theo asked, keeping his voice in that nice soft hush, as if he was approaching a delicate, wild animal and trying to keep it calm. And that was essentially what he was doing, wasn’t it? “Your voice? No, that’s not why.”
Stiles’s eyes remained on his face as he turned away again, grabbing the burger from the box and lifting it to Stiles’s lips, looking at him expectantly. “Open up,” he said with a smirk, and, reluctantly, Stiles parted his lips, his big amber eyes fixed on Theo still, and suddenly Theo was seized with a desire to take such advantage of this situation, take away the food and force Stiles to part his lips for something else entirely. The arousal hit him like a train, full-force and with little warning, and he was getting hard even before he watched Stiles swallow the first bite, Adam’s apple bobbing gently with the motion. This was dangerous. Stiles was dangerous.
It would be fine though. He just had to ignore it. And he did, continuing to slowly feed Stiles, who seemed oblivious to the state that Theo was working himself into, or had rather fallen into with no warning. It just wasn’t being helped by watching Stiles swallow bite after bite, and finally Stiles was finished and Theo picked up the fries instead, beginning to feed Stiles those. And somehow, those were worse.
Probably because when he was taking them from Theo, Stiles’s lips would brush over the tips of Theo’s fingers, a pink tongue occasionally lapping a bit of salt from the pads of Theo’s fingers, and Theo honestly thought that he was going to have a hemorrhage right then and there, and had to stop halfway through on the pretense of getting Stiles to sip some water from a bottle that he’d bought as well. Jesus. Everything that Stiles did was positively sinful, and Theo needed a break. Somehow.
So he finished feeding Stiles–and god he wanted to do that forever, as much of a tease as it was–and then took his own food into the bathroom, eating while sitting on the edge of the tub because he needed to just take a break from Stiles, cool down and remember that enticing as he was, he still had to die. And he would.
The earth breaks, it falls it’s at your feet
I’d find myself swallowed, drowning in your heat
As long as we’re going down…
Baby you should stick around
Baby you should stick around
When he emerged with the knife, that was when the panic set in. Stiles began to violently struggle against his bonds, thrashing on the bed as he said, “No, no no no no please, no–”
That was interesting, Theo hadn’t taken him for the begging type, but it was so sweet to hear those honeyed pleas fall from his lips, and he calmly approached the bed, getting up on it and straddling Stiles’s hips easily as he jerked against the ropes tying him down. “Quiet, quiet, you’ll wake the neighbors, dear,” he said calmly, and Stiles didn’t settle down at all, which was what Theo had been hoping for. He liked the ones with fight in them.
But Stiles straddled the line between fun toy and raging pain in the ass, and after a minute of the pleas getting steadily louder, he pressed the knife to Stiles’s neck, silencing him instantly. Better. Good behavior was a nice reprieve for Theo, something that he needed a balance of to make this whole thing work, honestly. It was a careful, delicate equilibrium.
“I need you to be quiet, Stiles,” he said in that careful madman’s hush. “Just stay quiet, alright?”
Stiles blinked and Theo took that as an answer, seeing how tense he was, coiled tight as if trying to go against every instinct his body was currently having. He removed the knife from Stiles’s neck, gently caressing the spot it’d been in with his fingertips as if to wipe away the memory, and simply watched Stiles for a moment, the brown of his eyes nearly eclipsing the pinpricks of his pupils in his fear. Cute.
He smiled at the sight, finding Stiles’s fear endearing, the same way a kitten was cute when it clung to you out of fear at the vet. Theo almost wished he could be the hero here, rather than the villain, be the one to cut Stiles’s bonds and “save” him. Have Stiles collapse against him in relief, sobbing and shaking and clinging to him with little kitten claws. But that wasn’t what this was about, that wasn’t what was going to happen right now. Right now he needed to hurt Stiles. Prove to himself that he still could, get started on this whole killing process. Tedious as it seemed now.
The tip of the knife lightly touched to Stile’s t-shirt, and Theo watched it as he drew it down the length of Stiles’s chest, Stiles’s breath hitching in his chest, out of fear, Theo was sure. At least, until he reached the hem of Stiles’s shirt and pushed it up with his hand, exposing a swathe of pale skin and lightly toned muscle. Stiles’s pulse jumped underneath his palm, and Theo looked up at his expression, noting something odd; his pupils had expanded.
Oh. Oh, this was beautiful, and he smiled, coming to a realization that nearly had him grinning. “You like this, don’t you?” he asked, and Stiles’s brow furrowed, confusion making an appearance as he looked back at Theo. “You like–” he trailed the knife along the exposed skin of Stiles’s abdomen, goosebumps appearing in its wake “–this.”
Stiles swallowed and Theo knew he had it right, watching as the dark circles of his pupils expanded again, stretching out and taking over his iris bit by bit. Oh, this was just perfect, and Theo laughed, incredulous at his luck. Years of doing this, and he’d just for the first time found a victim that got off on it. Oh, sure, his sycophants had too, but that was different. They weren’t Stiles.
“Oh, if I’d known you were this perfect I would have stuck around longer, Stiles,” he said, chuckling, and Stiles looked confused again, but Theo wasn’t about to explain himself. If Stiles hadn’t realized who he was yet, then that wasn’t his fault. It’d been quite a long time anyway, and they’d both changed so much. Theo had turned into a psychotic killer, and Stiles had turned into someone who got off on knife play. Just perfect.
He adjusted his position, settling onto Stiles’s legs, his own spread out over them, and considered his next move as he lazily trailed the tip of the knife along Stiles’s skin, watching the rise and fall of Stiles’s chest as he simply breathed. God, he was so beautiful. There was an idea there, creeping in from somewhere Theo had been ignoring, and he didn’t brush it back this time, instead focusing on the knife as he thought.
Why couldn’t he keep him? Why couldn’t he keep Stiles for his own, take him as an apprentice of sorts, turn him into a killer and also his partner? They would work well together, of that Theo was sure. And he could see it in Stiles, the potential for more, the killing edge that he would need for this lifestyle. Oh god, he wanted it, he was realizing just now as he thought about it how much he wanted it. It wasn’t like this was out of the blue; he’d been thinking about taking on a partner for a while now, but every candidate that presented themselves was awful, and he usually ended up with no partner and more blood on his hands.
But Stiles…god, it was so tempting. Could he? Could he really take him and make him into what he wanted? He looked down at Stiles, who was looking back up at him with wide eyes, clearly not daring to interrupt the silence because Theo had the flat of the blade pressed against his gut, harmless right now but capable of changing any instant. And Theo needed the time and silence to think, but wanted to watch Stiles while he did it, wanted to keep him underneath him. At his mercy. Yes, he liked having him at his mercy.
Okay. He could do it. He could make Stiles a murderer.
This world is gonna burn, burn burn burn
As long as we’re going down…
Baby you should stick around
Baby you should stick around