Work Text:
Stiles was five when he got his first scar. He was climbing up a tree in the middle of fall and fell off the branch he was sitting on, scratching his forehead on the way down. It ran in a slanted line starting and ending just a short distance from his left eyebrow. It was an ugly patch of skin, pinkish and smooth in a way that felt plastic and unnatural. He tried to get his mom to kiss it the way she did whenever dad had gotten a scrape that marred his skin but when she kissed it, it never went away.
Stiles was six when he got the scar that would hurt him the most. Every now and then he would look at the closed gash across his arm and remember the words his mom screamed at him as she attacked him. The doctors blamed it on the dementia but Stiles was sure there was some truth underlying her words. They were poison filling his mind, the scar on his arm was just an echo of his mother’s words – maybe he was going to kill her.
He was seven when his mother died. The white of the sheets made his mother’s skin look ghastly, it only served to bring out the deep shadows of her sunken face. On her last day, she refused to look at anyone but Stiles. She loathed him, every fibre of her being wanted to kill her son before he took her life – Stiles could see it in her eyes. The glare was unsettling, it made his heart feel tight and breath come in short gasps. With her last breath she whispered, “You are poison. I never wanted you.” her eyes never once leaving her son’s. When the doctors and nurses rushed in they asked if she had said anything to him before she passed he shook his head and walked away with Melissa. The day of his mother’s death was the first time he turned the blade to himself. He watched carefully as red dripped down his milky thighs, his mother’s words replaying in his head. That day he learned that some scars just wouldn’t heal. That day he learned that he didn’t want them to.
It is a few months later when he meets someone who could take his scars away. The boy was a few years older than himself, taller and broader but still only a boy. Stiles had gotten lost in the forest. He hadn’t even remembered how he had gotten there but he had been doing that more often – wandering in the middle of the day. It wasn’t like there was anyone there to stop him. He had only realized he had wandered further than usual when he smelt the crisp scent of leaves and the musky smell of dirt. The further he got the more the trees towered over him, slowly swallowing him until he could barely see. He ran and ran until he fell, scraping his leg against the pebbles that littered the forest floor. It didn’t hurt as much as when his mom had stabbed him, but he could still feel the tears blossoming in his eyes. He cried because he was lost, because he was frustrated, because he was hurting. He didn’t realize anyone was near him until warm arms were encasing his body, rubbing his back and calming him down. The voice was soft like a mother comforting their child. He stopped crying after a while. The person who was holding him pulled away from Stiles to look into his eyes.
They were beautiful, a mixture of colour that Stiles thought could never look good together but fit so perfectly on his face. The boy broke away to look at Stiles’s leg. He gently brushed the pebbles from his knee and Stiles did his best not to start crying again – he was only trying to help. “Will you kiss it better?” Stiles voice felt soft, even to his own ears. He knew it wouldn’t work, dad’s scars hadn’t disappeared ever since mom had died and both mom and dad’s kisses didn’t work for him but he missed the feel of lips brushing against his scars. Maybe he was still hopeful that they would disappear but he knew that wasn’t the case.
The boy looked at him oddly, even now Stiles did not know what that expression was. He still kissed his knee softly, just a brush of his lips and Stiles felt like he couldn’t breathe. Not in the same way as when he watched his mother die but something warm. When he pulled back up there was no marking on his knee, not even traces of blood from where the rocks broke skin. The boy ran his finger across his knee before running off. Stiles shouted after him but he kept running. He still never figured out the boy’s name.
It was late in the night when Stiles made it back home. He walked into an empty house because his dad had taken more shifts after his mom died. He said it was because he needed to support Stiles but he knew his dad couldn’t stay home with him because all he could see was his wife when he looked at him. Stiles was poison. As he brushed the healed skin of his knee he just hoped he hadn’t poisoned the boy from today too. That day, he hid the blade from his view and hoped he wouldn’t pick it up again.
He didn’t go out into the forest the next few months. Melissa had been worried when she had heard about his father’s work schedule and promised to watch over him. In those days, Stiles only had Scott and Scott had Stiles. He would be lying if he was saying Scott only had him but in recent days Scott had been drifting off from the friends he had made to take care of Stiles. Scott was a leader, even with his asthma and skinny stature. He was kind in a way Stiles was not, sincere in a way Stiles had forgotten how to be. When Scott turned on his last friend to play with Stiles he realized he had even poisoned his best friend. He had forgotten all about the boy who kissed his knee and focused on Scott. He had to make it up to him some way.
When Stiles heard about the Hale house fire he ran to the forest. He looped through the trees until he faced the charred remains of what was probably once a beautiful home. The area was surrounded by yellow police tape and the colourful leaves that once painted the ground were muted by ash and burnt chips of wood. He didn’t know what he was looking for when he ran for the house but that night when he brush his fingers across his knees, the scent of smoke and burnt wood filled his nostrils.
