Peter will never admit it.
It's not that he can't.
He can do anything he sets his mind to; he's proved that a hundred times over.
No, he merely chooses not to.
It doesn't fit with the reputation he's earned, the bullet-proof façade of 'can't-touch-me' that he wears like a Kevlar vest.
So he won't admit it.
Doesn't admit it.
At least to anyone else.
Doesn't admit that ever since the fire, even when he was burning up with hatred and completely mad, all he really wanted, the driving force at the very core of his instincts, was just to be safe. To be cared for. To build a pack was to build a home, to build safety, and through the haze of ashy smoke and sickness that had cut through like a Beacon, piercing through the fog of his thoughts and pushing his wolf forward, biting and slashing with miscalculated abandon.
He called himself the Alpha, that much was true - still did sometimes in fact. He'd fought for that power and wore it with pride, but in his heart he knew - as much as he wanted it to be, it wasn't really meant for him. There were two ways to be Alpha, two ways to use it, but only one of them was right, only one of them was meant. Either you were an Alpha because you took the power and you used the power, became the power, or you were given the power and then gave it away again, used it for your pack instead of for yourself.
Peter was not the latter.
Wasn't meant to be who he wished he was.
Strange then that the happiest time in his life, the best times he could remember were when he'd been a part of a pack, a beta beneath his mother and then later his sister, safe within his family and his role. Yes, it was true he'd often rebelled, pulled pranks and pulled rank, skulked around his Alphas' orders, but in the end he'd been safe, safe under their commands, stable under their guidance and protection.
At least he thought he'd been.
Thought he'd been safe.
Maybe even happy.
His memory was understandably hazy.
And things were different now.
He was harder, sharper, darker, even more dangerous and even more deadly - though back then he wouldn't have thought that possible. His plotting and tricks had turned wicked, malicious even, and the things that were expected of him, though in a way eerily similar to what had been expected of him then, were all much darker too.
And in a way, that worked in his favor.
Because this, this was dark. Unexpected. Deviant.
So he could make it make sense if he had to, force it into a mold that fit even if it broke off corners and wore at the edges.
Luckily he felt no such compulsion for his own peace of mind; he was content with who and what he was. Or at the very least he appeared unable to summon the emotion it took to care. He enjoyed the act in and of itself, for himself, and that was what mattered.
But others… that was different.
He'd made himself dangerous - unstoppable - and he'd done it for a reason. It was a façade he maintained meticulously, putting in immense amounts of time being mysterious in his comings and goings, always having an ulterior motive and an escape route, keeping up the sass and snark while keeping his claws and teeth sharp.
He had no intention of letting anything create an illusion of weakness in him, so he kept that bit of himself contained, until the situation arose in which it seemed far more beneficial for him to share it.
XXX
Stiles had always thought he knew what it was to be cold.
To be jittery.
To be out of control.
He lived in California but he always wore layers, one of which was often a thermal, long-sleeved undershirt.
He had ADHD, and he often forgot to take his medication, making him twitchy and restless, desperate to move fast and hard.
He was the son of the Sheriff, his father's image and authority a constant shadow at the back of his mind, a rather tangential mind housed inside a teenage body that he'd never felt he'd quite grown into, all long, lanky limbs that moved jerkily and often sent him tripping over his own feet.
He thought he knew, but it was a childish belief.
These weren't things that you could just know, these were things that you had to be taught.
Usually painfully and at a heavy price.
Stiles had paid that price.
His possession by the Nogitsune had taken him to places that he'd never wanted to go, places he hadn't realized it was possible to go. Or at least possible to come back from.
Stiles had come back, but at what cost he wasn't always sure.
Some days he felt fine, almost like his old self, all smiles and sarcasm and easy interaction, constant talking and shifting emotions and lots and lots of curly fries. Other days it was different. Other days he could feel the ice water bath in his lungs, puddled up inside his chest, and no matter how many thick hoodies he wore he couldn't shake that cold. He might slip in close to Lydia or Scott, try to share their warmth, but that didn't work either. The cold was inside, and days like that he thought he'd never thaw out.
But it wasn't just the cold that was different.
Some days he felt like he might rattle out of his skin if he didn't do something.
The problem was, he didn't know what.
He took his Ritalin like clockwork now, but the medication only made him feel more trapped. His body calmed. He could sit like stone for hours if he chose, an eerie behaviorism left behind by the thousand year old spirit who'd claimed him, who could wait for decades for what it wanted. Still, still, dead still, with skin like ice just to sweeten the deal. No knee-bouncing, no pencil-chewing or finger-tapping, and it drove him halfway to madness because inside his mind was racing. In a way it felt a lot like a panic attack, only much, much worse, because his body couldn't even hyperventilate in an attempt to save itself.
Instead he just sat, the world still spinning away around him, and as time went on the darkness in his heart seemed to grow, to spread until it began to taint his thoughts.
He had first noticed it when the kid next to him in Chemistry kept rapping his pencil against his knee, absent-minded but harsh on his hearing, making him feel hypersensitive and tingly, like he could actually feel the sound rasping over his skin. Easy, so easy to make that sound stop. To just lash out a hand, strike fast and hard, snap that thin, fragile wrist, crush it under his fingers…
Stiles had blinked himself out of that daydream with his heart pounding, rushed out of class with his mouth as dry as sand. He'd tried to shake it off, tell himself that it was understandable - he'd been possessed by a murderous demon-spirit for a good bit there; of course there was going to be a few side effects for a while.
But they didn't stop.
The need he felt, the tingle in his fingertips, it grew and twisted inside of him, honing itself down until it was clear, defined, perfect. A shining shard of mirrored glass that cut at his soft insides.
Control.
He wanted it, needed it, needed it to function, to breathe. Himself, his world, his whole environment, he wanted to control it. Under possession he'd lost everything, every right to move or do or say, and he still wasn't sure if he felt like he'd gotten that back.
It made sense that he wanted to take control of his own body and mind back. That was natural, right. He was ok with that.
It was the other that was worrying him.
The darkness.
The Void.
The violence and anger and rage that was bubbling up with it, got all twisted together and confused.
That's what worried him.
Strange, he almost didn't care that it was there. He wasn't the same Stiles anymore, and with all he'd been through it was no surprise that violence had become a part of his makeup. When the desire to hurt someone came over him, when the urge flashed through his mind like a split-second day-dream, there was little guilt associated anymore. Less and less with time in fact. This had been done to him, this dark apathy, and he was almost certain that it was just the shadows of the Nogitsune's presence still inside him, the scars it had left behind. Not his fault, and really nothing he could change.
At best he was resigned to it.
At worst, he thought he might even… welcome it.
Relish it.
The only worry that lurked anymore was that these urges would cause him to lose what he wanted even more than to hurt.
To control.
Just like anything else, he wanted, needed, that iron-clad control.
If he was going to act on it, or if he wasn't, it would be on his terms.