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Stiles is there for all of it.
Even when he tries to look away, it won’t let him. His eyes are pried open, his ears forced to hear everything.
Stiles watches as his fingers dance along the hilt. They’re missing the nervous energy he normally has. Instead, there’s a calm he’s never possessed in his life, and it feels wrong. Dangerous.
The scream hits first.
Raw. Broken. Familiar.
It crashes through him before he understands it, before he can brace, before he can lie to himself about what’s happening.
“I’m sorry!” He tries to scream it back, but it only echoes inside his skull. He can’t push through. He’s tried.
He tried to warn Scott.
Warn Isaac.
Warn Coach.
Warn his dad.
Now he’s just trying to apologize for his failure.
For the Nogitsune.
Because it won’t let him do anything.
It won't let him help.
He wants to help.
Why can’t he help?
No, it won’t allow him.
That’s the crux of it.
The Nogitsune is in control, and Stiles?
He’s just being given a front-row seat, eyes forced open, ears unable to block the screams that follow.
They don’t stop.
They just keep coming.
One after the other.
They don’t belong to him.
They belong to Scott.
Scott, his brother, who has a sword through him.
Only then does Stiles understand what he’s hearing.
He tries to see what’s causing it, and he sees it.
His hand.
Wrapped around the sword’s hilt.
Tight.
Controlled.
Twisting.
His wrist turns.
Slowly.
Clockwise.
The resistance is immediate. Dense. Wrong. Like the world pushing back.
Scott screams.
The sound rips through Stiles and drags his eyes back to Scott’s face. He can’t look away. He never gets to look away.
His hand settles on Scott’s shoulder. Steady. Possessive. Familiar in a way that makes his stomach turn.
“Does it hurt?”
The question leaves his mouth in a voice that isn’t his. It is, but it isn’t. Stiles would sound concerned. Right now, he sounds… light. Curious. Almost gentle.
Don’t, Stiles begs, voiceless. Please stop!
“Hey, look at me.” His voice carries a command he’s never used in his life.
Scott does. His eyes search Stiles’ face. But it’s the betrayal that hurts the most.
The Nogitsune wants that. Wants the eye contact. Wants Scott to see exactly who’s doing this to him. Wants Stiles to watch.
“You should have done your reading, Scott.”
The words land clean. Precise. Not rushed. Not frantic. A gratification at the delayed lesson. Stiles feels the absence of panic like a missing limb.
The sword twists again.
The scream that follows is louder. Sharper. Raw enough to tear at something deep and unguarded. Stiles feels it echo through him, through his chest, through the space where guilt already lives.
“See, the Nogitsune feeds off chaos, strife, and pain.”
Stiles hears the words as they leave him, hears the certainty in them, the clarity. He understands every syllable, every implication. That’s almost worse.
He feels his fingers slide, thumb brushing Scott’s jaw as his hand cups the side of his face.
Don’t touch him like that.
“This morning, you took it from Isaac. Then you took it from Coach. And then from a dying deputy.”
Each name lands like a tally mark carved into bone.
“All that pain. You took it all.”
The Nogitsune leans into him, pleased. Proud.
“Now give it to me.”
Stiles feels it before he sees it. The shift. The pull. The wrongness of something being taken that was never offered.
The black lines crawl from Scott’s face into his fingers, alive, writhing. They surge up his arm and something inside him fractures.
Heat.
Power.
Relief.
His body arches despite himself. His breath stutters, his vision whites out at the edges. His mouth falls open as the pain pours into him, rich and overwhelming and—
No.
No no no—
It feels good.
That realization hits harder than the pain ever could.
Scott’s eyes roll back as it’s stripped from him, his body sagging in shock, breath coming in ragged gasps. Stiles shakes with it, caught between revulsion and the terrible, undeniable pull of it.
“You really have to learn, Scott.”
The words sound smug. Certain. Educating.
Stiles wants to vomit.
His hand drops from Scott’s face, slides back to his shoulder like nothing intimate just happened. Like this is instruction, not violation.
“You really have to learn not to trust a fox.”
The words leave him smooth. Patient. Like he’s explaining something simple.
Stiles wants to rip his own throat out.
God, where is Derek when you need him. Teeth. Throat. Problem solved.
His hand lifts again, one finger raised, slow and deliberate. A warning. A lesson. A scold meant for a child.
“Mmm-mmm.”
The sound makes his skin crawl.
Stiles hears the shift in his voice. The way it lowers. Softens. Turns conspiratorial. He recognizes it with a sick twist of familiarity. This is how he sounds when he’s being clever. When he’s performing. When he knows he has the room.
“They’re tricksters,” he says, almost kindly but the chuckle turns it sideways. “They’ll fool you.”
His voice drops to a whisper.
“They’ll fool everyone.”
Stop!
Please!
Leave him alone!
The Nogitsune savors the moment. Draws it out. Lets Stiles feel how easily the words fit his mouth.
Then—
“Not everyone.”
The voice cuts through the fog like a blade.
Stiles barely has time to register Deaton before the needle bites into his neck.
Pain flares sharp and immediate, nothing abstract about it. His breath hitches, a broken gasp tearing free as the poison floods his system. His hands finally shake. His knees buckle.
Good.
Too late, but good.
He coughs once. Twice. The world tilts, edges blurring as his body gives up beneath him.
As he falls, something inside him snaps back into place.
Awareness slams in hard.
Too hard.
He hears Scott’s breathing, ragged and panicked. Hears his own name, distant, distorted, but real.
Scott!
He can’t move.
He can’t speak.
He can only feel the darkness closing in, heavy and fast and merciless.
Deaton’s hands are steady as he grips the sword and yanks it free in one clean motion.
Scott groans.
“What… what was that?” Scott’s voice is weak. Confused. “Was that a cure? Is he okay?”
Stiles wants to scream at that too. Wants to laugh and sob and apologize all at once.
“The fox is poisoned,” Deaton says. “But it’s not dead.”
He blinks once, then twice, before his eyes refuse to open again.
He barely catches it as Deaton turns back to him, where he’s collapsed on the floor.
“Not yet.”
Stiles hears it. Knows what Deaton is talking about.
That’s the last thing he hears before the dark finally takes him.