Title: Amber Eyes

Author: WildRosa13474

Summary: Part 1 of the Identity Crisis series. AU. Stiles had it all planned out. His reincarnation was not in that plan.

A/N Warning: child abuse.

At the age of two, finally deciding his language and motor skills have developed enough, he attempts to run away from the highly abusive woman- not his mother, she will never be his mother- whom he's living with.

As he's sneaking as best as he can out of the back door of the small, filthy apartment, stolen gloves on as to not attract attention to his demonic arm, Stiles happens to glance back and see them woman fueling his nightmares for two years watching him from the bedroom window, a furious shine in her hazel eyes.

He bolts for it.

He doesn't get far. He's still a preschooler, he isn't designed to run for his life.

She drags him back silently, not even getting a second glance from the few passerbys. This happens all the time, after all, kids throwing tantrums and getting away from their mothers.

Stiles isn't bitter. Okay, maybe a bit. He'd known what it was like to have a loving mother and a caring father, and in some part of his heart, he still wishes Bea would be like that.

Bea, his 'mother', is ironically a rather pretty woman. Long, wavy dark red hair, gracious curves and hazel eyes which don't suit her personality at all.

Stiles agrees with the saying that evil is beautiful.

When he was about six months old, as far as she knew at least, she began to try to 'beat the evil out of him' every night. Stiles absolutely hates it, he hates her, he hates how he'd forgotten what being loved felt like.

His eyes had gone from baby blue to dark gray, which add to the insults of other, older kids Stiles sometimes sees on the street while scavenging for food. They say his eyes are in the process of becoming black, and his demon eyes will match his demon arm soon.

Stiles had inherited the woman's dark red hair. He hated that too.

On most nights, he lies awake in his sleeping place on the floor and thinks about his family. His pack, his dad. He remembers the times when they only had each other, and everyone came through. Stiles remembers laughing with them, fighting with them, living alongside them. That's what they called him, the boy who runs with wolves. The cheerful one, who raised the park's spirits. The strategizer.

Would they hate what he had become?

He's now a bitter, broken demon. He was beaten to an inch of his life regularly and couldn't fight back. He was weak, useless, and a demon on top.

Would they still accept him like this? Once upon a time he wouldn't have hesitated to say yes. Now, though, he doesn't know anymore. He doesn't know anything anymore.

Finally back at the run-down, shoddy apartment, Stiles gets thrown on the hard wooden floor and gasps in pain as two of his fingers bend at an odd, awkward angle, crushed between Bea's boot and the floor. The door slams and Stiles cringes at the harsh sound.

He'd seen Bea's name on some papers lying around, but had never been told his own name. Maybe Bea hasn't even given him a name yet.

She's yelling insults at him now, punctuation her words with kicks to the side.

Stiles feels numb. He pretends each kick doesn't hurt like hell. He pretends the bitch in front of him isn't supposed to be the one to care for him and love him.

He fails.

The hits are agony, but the fear and hate in Bea's eyes every day hurts him more. He's seen that look before, he seen it in his mom's eyes.

The look she gives him is the one Claudia, his real mom, had given Stiles in the last years of his life. The words she speaks are the words his mom had spoken, once upon a time. Her hazel eyes melt into a pretty chocolate brown.

Her hateful voice and his mom's fearful cries clash together in his mind until they become one.

"You freak!"

("You're a demon!")

"A monster like you belongs in hell!"

("He's trying to kill me!")

He's aware he's being hit, kicked, beat up. It's nothing new, and he's become numb to it- mentally, that is. Physically, he feels it just as clearly as he always has.

Tears of pain pool in Stiles' eyes as he takes a kick to the chest, and gasps involuntarily for the air that was stolen from his lungs. He refuses to let the tears fall.

Dark spots begin appearing in his vision as the mother he never wanted continues to kick and hit Stiles, seemingly taking all her frustration out on him and barely caring about the lesson she was trying to teach him anymore.

"I contemplated letting you run away, Demon, good riddance. But my hard work on you, for years even, deserves at least some gratification." She spat.

As sweet, merciful darkness numbs the pain and engulfs Stiles completely, he hears Bea say one more thing, hate spitting from her words.

"That circus better be happy with another freak."

When Stiles next manages to lift his eyelids, it's to a dark space, a blinding headache and what feels like a few fractured fingers, which is almost enough to drown out the aching of his chest and.. Well, everything. Except the constant loud rumble he's only half sure is his imagination.

The space he's lying in is almost completely dark and he can only make out a few silhouettes in his line of sight, including a few boxes and multiple humanoid shapes, separated from him by a set of bars. He's in a cage?

After a minute, collecting his thoughts and trying to stay awake, Stiles realizes the shaking of his surroundings isn't just the concussion he doubtlessly has, but that the room is actually shaking slightly. He's in a truck of some kind.

Stiles tries to drag himself into a sitting position, and gets halfway before the agony gets to much and he falls down again. Stiles whimpers in pain, but it quickly turns into a hacking cough which racks his body and darkens the cold steel that he's laying on with blood.

