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They all saw it.
As much as they wished they could deny it, they all saw how Stiles was struggling.
The young man was even more paranoid than usual, distrustful of anyone who wasn’t in their pack. When a freshman bumped into him in the hallway one day, Stiles had lost it. He had turned around, shoving the girl back against a locker as he shouted at her, begging her to just tell him what she wanted from him. It wasn’t until Scott managed to pull him away that he calmed down, still rambling about the girl’s malicious intentions.
He had even become wary of Coach Finstock, so much so that he was considering leaving the lacrosse team.
His panic attacks had also worsened, happening more frequently and suddenly. He had spiraled into a particularly severe attack when Lydia was late to a pack meeting, fearing that she had been taking by another threat to Beacon Hills, despite how quiet the past week had been.
The worst panic attack, by far, though, was when a new substitute teacher walked into the room, wearing a simple plaid shirt.
The shirt was the same pattern and color as one that the alpha who kidnapped him wore.
Stiles had gasped, jerking backward and knocking his chair over as he scrambled to the other side of the room, his chest heaving up and down quickly as he panicked. While the other students looked on, Stiles slid down the wall, curling in on himself and pressing against the wall as he begged for mercy from a man he’d never met before.
One of the girls in the room at the time was a friend of Lydia’s. She called her, and soon Lydia and Scott were rushing into the room, Lydia kneeling quietly next to Stiles, talking to him in a soft voice while Scott cleared everyone out of the room.
It had taken over an hour before Stiles was finally able to calm down and drop off into sleep.
Yes, things had gotten to a point where they could no longer ignore Stiles’ problem. He had been hurt too many times, kidnapped too many times, and nearly killed too many times. The latest incident with the pack that kidnapped him had merely been the straw that broke the camel’s back.
They had been cruel and brutal in a way that Stiles hadn’t dealt with before, and it had taken its toll on the young man. He was so close to mentally breaking that there was no longer a choice about the matter.
If they wanted to save their friend, the pack had to do something drastic.
If they wanted Stiles to survive… he had to forget that werewolves ever existed.