AN – I got inspired by a prompt that I found on Pinterest "Everyone is born with blond hair. A person's hair turns brown when they lose their innocence." And the idea struck me for the idea to look at the way this might be reflected by in Stiles' life. As usual I own none of the material, neither the prompt or the fandom belongs to me. Enjoy xx
Everyone is born with blond hair. A person's hair turns brown when they lose their innocence. Stiles can barely remember having blond hair, it had started darkening when his mother was diagnosed. Stiles thinks it was sheer force of will that kept his hair as light as it was when his mother was still alive. Based on his father's memory and the few pictures from that age Stiles thinks his hair was best described as dirty blond. The awareness of his mother's gradual decline in health had seen a slight darkening but it had mostly changed the day after her death. That's when he first noticed it had darkened.
Stiles had retreated to his room after his mother had died and woke the next day to catch a look at himself in the mirror. His hair had been darker, dirty blond, he'd heard about this happening. Knew that it happened but to see it affecting him was another thing entirely.
The loss of his mother and the darkening of his hair had only been the start. The next thing that had seen his hair a shade darker and his wilful stubbornness slip, had been the growing dependency his dad had had to alcohol. The anger and depression his father had suffered had seen him taking care of himself much more than he ever had before. He'd quickly learned the quickest route to school for those days when he had to get himself to school or when he overslept and missed the bus.
Those days had seen his dirty blond hair slip into a honey brown. He remembered the day it had all changed. He'd been 13 when his father had come down stairs for breakfast and had stopped and watched Stiles at the breakfast counter. Tall and lanky his honey brown hair had grown out in recent months because he hadn't had time to go to the barber, it was suddenly becoming apparent to his father just how bad the last few years had been.
The dull honey brown of Stiles hair showed the physical affect that Noah's drinking had had on his remaining family. That had been the instigator, the moment when it had hit Noah and the turning point in his reliance on whiskey. But that wouldn't change the colour of Stiles' hair. It wouldn't reverse the innocence that had been lost.
One couldn't simply gain innocence back.
It had been the point of which things had started going up, things had drastically improved from there. Stiles had got his father back and as things improved so did the shine in his hair, the life had been breathed back into not only Stiles but Noah as well. The Stilinski family was finally healing.
The addition and help given by Mama McCall and Scott had been invaluable to putting the family back together and things had only improved as the years went by, Stiles maintained good grades – though his ADHD acted up on occasion – and even joined the lacrosse team.
Naturally Stiles' luck was bound to run out, and not in a small way. In the huge, enormous 'my best friend got bitten by an alpha werewolf and I feel like I'm in an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer' kind of way. He had swiftly returned to cutting his hair short again, his dad wasn't clouded by the drinking to not notice the affect that being plunged into the supernatural world was having on his hair colour and therefore his innocence.
Then again given that he had transitioned to solid brown now, he supposed it was better to say lack of innocence than anything else.
It was the forced explanation of the supernatural that had done the most damage. The lack of belief his father had shown in him whilst understandable had still hurt a lot. Throwing that his mother would have believed Stiles back at his father may have been unnecessary but he had been hurting and worried. His father didn't understand, he didn't get that being important to Stiles was now putting him directly in the line of fire. He was all Stiles had left and if he lost his father. He couldn't even comprehend what he would do.
Then having his father kidnapped by the darach had pushed him over the edge. Luckily, he and the pack had managed to get Chris, Melissa and his father back safely and had dealt with not only the darach but the alpha pack as well. That had been the final push though, the loss of the final piece of innocence. The sacrifice he had made in place of his father had torn it away and replaced it with a shadow and instigated many other things that would have an even deeper effect on Stiles but that was neither here nor there. The impact that the darach had had on himself and the rest of his pack would never be reversed. They would forever be reminded of the events that had taken place and they would never get rid of the damage the darach had inflicted.
Nothing had been the same after that.
His hair was finally dark brown.
He had no innocence left.