An unfamiliar voice shouts at him to be quiet over the roar of the engine and kicks the bars surrounding him, making a loud metallic clang.

Stiles fights the darkness that's about to overcome him. He doesn't know where he is it's dangerous he has to make sure his pack is okay no no no what if they're here with him and being torturedjustlikehewas-

The second time Stiles awakens everything is different.

Bright daylight illuminates the small cage, revealing a dirt road and some grass. There's a murmer of voices behind him and outside the cage, although Stiles doesn't turn to look. They had apparently stopped, for a break maybe.

The headache has died down, his body aches less, and the bruises are tender but barely hurt anymore. Stiles can only be thankful that his body was the most resilient three year old body in England.

"Demon kid!" A rough voice behind him calls. Stiles winces at Bea's nickname for him, shuddering at the reminder of the beating earlier. "You awake yet?"

What had she said again? Something about profiting from her hard work and a circus.. Had she sold him?!

"Don't bother. His consciousness is probably torturing souls in hell right now." Another voice sounds, this one sounding a bit bored.

Had she really sold him? Stiles felt dizzy. It shouldn't have been a surprise, actually. He knows she hated him. He hated her too. So why does he feel so abandoned?

He pushes himself into a sitting position and is immediately and painfully reminded of his fractured fingers.

Stiles hisses in pain and cradles the swollen fingers of his left arm. At least it's his left arm. For some reason, his demon arm seems to heal a lot faster and cleaner than anything else, which is strange because it's paralyzed. Bea had taken it as just another satanic omen, of course.

Stiles decides to worry about it later and looks around, ignoring the aching pain.

There are three men sitting outside the cage, smoking cigarettes. They look big and strong, and are all staring right at Stiles like he's a dog to be put down.

He stares back, taking note of the huge red and white circus tent behind them.

He's been sold to a circus.

Over the next few days, he learns to always obide the ringleader. If he doesn't, there's hell to pay. (If he does, it's limited to just agony.)

One day, sitting under the tree that had been graciously offered as his sleeping place Stiles can't take it anymore. This whole thing, rebirth, his life until now... It's not anything monumental, there's no big realization or an explosion. But that day, the personality that makes Stiles Stiles retreats into the depths of his own mind and doesn't come back out.

In his place there is Red, because they all called him that anyway, clever and too knowledgeable but with none of the emotional trauma Stiles has. Red is a survivor, more fitted to the life of a street rat and with none of Stiles' vulnerabilities.

Red is the fighter Stiles couldn't have been, because what makes Stiles different is his memories of the past, so to survive all Red needs to be is someone who doesn't remember.

Stiles is hidden away deep in his own mind, protected by the mask of Red.

The next morning, receiving his morning greeting in the form of a beating, Red gritted his teeth and cursed the men to death, yelling vulgar insults and lunging at them like a wild animal. He manages to hurt them too- they were so surprised at his sudden change of attitude that they didn't know how to act, until they did. Red nearly died that morning, but he didn't, and he wasn't going to, not as long as he stood up again.

After that, it spread around the crew that trying to beat Red up would get you viciously attacked and mauled, which deterred about half his tormented while the other half hit twice as hard.

Red didn't give a shit. They could abuse him all they wanted, he wasn't going to take it lying down anymore, and he sure as hell was going to return the favor. He'd build walls, and the bastards could go fuck themselves because they were never getting through them.

(never again.)

He wasn't sure why it was, but there was nothing he was more sure about. These people would not be the people who ruined him. After so many broken hearts(he hadn't even seen one yet) and so many years spent fighting(he'd just began) he would not allow these pathetic fuckers to break him.

By the time he was six, Red was a vicious, self learned fighter. Reckless and dangerous, he wasn't a person anyone wanted to be within ten feet of except if they had him tied down and unconscious. Which happened more often than he liked(familiar) because frankly he had worse luck than anyone should be allowed to have.

Red didn't dwell on thoughts. Red fought and survived and thrived. Vaguely, in his memories, there was a time Before, but he didn't remember and Red honestly didn't care.

Today was all that mattered, and anyone who got in his way was an obstacle to be eliminated. The regular beatings had decreased as Red bared his fangs and learned to only trust himself. All he had was himself, anyone else was the enemy, everyone was against him, they always had been(they hadn't, not everyone, there was once... something..).

Red was independent. He lived trapped yet always fighting, dead yet surviving of pure determination. He was beaten yet not defeated, caged yet flying between the clouds.

His life was a harsh one, but Red survived and thrived and that was all he needed.

(And if sometimes he saw a scarf in the middle of summer, a flash of strawberry blond hair, a shining sheriff's badge, a dark scowl hiding fondness, a yellow light reflected in a pair of eyes or a goofy, innocent smile and felt a crushing loneliness and emptiness that made his heart stutter and his breath hitch for no reason, it was quickly shoved away out of fear and forgotten in the darkest, most hidden corner of his mind.)

A/N Also, in this universe trucks were invented in 1870 instead of 1898.. Because, well, I wrote them into the story before remembering D. Gray-man is set in the 19th century and am too lazy to change it. Currently in-story it's 1883.