A/N: So this covers an au-version of de-void through to divine move, but I have tweaked it to my version, making it completely canon-divergent (really, I just wanted an excuse to move locations and some other stuff which I won't discuss here in case it spoils it for you.)
Some trigger warnings:
The Noggi! speaks about Stiles in a sexual manner that can be considered suggestive. Most of it it is just to try and get under the others skin. He also implies that he would put Stiles in a situation where he had no say over consent.
There's also some references to the massacre at the hospital, which Stiles and the others eventually go to, so the imagery there might be considered a little bit triggery.
Again, Stiles has some fleeting thoughts of dying/killing himself although this is in line with what we have seen in The Divine Move, especially when he thinks it will save everyone else. In this version though, although it's not what the Nogitsune originally planned, Stiles does something that could potentially be very fatal for him.
Chapter 7
They take Stiles back to Scott's, where he was waiting with Lydia, Aidan and Melissa, and leave him out for the count on the McCall's couch, head tipped back, arms lax by his side.
Deaton isn't completely satisfied and insists that they keep him as immobile as possible. Derek watches the vet with hard and suspicious eyes as he pipettes a few drops of the kanima's paralyzing agent into the teen's mouth.
Of course, that's when he comes to with a start, choking on the liquid and spluttering for breath. Scott immediately steps forward to offer comfort, but it's Derek who reaches out, snagging him by his arm and pulling him out of reach. The boy that had awakened was not Stiles. The eyes were different. A smirk plays at the corner of his lips, leaving an amused smear.
Derek tenses beside Scott. He doesn't like this look on Stiles or the scent that accompanied it. It was sour and dark, masking Stiles usual rich and warm and excitable one. It was still there though, jaded and fading and served as a reminder that their Stiles was still there, probably desperately trying to hold on, screaming to be heard.
"Really, Deaton?" Stiles chuckles. "Kanima juice? You walk around with this stuff? Keeping it for the special occasions, huh?"
Stiles head lolls over the back of the sofa as he laughed. The sound slips so easily out of him, so naturally, that Derek had to remind himself that it wasn't Stiles usual laugh. Stiles laugh was loud and exuberant, obnoxious and endearing. It wasn't what he was hearing now. Small giggles that rolled off the tongue as he sat there languidly.
"Do you like it?" Stiles suddenly asks. He wiggles on the sofa – at least he tries to, the venom was setting to work on the boy's limbs, but Derek still catches the squirm of his bottom. "Do you like restraining teenage boys, Deaton? Do you get a kick out of it? Do you watch Stiles and want to do things to him?"
Scott growls angrily, pulling his arm free before taking a threatening steps forward.
"Tut, tut Scott," Stiles clucks in an amused manner. "You don't want to hurt us. Stiles is right here. Screaming and crying and stamping his little feet."
"Just stop talking like that," Scott warns, clenching his hands into clawed fits uselessly.
"Why?" he asks, seemingly genuinely bemused. "It's fun."
He locks his gaze on Derek and smiles, licking his lips suggestively.
"What about you, Derek?" Stiles purrs up at him. "Do you like what you see?"
Derek refuses to rise to the bait and stares down in a hardened glare.
"Did you know Stiles is having some kind of existential bi crisis?" he asks. He grins slightly, a smug look on his face.
"Will you stop," Lydia hisses furiously. "I don't get what this has to with the grand schemes of things. Just leave him alone."
"Chaos, strife, pain. It's kind of my thing…" he says, rolling his eyes. "Don't worry, sweetheart. I'll get to you later."
Aidan growls protectively, tugging Lydia back into his side.
Stiles snorts at the gesture and rolls his head back into place, glancing between Scott and Derek. "Stiles brain misfires so much, so many thoughts…" he closes his eyes briefly, breathing in as though he was savouring each and every one. "It's like a party in here, but seriously, I don't think he's even equated popping a boner whenever he looks at some guys butt."
"I told you to stop talking about him like that," Scott warns again.
