Chapter Text
Stiles Stilinski had always known he was the weakest link.
Not in the obvious ways—not in intelligence, not in quick thinking, not in sheer, desperate determination to keep everyone alive. But physically? In a pack of werewolves, banshees, and hunters, he was just a human boy with a baseball bat and too much mouth.
And when the Nogitsune came, when it twisted its claws into his soul and used him as a puppet to burn down everything he loved—Beacon Hills finally realized what he had always known.
He wasn’t one of them. Not really.
He was the thing they survived.
The funeral was on a Wednesday.
It was a cold day, too cold for March, the kind that sank into your bones and stayed there. The cemetery smelled like damp earth and wet leaves, and the air was thick with the kind of grief no one had words for.
Stiles stood at the back.
It wasn’t a conscious choice. He hadn’t woken up and thought, Let’s be dramatic today and separate myself from the people I love. No, he had just… walked, and before he knew it, he was standing apart from them, hands buried in the pockets of his jacket, feeling the weight of his own breathing in a way that made him sick.
Scott stood at the front, next to Chris Argent. His shoulders were stiff, fists clenched at his sides. Stiles could read him even from here—the anger rolling off of him like heat off pavement.
Not at Allison. Never at Allison.
At himself. At the world. At whatever cruel gods had decided that she—she—had to be the one to die.
Stiles clenched his teeth so hard his jaw ached.
He wanted to tell him. Scott, it wasn’t you. It wasn’t your fault. But the words stuck in his throat because—
Because maybe that was the problem.
Maybe it was his fault.
Maybe that’s why Scott wouldn’t look at him.
“Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today—”
Stiles tuned it out.
His hands twitched at his sides, restless, his body desperate to move because if he stood here much longer, he was going to fall apart. He could feel it building, the scream clawing its way up his throat, a pressure behind his eyes so sharp it burned.
But he couldn’t break.
Not here. Not in front of them.
He scanned the crowd, eyes skipping over the familiar faces. Lydia, standing between Kira and Malia, her expression locked behind an unreadable mask. Malia, shifting uncomfortably in the dress she’d probably been forced into, arms crossed. Derek, standing at the edges like he always did, his face carved from stone.
And Stiles’ dad—
God.
Stiles turned away before he could see the disappointment.
The guilt was a living thing, coiling in his gut like a parasite, a suffocating weight pressing down on his ribs.
You should have fought harder.
You should have stopped it.
You should have died instead.
The priest was still talking. Stiles barely heard him. His ears were full of static, his pulse thrumming in his skull. He needed to leave. He needed to—
A hand brushed his.
He jolted.
Lydia.
She had moved to stand beside him, silent and unexpected, her fingers barely grazing his like she wasn’t sure if she was allowed to touch him.
Stiles’ breath caught.
She didn’t look at him. Her gaze was fixed ahead, on the casket, on the wet dirt waiting to swallow Allison whole. But she had moved to him, stood with him, when no one else had.
And for a second, just a second, he could breathe again.
Then the priest said, “May she rest in peace,” and Chris Argent stepped forward to drop the first handful of dirt onto his daughter’s coffin, and everything shattered.
Scott turned.
His eyes found Stiles’.
For the first time since that night, Scott was looking at him.
And Stiles wished he hadn’t.
Because there was nothing in his expression—no anger, no hate, no grief. Just emptiness. Like whatever had been between them, whatever friendship had carried them through years of impossible fights, had hollowed out and rotted.
Scott turned away without a word.
Stiles felt something crack inside him.
A part of him had still hoped, even after everything. Some desperate, stupid, pathetic part of him had thought—maybe if I just give them time. Maybe if I wait, they’ll come back.
But Scott had just looked at him like he was a ghost.
Like he was already gone.
And for the first time since the Nogitsune, Stiles wondered if maybe he was.