Chapter Text
Stiles Stilinski’s eighteenth birthday did not begin in celebration.
It began with a sound like tearing light.
He woke with a strangled gasp as a burning sensation ripped through his shoulder blades—a sharp, electric pain that dragged him violently out of sleep. His sheets twisted around his legs as he jerked upright, chest heaving.
For one dizzy second he thought it was another nightmare. Beacon Hills had gifted him more than his fair share—dark corridors, dripping fangs, shadows with teeth. Pain wasn’t new. Being thrown, clawed, burned, bitten? Sadly familiar.
But this wasn’t nightmare-pain.
This was real.
Too real.
Stiles gritted his teeth and reached back with trembling fingers. His skin felt fever-hot beneath his palm, throbbing like something inside him was pushing forward, pressing outward, waiting to burst free. Something moved beneath his shirt—shifted, flexed, stretched.
“What the…” he whispered, eyes widening.
His heart thrashed against his ribs like it wanted out.
He shoved the blankets away and swung his legs off the bed, breath coming fast. The room was dark except for the faintest hint of dawn bleeding through the blinds, painting thin gold lines across his desk. Everything looked normal.
But his body—
His body felt anything but.
He staggered to the mirror. His reflection stared back, pale, sleep-ruined, hair sticking out in every possible direction. Nothing abnormal. Nothing monstrous.
Except—
His eyes.
They looked too bright. Like someone had turned up the saturation. Gold threaded through the brown, faint but unmistakable, catching the light whenever he moved.
Before he could lean closer, before he could even think, a soft knock echoed from his bedroom door.
“Stiles?” his father called, voice tired, heavy with something Stiles couldn’t place. “You awake?”
Stiles flinched like he’d been caught doing something wrong.
“Uh—yeah!” His voice cracked embarrassingly. “Just—give me a sec!”
He tore himself away from the mirror and grabbed the nearest hoodie—the big, soft navy one that had seen better days. Shrugging it on hurt. The fabric stretched against whatever was beneath his skin, but he ignored it. He had to. He didn’t have any other choice.
He was still trying to regulate his breathing when the door opened anyway.
Noah Stilinski stepped inside. He looked older than yesterday, eyes weighted by something Stiles didn’t understand. He held a small box in his hand, something wrapped neatly in faded birthday paper.
“Happy birthday,” Noah said softly.
And Stiles froze.
His birthday.
He’d completely forgotten. Of course he had. With pain and nightmares and that weird glowing-eye thing happening—birthdays weren’t exactly top priority.
“Right,” Stiles muttered, rubbing the back of his neck. “Thanks.”
But Noah didn’t smile. Not really. Instead he hovered, fingers tightening around the box before setting it down on the dresser. He seemed… nervous. Almost scared.
“Stiles,” Noah began, voice gentler than usual, “we need to talk.”
Stiles blinked.
Call it intuition. Call it too many supernatural disasters. Call it Beacon Hills trauma conditioning.
Whatever it was, every alarm inside him went off at once.
“Am I in trouble?” Stiles asked automatically, because habit.
“No.” Noah exhaled shakily. “But you may want to sit down.”
That was—no. Absolutely not.
“Yeah that’s not ominous at all,” Stiles muttered, remaining stubbornly standing.
Noah ran a hand through his thinning hair. He looked like a man preparing to do something he’d dreaded for a long, long time.
“There’s… something about your mother I never told you.”
Stiles’ blood turned to ice.
“My mom?” His voice barely came out. “Dad, what—”
The burning in his back sharpened so suddenly he gasped. His knees nearly buckled. He grabbed the edge of the desk for support.
And then—
Something pushed through the fabric of his hoodie.
Something big.
Something alive.
Stiles choked on a breath as white, glowing shapes tore through the material like it wasn’t even there, shredding cloth and filling the room with blinding light.
“Stiles—listen to me—!” Noah tried to move toward him.
But Stiles screamed.
Wings—
They were wings.
Huge, blinding, glowing wings unfurled behind him like shards of dawn made solid. They stretched until they touched his posters, until they cast sharp-edged shadows along the walls. They hummed with some kind of energy, each feather shimmering like living fire.
“What—WHAT THE HELL—DAD—WHAT—” Stiles panicked, arms flailing, knocking over his lamp, nearly tripping on his own feet.
“Stiles, calm down!” Noah grabbed his shoulders, voice steady but desperate. “They’ll retract if you calm down! You have to breathe!”
“HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO CALM DOWN WHEN—WHEN—” Stiles pointed behind him wildly, voice climbing to a pitch he didn’t know he could reach, “—THAT is happening?!”
Noah didn’t answer. Instead, he tightened his grip and pulled Stiles into a grounding embrace—not to restrain him, but to steady him.
“Just breathe with me,” he murmured. “In and out. Come on, kiddo.”
It took a while.
Too long.
But eventually, Stiles’ breathing stopped hitching. The wings flickered, shimmered, then folded inward—slowly, painfully—before dissolving into threads of light that sank back beneath his skin.
The room dimmed.
Stiles collapsed onto the bed, shaking uncontrollably.
“Dad,” he whispered hoarsely, “what’s… what’s wrong with me?”
Noah knelt beside him, the worry in his eyes almost unbearable.
“Nothing is wrong with you,” he said firmly. “This… this is what you are.”
Stiles stared, heart stuttering in his chest.
“Your mother wasn’t human, Stiles.”
A pause.
“She was an angel.”
The world tilted.
Stiles blinked at him, throat closing. “My mom… was an angel?”
Noah nodded, regret bleeding through every line of his face.
“And you,” he continued softly, “are a Nephilim.”
Stiles didn’t remember standing.
Didn’t remember getting dressed again or grabbing his backpack.
He just remembered air—cold, sharp—hitting his face as he fled down the stairs.
“Stiles!” Noah called after him, voice cracking. “There’s more I need to tell you!”
But Stiles couldn’t hear anything past the roaring in his ears.
Wings.
Angels.
His mother.
Him.
He stumbled down the porch steps, heartbeat too loud, lungs too tight.
“I—I can’t,” he managed. “Not right now.”
And then he ran.
He didn’t care where. He just needed distance, space, air.
Today was his eighteenth birthday.
Today he was supposed to be normal.
But nothing about Stiles Stilinski would ever be normal again.