He makes Stiles smile, mouth splitting wide in a gleeful manner, obviously ecstatic at this reaction. "I'm sure there will be loads of guys at Jungle who'd like a piece of an underage boy, especially this one. Stiles would make a pretty good slut, don't you think?" He licks his lips again, and pouts at them. The gesture would seem ridiculous on Stiles features if Derek wasn't convinced that the nogitsune would follow through on his threat. "Sometimes I don't even know how I can stop myself from touching him."
"I SAID STOP!" Scott yells, rushing forward, eyes bleeding red. Melissa is already there before Derek can react, filtering the alpha's rage-filled haze with her curly haired profile. Scott lets his mom pull him away into the back of the room.
"Take it easy," Melissa murmurs quietly. "Remember that Stiles is still in there. You can't touch him."
"But you want to," Stiles sing-songs from the couch, waggling his eyebrows at them. He settles his eyes on Lydia and smirks. "How about when this is all over, and it's just you and me, I keep some of the kanima juice just for you."
"I don't think so, sweetheart..." she mimics with disgust.
"Oh, I don't know," he says, refusing to lose the shit eating grin he was wearing. "I think you'd make a good BDSM bitch."
Aidan's the one to lose it. He's on Stiles in an instant, hands clamping over an exposed throat. Stiles gasps and chokes, an automatic, and human reaction to the sudden lack of oxygen but starts chuckling again as soon as Derek and Scott wrestle the enraged wolf away.
"You know how they say that twins get a feeling when the other one's in pain?" Stiles says, voice a little throaty. "You didn't lose that talent, too, did you? Oh, I hope not."
Aidan stiffens between their hold.
"You're going to need it," he taunts. "Okay, I'll give a little hint," Stiles says, stretching his head and neck forward, voice hushed. "Ethan's at the school."
Stiles rolls his head as he watches him leave, more chuckles and small giggles airily lifting up from him, tainting the air around them.
"Oh, I hope he gets there in time. I like the twins. Short tempers. Homicidal compulsions," his lazy grin turns into a sneer as he nods at the rest of the occupants of the room. "They're a lot more fun than you bakemono trying to save the world every day."
"Doc, you brought something to paralyze his body," Melissa says. "You got anything for his mouth?"
"Yes, I do…" Deaton says, ripping a strip of tape away from the roll and duct-taping Stiles mouth shut.
The thing wearing Stiles like a meat suit roars, but Derek knows better, and sure enough the roar fades away to muffled giggles and amused eyes.
"I think we're grossly underestimating the danger here," Deaton is saying.
Derek and Lydia sit side by side as Scott paces around the table they're all sat at. Derek's eyes drift from the young alpha's pacing, to Deaton who only seems to remind everyone how dangerous Stiles still is, and Melissa who drifts uselessly from the table, always coming to a stop halfway between them and the occupant of the couch. Derek senses her worry, concern for Scott and Lydia, worry that Stiles might keel over and succumb to the kanima venom or the obvious draining hold the nogitsune has over him.
"He might be paralyzed, but it still feels like he's got us right in the palm of his hand," Deaton continues.
Lydia sits stiffly beside him, body riddled with anxiety and mixing with the overpowering sour scent that drifts over from the couch. She reflexively splays her hand out, hands pushing into the table, before curling into two small fists. She stands suddenly from the table and gestures for Scott to follow and they both disappear for a few minutes.
Derek turns sharply when he hears sniffles but before he can react Melissa has the tape off and is offering comfort to her surrogate son.
"Really, Melissa? I shed one tear? That's all it takes?" Stiles asks, shaking his head in disapproval. "C'mon. You can't crumble that easily."
Derek hears everything Stiles says. He doesn't understand it. Melissa does by the look on her face. "This isn't you," she mutters darkly.
"It is now," Stiles tells her back.
For some reason it's Peter they call.
Scott's unsure and thinks it's unsafe.
Derek translates that to 'untrustworthy'.
When Lydia explains her theory Derek has to reluctantly agree.
"He doesn't look like he would survive a slap across the face," Peter says, after circling the couch.
