A/N: I thought I'd give you guys a little info on how this story is formatted. This chapter is a prologue, then I'm going to do some canon-compliant stuff in Stiles' POV up until around the end of season 2, and then I'll go into a more AU territory. Sam and Dean won't be around until after the season 2 stuff.
The point of hiding out in an infant's body was so he could take a break from the complicated relations that come with dealing with creatures of Hell. He never imagined that he would end up dealing with something far, far more complicated.
It had all started with the Stilinski woman. She had cried when they told her that her child wasn't going to make it, and her tears had drawn his attention. The infant's soul was gone by the time he entered the room. In the grief that came with the loss, no one noticed when the black cloud filtered in. It was different this time, when he entered the body. He felt a quick but intense pain, but just as soon as it started, it was over and he was in control of the body. He had never possessed a dead body, nor a baby, so he figured it must have just been a product of one or both of these things. The cry that filtered through the melancholy atmosphere of the delivery room startled the nurses and attracted the bloodshot gazes of the man and woman clutching each other on the bed. They both let out a wet sob of joy and renewed their hug with a new fervour as the doctor and nurses rushed to tend to the child.
The woman sobbed as she held him for the first time. He reached his hand up to grab at her face and was rewarded with a muffled sob from the man leaning over her shoulder. She gently lifted the wrapped bundle towards him. The man sniffled and wiped his face on his sleeve before accepting the bundle. He bunched his chubby little hand in the human's shirt as the man rocked back and forth gently. He saw the woman smiling with silent tears running down her cheeks, and something inside him stirred. He decided that it was just a gas bubble.
It was surprisingly simple to act his meat suit's age. It was easy to tune in to the development of its brain, losing himself in the charade. For instance, at four, he tells his parents that he doesn't like his name, and would much rather have a nickname. He instantly regrets his choice of words because his parents look hurt. They exchange a look and his mother asks him what he would rather be called, and he softly mentions that he liked the name that his hair dresser calls him. They smile at that and agree that it is an interesting name, and he feels a lot better about bringing up the subject. Not only did he get what he wanted, but he didn't disappoint his parents with his choice. They only called him by his real name when they were really angry after that. The nickname caught on quickly, until everyone was calling him Stiles.
He realizes that he really shouldn't have cared what his meat suit was called, and that he really shouldn't have cared that his parents were hurt by what he thought of the name. He blames this strange attachment to the Stilinskis on the child's brain's instincts towards its parents. He uses this as an excuse, also, when he begins referring to them as mom and dad, even in his head.
He found it difficult to make friends. The children's instincts were too strong, and they would avoid him. He saw how he made them squirm when he tried to talk to them, so he eventually just gave up on talking to the children at his daycare. He started taking a shovel and pail to make castles to destroy in the sand box. Most children preferred to play on the playground, so he didn't disturbing anyone. Sometimes one of the women who took care of them would come over and try to encourage him to play with the other children, but he refused, telling her simply that he didn't want to play with them. They called home to his parents, telling them he didn't like socializing, and when his parents asked, he told them that he didn't like any of the children.
He didn't like lying to them; He hated that they could tell when he was.
He was transferred to a new daycare a week later. He knew it would be the same thing, and that no matter their good intentions, his parents weren't going to make things better. He kept this belief up until he was playing in the new sandbox and saw from the corner of his eye an overall-clad little boy plop down in the sand next to him. The boy's hair was too long and fell into his eyes, so he even when he pushed it away from his face it would fall back to obstruct his vision again.
"Can I help?" the boy asked. Bright brown eyes stared at him expectantly, reminding Stiles that he had been asked a question.
"Uh, if you want to," he answered, still half expecting the boy to get up and run away screaming. When he didn't, but instead grabbed a handful of sand and started packing it into a small pail, Stiles could do nothing but stare at him still slightly shell-shocked.
When he realized he was the only one working, the boy looked up and crinkled his eyebrows in confusion.
"Am I doing it wrong?" he asked worriedly.
Stiles shook his head and grinned instead, "Nope, you're good."
He continued to marvel at the boy's lack of self preservation instincts as he helped build a moat around the castle.