Days went on and Stiles was forgetting about the boy in the forest. Melissa had thought they should come together and have dinner. Scott and Stiles, Melissa and John – even though they filled up most of the table it still felt empty. This time when his heart clenched in his chest it wasn’t the feeling of same feeling of warmth that flooded his senses when he met the boy in the woods but akin to the feeling of when he was in his mother’s presence. He didn’t belong, not really.
He was eleven when he learned the reason for healing scars. It meant soulmate. The school had held the information back thinking their minds would be too delicate for the situation. But Stiles thought he was better off knowing. If he knew he would’ve chased the boy, if he knew maybe they would be together. Right now he could only imagine what happened to his soulmate. He assumed this was what he deserved. He wouldn’t get something as precious as a soulmate, the idea was something too good for him. The only tragedy was the fact he had to take so many lives away because he had to be punished. It was in the same year he looked towards his milky wrists and dragged the blade against his arm leaving criss-cross patterns along the length. The blood fell in rivets down his arms and he made sure not to let a single drop fall. His dad could never know.
News of the Hale’s coming back spread around town when he was fifteen. Stiles would be lying if he had said that he hadn’t visited the charred remains of the Hale house every day for hours on end. He wasn’t sure if he was looking to see if his soulmate was alive or if he was dead, either way it had become like a routine for him. He tells Scott they were going to go look for half of a body – Stiles wasn’t sure if he wanted to see it alone. He doesn’t tell him that he’s afraid they’re going to find not only a female body but a male one with it.
They don’t find it. Scott gets caught by something, a werewolf he later learns, that night and even to this day Stiles blames himself for Scott getting bitten. He rakes down his legs that day, cutting over old scars, not deep enough to bleed out but just enough to feel.
It wasn’t until the next night that he finds someone at the Hale House. Stiles told Scott that they were going to go look for his inhaler but that wasn’t the reason. He couldn’t go a day without going back to the house. The crisp of leaves under his feet and the smell of the forest air filled empty gaps that he didn’t remember being there. The man they find there is menacing, at least for that moment he was. Stiles knew he wasn’t his. The man might have the same coloured eyes but where his soulmate was warm, this man was cold. Where his soulmate smiled, this man scowled. Stiles bit his cheek so he wouldn’t cry, he thought about the boy and his family and how it was his fault they had died. While he was poison to some he was the firewood for others. They left the area soon after but Stiles couldn’t erase the metallic taste of blood in his mouth.
His life goes to shit after that. Werewolves, kanimas, and hunters. The hunters were always his favourite. When Gerard beat him black and blue in his basement with Erica and Boyd dangling over him he almost felt alive again. He hadn’t picked up his knife since the supernatural shit storm and he had missed the feeling of the blade against his skin. This was better thought, Stiles deserved so much worse after all. He had killed his mother, taken away Scott’s life and killed not only his soulmate but every member of the boy’s family. This time when his blood filled his mouth it almost tasted sweet.
Scott started to ignore him after that, he assumed it was bound to happen. He was glad Scott was taking his life back even if it made him feel so, so empty. Scott took one look at Allison and didn’t look back. Where she was the sun, Stiles was darkness. She was the elated feeling you had when you saw something you loved, Stiles was the steady thrum of stress and anxiety. He was easy to replace and he was surprised it hadn’t happened sooner.
Stiles took the blade to himself more often than he thought he did if the marks on his arms and legs told him anything. When had just one become two, then four? He stopped counting. It was a miracle that no one had noticed by now. He would’ve assumed that one of the werewolves would have smelt it by now, unless the smell of blood has be ingrained deep within his scent that no one could tell the difference. That, or they didn’t care
He was surprised he had lasted as long as he did, that he hadn’t cracked until the nogitsune took over. Maybe that’s why the nogitsune chose him, because he was so willing to inflict pain – to himself or on others didn’t matter. The thing with being connected to the nogitsune was that it knew what you wanted. It wanted a body and he wanted to die, so it gave Stiles a chance. The blade given to him was bumpy and cold to the touch. This was the chance the nogitsune gave him, he could die while being thought as a hero to his friends. The nogitsune promised to disappear somewhere else and he could do with whatever he wanted in the copy of Stiles’s body. Killing himself was harder than he thought. He couldn’t stop himself from shaking. ‘Coward’ he thought. In the end, he didn’t die. No Allison was the one who died that night. Of course he had to take the sunshine out of so many people’s lives to make room for his darkness.
Why couldn’t any see him for the monster he was? Why couldn’t anyone see” Why wouldn’t anyone save him? Was he worth saving?
The nightmares came soon after they had killed the nogitsune. Reminders of the poison he was to the people in his lives. Scenes of his mother running to attack him, watching the light die in both his mom’s and Allison’s eyes. The sheets were always soaking when he woke up screaming. In the beginning his dad would hold him close and rock him to sleep but after the first week his dad started to take night shifts again. He had to after all, Stiles had killed most of his staff. Even though he knew that there was always a little voice in the back of his mind that told him he didn’t want a fucked up child like Stiles.