"Wanna give it a try?" Stiles asks with a goading smile.
Peter smirks down at the boy and grabs Stiles chin, pinning him there.
"This is more a war of the mind than the body," Peter says, speaking more to Stiles than anyone else in the room.
"Peter?" Scott asks, uncertainly.
"We're going to get into his head," Peter says, releasing his hold.
Stiles head drops back. It bounces off the back off the couch and causes Stiles to grunt in discomfort.
"Hey," Stiles huffs out. "Watch the merchandise."
"Scott is going to try and dig through pale and sickly Evil Stiles mind to unearth pale and sickly Real Stiles," Peter says, ignoring the boy's discomfort. He steps away and levels a gaze at Scott. "Then guide him back from the depths of his own subconscious."
Stiles twitches on the couch. Derek knows he's nervous which could only mean that Peter is doing something right much to his own weariness over his uncle's involvement. Scott was right, Peter was untrustworthy, and he couldn't quite believe that he'd actively help them without some ulterior motive, but he couldn't deny that this was the best plan they had going for them. If not the only one.
He glances at Lydia, wondering how she had convinced Peter to help, and what her involvement was. She looks guilty for all of a few seconds then turns and glares at Peter.
"But he's not going to do it alone."
"I'm not?" Scott asks nervously, looking around, eyes settling on Derek for confirmation.
He's right, Derek firmly thinks, already deciding it for him.
Peter, though has other ideas, and stares at Lydia.
Stiles rolls his head too, looking up and over the back of the couch towards the red-head and laughs.
Derek isn't sure if this is a good idea after all.
Stiles is cold and tired.
Time shifts slowly like it's molasses.
He doesn't even know how he ended up playing Go but there he is, playing a game that's not his, shifting pieces around and not really knowing what he's doing.
He knows he's losing.
The nogitsune sits across from him. They're both cross-legged, the Go board sitting between them. It's only now that he realises they're sat on the nemeton stump. His gaze drifts between the Nogitsune's bandages, sharp teeth and blackened mouth and the board pieces strategically placed around the board.
He's vaguely aware of a faint noise, drifting in and coiling around him. It plays at his senses but never quite reaches the part of his brain that recognises it. It slowly fades away and disappears altogether and Stiles resumes his playing, hands moving slowly across the small pieces and pushing them into place, another step towards a losing game.
But that's when it happens.
The board shakes violently underneath the tips of his fingers and suddenly time stops moving so slowly. Sound rushes in loudly and Stiles looks up, immediately spotting Scott and Lydia in the distance.
He's not in molasses anymore and Stiles knows what he wants. What he will get.
He wants to go to Scott and Lydia.
He wants to go home.
Back to pack.
Back to his dad.
He fixes the nogitsune with a glare of defiance, and flips the board with a wide swung swipe, the contents of the board go flying. He screams at the Nogitsune and the Nogitsune screams back.
And-
… He's not staring across the Nemeton at the Nogistune anymore.
He's crawling across a floor, clothes heavy and dragging him back down. He gags and tries to scream because something covers his mouth and his eyes and his ears. He's smothered in stench, material damp and tacky and moist with an uncomfortable warmth against his skin that sits heavily over the coldness that was already there.
He manages to lurch unsteadily to his feet, dizzyingly stumbling one way or another.
A muffled scream or gasp makes its way through the cloggy material and then hands are on him and he's being thrown back down onto the floor.
Stiles cries out in pain and fear and fights the hands that are angrily holding him down.
The Nogitsune still has him.
He's taken him somewhere worse.
"Wait," something murmurs above him
The pressure holding him down disappears and Stiles uses the opportunity to try and break free from the restricting material over his face, weakly ripping and peeling the sticky bandages away.
He was still trapped
He was still being stifled
He was positively sure he was being asphyxiated.
The hands were back, hesitant at first and then more determined, helping to rip away the restricting material.
Scott's face looms above him. Weary at first. Confused second. He glances down at him and then above him towards a warm presence on his other side.