It wasn't until around the time his body had grown to the age of seven, that he realized he sometimes did things for the humans that weren't strictly necessary. He even did nice things, and did them with the goal to make them smile or to praise him. This was not part of his original plan, and he was positive that if a demon were to catch scent of what he was doing that he would be sent straight back to Hell to spend a few centuries relearning how to "behave properly".
So he tried to ignore his parents, and defy their wishes. This lasted for almost a year, but he tired of the yelling and being confined to his room and came up with a new plan. He could be a good little human son and still do evil. He went back to doing nice things for them and following their orders, but used his powers to give them bad luck. They tripped over toys, slipped on water, broke glasses, and on one occasion, the Stilinski man got into a minor car crash. He felt better about his position because of these things. He wasn't hurting them directly, nor was he compromising himself. His plans, however, were spoiled once again by the Stilinski woman.
He was nine when the bad luck plan finally backfired on him. Looking back he cursed himself for being so petty in the first place. He remembered being on the phone with Scott when his parents came into the kitchen and told him they needed to talk. He had huffed when he had to say goodbye. He turned to his parents, irritated, but they told him to sit down softly, and they sat on either side of him. He remembers his brows furrowing at the solemn atmosphere.
"What's going on? What's wrong?" He had asked, and remembers how his heart began beating faster.
They explained all the testing that had been done, and all the options they had for treatment, but all he could think about was how it was all his fault, and why had he thought the curse was a good idea? He remembers getting angry, yelling at them to stop and to leave him alone. He ran to his room and couldn't stop the angry tears from spilling over. When his mother came in a few minutes later, all he could do was cling to her.
He undid the curse, and while the amount of stubbed toes and destroyed dishes declined dramatically, the one thing he needed to go away didn't.
It was as he sat by his mother's bed in the hospital that he finally classified the strange feeling that stirs inside him. Being a demon for so long had made him forget. He felt - he felt a lot of things. A deep morose feeling curled around his ever-present guilt over what he had caused. He felt affection for the woman whose hand he was holding, the man who had fallen asleep in the chair on the other side of her bed, and for the boy who had let him cry into his shoulder when he found out about Stiles' mother. He also felt defeated, because after two years of trying and failing, he hadn't cured his mother of her illness. Now it was in the last stages and he knew he was unable to help her. His mother had lost all her hair, hair he remembered pulling as a young child and burying his face into when she hugged him.
Once he realized that he could feel, it seemed that he was flooded with so many emotions he felt he was going to burst. It made him wonder what he was like before he had went to hell and had his memories and feelings burned out of his soul.
He slept with his father the night of her death, but the next night he went to his own bed. He had his first panic attack that night. He'd had four more since then.
He stood silently, completely motionless, as the ornate box was lowered into a whole in the ground. He couldn't help glaring at the box. His mother wasn't in there and she wasn't coming back. It didn't matter what the chunk of wood that her meat suit was placed in, he was never going to see her again. There was no way a human like her could ever end up in Hell, and he would never wish that upon her; Even if it meant he could see her again. She would be ruined in a place like that, become like him: a monster destined to destroy everything good in the world. He couldn't even imagine her trying to hurt someone, trying to take their soul for the King of Hell.
Neither him nor his father cried at the burial. They had shed enough every night since her death. His father tried to be strong for him, and all Stiles wanted to do was to curl up in his arms, but he couldn't bring himself to because he knew it was all his fault. He hated himself for killing her, and he hated himself more for caring. He wished he had never heard the woman's broken cries that night in the hospital and that he'd never even thought of taking his stupid meat suit.
A/N: Hello my lovelies. Thank you for getting this far! I can't tell you guys how long this story will be, because it's still an in-progress idea as it is, but this first chapter has been around long enough that I figured I'd just get it out there. Hopefully it will have had enough time to get noticed by the time it gets cooking. Assuming it's good enough for people to want to read it. Urk. Btw, the amount of compassion Stiles has will be explained in a later chapter (probably much later). It will also explain why he has been able to stay on Earth without being detected. Patience my dears, all in good time.