He hadn’t slept in four nights. He might’ve gotten a maximum of an hour for all the nights combined and the lack of sleep was taking a toll on him. He stared at himself in the mirror, hands against the counter with his blade laying gently against his fingers. The image starting back at him didn’t look like him. Its face held a greyish tone with deep bags under its eyes so dark they looked like bruises. This night he was woken up by his mother calling to him, not the one on the hospital’s bedside but the one who he knew before she got sick. She needed him by her side now. Even Allison, Boyd and Erica were there, all of them were beckoning him over and Stiles wanted nothing more to be in the embrace of the people he’d lost. The people he drove to their deaths.
He looked down at the blade beside his fingers. It glared back at him. He couldn’t die here, his father wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he found his son dead in the bathroom. It had to look like an accident or they had to find his body without any proof of the cause of death. The forest was the first thing that came to his mind. He would die at the same place his soulmate did, because they should stay together – even in death. Stiles stuck the blade in his pocket and walked.
The forest was a perfect place, it was filled with lush greenery and wildlife that Stiles hadn’t fully come to admire until this day. He assumed by the time anyone went looking for him his body would have been a feeding ground for a group of animals. They wouldn’t be able to see his scars beneath the torn flesh. He knew he couldn’t fuck up. He’s heard about it before, he knew how he had to cut so he would bleed faster and that he had to cut deep enough so that it wouldn’t stop. If he was found before it was too late people would know. And Stiles didn’t want that anymore, not when he had already made his decision.
He walked until he came across the tree he leaned on when he first met his soulmate. He sat down, back pressed towards the bark and held the blade towards his wrist. It was the end for Stiles Stilinski. He was no longer going to be a poison in his loved one’s lives, he just hoped people would understand. This was for the better.
***
Derek knew something was wrong that night. He could feel an unbearable itch under his skin all day, even Lydia was uneasy today. It set the pack on edge. They were all waiting for Stiles to come to the pack meeting, he hadn’t come since the nogitsune took over his body but Scott had assured them that Stiles promised he would come today. They waited ten minutes, then half an hour, then an hour and Stiles still hadn’t arrived. It was hopeless, they knew Stiles would come when he was ready but he wasn’t ready just yet. They were about to start when Lydia screamed. It was shrill and caused all the werewolves to cover their ears. When she stopped she started crying. “Oh my god. Stiles, why?”
“What?” Derek asked. He wrapped his arms around Lydia’s shoulders but he couldn’t calm down. Was Stiles dying?
“We have to get to him before it’s too late.” She breathed out.
“Where is he?” Scott asked.
“The forest.”
They all ran off together, Lydia following slightly behind with her slower pace. It took them two hours to find him and by then it was too late. His body was by a tree, head drooped down towards the side. Scott was the first one to approach him, reaching out for warmth only to be welcomed by cold skin. Scott howled and the others followed. He took Stiles from where he was leaning against the tree into his arms.
Derek looked at the boy beneath him. His skin was pale, stark white against the brown of the forest floor. Scott was crying now, he cradled Stiles’s head like it was his most precious possession. Derek realized everyone was crying – even him. Scott raked his eyes down his arms and looked at the scars that littered the skin. There were so many that Derek had lost count. He didn’t know how anyone didn’t see them – it wasn’t like they were going to disappear, they never did unless your soulmate kissed them goodbye. He wasn’t sure what hurt more, the fact that Stiles was dead or the fact he didn’t notice. He didn’t see the pain that the boy was in. Didn’t know the person he had come to love felt so alone and broken that he had killed himself.
He let him fight alone.
“Will you kiss it better?” Scott asks and Derek feels his heart break at the request. “He liked to ask that all the time.” Scott kissed his wrist twice, “even though he knew it wouldn’t work.” Derek struggled to hear him over his hiccups and laboured breathing. Derek didn’t realize he had lost so much more than a packmate. This, this was the same boy he had met all those years before. His soulmate. Dead. Dead like the rest of his family.
“Let me.” Derek said. He crouched down and took Stiles gently in his arms. So softly, like he was afraid of breaking him. Derek kissed his wrist first, right where the blood was still fresh and watched as the scar faded into perfect skin. The gaps and choked breaths didn’t escape Derek’s ears. He knew what they were thinking. Derek kissed each and every scar he could see until the boy had no scars left on his skin. Derek didn’t think they were a sign of weakness that wasn’t the reason why he made them all go away. The scars were a battle, ones that he faced every day, he just happened to have lost the battle this time. This time there was no rematch thought. Derek only kissed them goodbye because he knew Stiles wouldn’t want his dad to know. So when they brought him to the hospital they lied about the cause of death. Everyone knew Derek had kissed away Stiles’s scars and John had broken down again when he realized Derek had lost his soulmate at the same time he lost his son. When they laid him in his coffin surrounded by wild flowers his skin was devoid of any marks. No one but the pack would ever know about the battles Stiles faced, the ones he won and the final one he lost.