"Scott?" Stiles breathes out, disorientated and weak. He wants Scott to reach out and touch him, to know that it's him and not anyone else. He glances away, towards Derek, when he realises Scott is hesitant to believe it, desperate for someone to touch him, to anchor him and remind himself that it was real. That he was, in fact, sitting on the floor in the middle of Melissa's living room and not sitting on a tree stump somewhere.
"Scott?" Deaton says from where he's still standing with Melissa.
Scott tears his eyes away and looks at where Deaton is pointing.
Stiles startles as Scott jumps up violently. He flinches and unexpectedly sags sideways, Derek immediately catching him and letting him rest against his side.
Scott's yelling, the anger reverberating through the room, and Stiles sucks in a shuddering breath. He closes his eyes tight and tries to suck his distress back down with his shudders.
The Nogitsune is there. Stiles can feel and hear it still screaming in his face.
When he opens his eyes it's not the Nogitsune that's staring into his face, but Derek, and he sags in relief.
Scott's gone and the door is wide open, the faint sound of his friend's scream of "Lydia," ripping through the air.
Derek knows he should be helping to find Lydia but he can't bring himself to leave Stiles side.
Deaton and Scott left, looking for her, and Peter skulked off somewhere looking faintly concerned. That left Melissa who, right now, looks terrified of the boy in front of her.
Instead Derek settles in beside Stiles on the floor and offers a warm hand that he rubs up and down the kid's back in what he hopes is a warm and comforting touch.
Stiles shivers violently against him, face half-buried into Derek's shoulder, as he watches Melissa with half-lidded eyes.
"Sorry," he offers tiredly.
This seems to shake Melissa even more and she nods down towards them where they still sat.
"Take him up to Scott's room, Derek…" she says, already halfway to the stairs. "I need to check him over and get some fluids into him."
Derek more than drags Stiles up the stairs, Stiles feet hardly gracing the floor with his attempt to stumble his way there.
Derek watches as Melissa, hesitant in her ministrations, gives Stiles a cursory once over.
"Am I really me?" Stiles asks in a small voice.
He looks even smaller on Scott's bed. Derek is still worried by the pallor of his skin and the dark circles around his eyes. He isn't naive. He knows Stiles isn't going to miraculously look and feel better – Stiles hasn't slept in weeks, he's probably malnourished and dehydrated – but something tells him that since he and the nogitsune managed to split, Stiles actually looks worse.
"Real enough," Derek offers what he can.
Stiles sighs tiredly and weakly accepts the Gatorade juice Melissa offers him.
"I left a message for your dad," Derek tells him.
Stiles flinches on the bed, a panicked look fluttering across his face.
"I told him you're safe. Don't worry," Derek reassures him, knowing how Stiles worries about his dad worrying over him. He frowns down at his phone as a message from Scott comes in.
"Is that my dad?" Stiles asks, worrying his lip.
"No," he says, shaking his head. "Scott's on his way back. Allison called him. He needs me to go and check on Aidan and Ethan."
"You should go," Stiles nods and tries to wave him away. "I think they might actually be in trouble." He frowns slightly as though he was trying to remember something. "Isaac too."
Derek hesitates, not wanting to leave or burden Melissa any further when she was clearly still trying to decipher if Stiles was a danger or not.
"Go," Melissa says, reaching out to Stiles hand with her own and squeezing when he settles a pained look at her. "We'll be fine."
Derek reluctantly agrees and nods.
"Can you text Scott?" Stiles asks. He has a determined look on his face. A stubborn one. One that Derek knows well. "There's someone I need him to call."
"Is she here?" Stiles asks when Scott arrives.
Scott helps him from the bed and exchanges a look of worry with his mom.
"Guys," Stiles tries to reassure them. "I need to do this."
Scott and Melissa help him back down to the living room where Kira's mom is waiting for him. He nods at Scott who lets him take the few faltering steps between them.
He lets her call the Oni, ignoring the palpable distress from the others, Kira included.
He needed this.
He had to know.
Even if it meant being stabbed by swords.
It's not like he didn't deserve it.
The Oni appear in a swirl of black inkiness.
He's grabbed by one, gloved hand pinching tightly against the back of his neck. Stiles doesn't develop Jason Bourne reflexes and no Oni's explode into a shower of light.
Instead, as soon as they release him, he drops heavily to the floor, shaking and convulsing and not dead.
The cold sinks into his bones, worsening the chill that was already there, and never really leaves.
Stiles follows Scott around weakly, ignoring his orders to "sleep" and "rest", and fights the urge to collapse back onto the couch where he'd woken with a racing heart and a terror that threatened to leave him a quivering mess.
He stubbornly refuses to stay home when they hear that Meredith, the other banshee, was at the school and looking for Scott.
He ends up balking when he spots Coach, sans arrow in his chest, and shamelessly hides while Scott smuggles Meredith out when it's clear that Coach and Brunski are in the middle of a posturing contest.
They pick Isaac up on the way.
"You look like you're dying," Isaac says a little too loudly from the back.
"Isaac!" Scott yells, horrified and angry.
"Thanks," Stiles mutters from the passenger seat.
"What?" Isaac asks, affronted. "He does. When we find the other you is he going to look like he's getting better?"
"I'd know if you were," Meredith offers from where she's sat beside Isaac. She reaches over the seat and pats his shoulder.
Stiles pulls away from the touch and stares out of the window.
He wasn't sure he deserved to live.
"You're not going to die," Scott tells him firmly as though he could hear the dark thoughts plaguing him.
"Your friend doesn't want to be found," Meredith sighs loudly.
"You can hear that?" Scott asks.
"It's pretty loud."
Stiles tunes them out, their voices muffled in his ear. He doesn't care what Scott says, he'd readily put himself on the end of an Oni sword if it meant keeping Lydia safe. He'd willingly die if it means keeping everyone else alive.
Scott and Meredith have a weird exchange where Meredith uses Scott's phone to commune with the supernatural and then mutters something in another language. It could be Spanish for all he knows.
Scott says it's French and it seems to clue him on a location and they end up at the old internment camp.
He can't shake off the feeling of dread that engulfs him.
The split up – Allison, Kira and Isaac going up against a small army of Oni – while he trails after Scott in their search for Lydia.
They find Lydia tear-stained and angry behind a metal gate.
"Who else is here?" she cries in panic. "Who else came with you?"
And Stiles knows know.
He recognises the feeling of dread, feels it on the tip of his tongue, as it rolls off Lydia in waves of terror.
Someone else is going to die.
Someone else is going to die because of him.
He collapses on the way back through the tunnel, Scott's racing ahead, unable to stop, heading to inevitable tragedy.
Lydia stumbles beside him, trying to keep him upright.
As the darkness fall he prays it's him.
Don't wake up, he tells himself, don't you dare fucking wake up.
Allison dies
He wakes up to the echo of her name as it shakes through the tunnel. It seems to go on forever.
Lydia's already hugging him, body shaking and sobbing. Stiles knows she's not offering comfort – why would she? He's the reason her best friend is dead, he's the cause of all this chaos, strife and pain – but he can't shake the feeling that she's trying to take what little comfort she can from his cold and lifeless body.
He can offer that, can't he?
There was still some humanity in him, wasn't there?
'You're more you than the Nogitsune' Noshiko had told him.
He wraps his arms around Lydia and cries.
Sometime passes and Kira and Noshiko appear and help them out of the tunnel in a stunned daze.
Lydia runs to Isaac who remains staring at Allison's…
Allison's body. Her Corpse. She's lying there, right in the middle of the compound, her body probably still warm to the touch.
"Oh god," Stiles gags and chokes, stumbling into Noshiko's side.
"Shh" she says, tugging him away. "Don't look."
Scott's by the wire fence, holding on to it for support, face pressed right into the mesh. Chris Argent is stood behind and speaking in a hushed and tense manner. They both look devastated.
Stiles wants to go to them but Noshiko won't let him and before he knows it his legs are being folded into a car, a seatbelt fastened over him and someone is curling up against him and sliding their warm hand into his cold one.
He goes to the Yukimara's and has warm tea pushed into his hands.
Kira disappears for an hour or so and reappears with clean clothes.
A red plaid shirt and dark pants.
Stiles hadn't realised how devoid of color he had been. It's a refreshing change to the greyness the Nogitsune had swathed him in. It comforts him even though he knows he doesn't deserve it.
"Allison's dead. Now I guess the only good thing is it looks like I'm dying, too."
"Hey," Kira says with a shake of the head. "Don't talk like that."
"He's been playing me," Stiles mutters angrily. Angry at the nogitsune, angry at himself, angry at the cute girl with a never ending optimism, even in the face of death. "I'm just one of his fucking pawns on his fucking little board-game."
"What if I don't have any moves left?" he asks out loud. He didn't really expect an answer.
"Stiles?" Noshiko asks. She sits down next to him and gathers his hand in hers. He looks up wearily at her. "What do you know about divine moves?"
"Stick with the plan, okay?"
"The plan is to save you. That's the plan I'm going with," Scott says.
They end up covered in snow and cornered by even more Oni while the nogitsune taunts them.
Kira and Scott try their best but they're soon outnumbered and Stiles finds himself in possession of Kira's katana.
He's literally about to consider seppuku when he catches the reflection of something on the edge of the sword. A book. An edge of a desk. An illusion.
"You don't have any moves left, Stiles…" the Nogitsune taunts.
"I do," Stiles says, quietly at first and then louder. "A divine move."
The Nogitsune laughs, spittle flying.
Stiles drops the katana sword to the floor.
"Find someone else to play," Stiles mutters.
The Nogitsune roars again and everything disappears – the snow, the yakuza garden, the oni – and all that's left is the four of them.
"Is that it?" Scott asks in disbelief.
"Is it over?" Kira asks wearily, looking around them.
They tentatively step out into the hallway, as if expecting more Oni and a raging Nogitsune.
"Got to say if it then it's a little anticlimactic," Stiles glibly offers. "What with all the build-up."
"No," Lydia breathes out as she suddenly sways into Stiles.
"Whoa," Stiles exclaims, struggling to hold both their bodies up. "Hey."
He gladly offers Lydia's still swaying body over to Scott and leans onto the nearby lockers to steady himself.
"What is it?" Scott asks urgently, helping to regain her balance.
"I just got a rushing feeling," she says. "Like something was wrong."
Yeah, Stiles mutters to himself, it was too much to ask for a reprieve.
Scott's phone rings.
"Hey," Scott says. "Yeah, we're okay," Scott reassures whoever was on the other end of the phone and then pales, glancing at Stiles with a horrified expression. Stiles straightens, already feeling like the floor was falling out from beneath him. "What?" Scott croaks. "But you guys are okay? Good. Good. No stay there. They'll need your help. We'll meet you there."
"What?" Stiles asks and when Scott doesn't answer straight away he growls again. "What?"
"The hospital," Scott gulps nervously, fearful. "It was attacked. The station to."
Stiles freezes, feels everything still around him.
Kira sucks in an audible gasp. Lydia rubs her head and says "That's what I felt," to no one in particular.
"My dad?" Stiles asks and then immediately feels bad for not asking about Melissa first.
"He's fine, apparently…" Scott says, either ignoring or not noticing Stiles total disregard for Scott's own priorities. "He's on his way to the hospital now. They attacked my mom but she's fine," Scott rushes when he sees his reaction. "She said she stopped bleeding when the Oni disappeared."
"This is all my fault," Stiles says darkly.
"It's not," Scott says.
Scott grabs Lydia's arm and helps her out of the school and Kira takes up Lydia's previous position as Stiles crutch, the two of them filing out after them.
In hindsight, Stiles probably shouldn't be here.
Partly because his doppelganger was just here, merrily walking with a group of masked ninja's who had just slaughtered a bunch of people.
Also because he's well known for his queasiness.
Guilt lays deeply on third base too, suffocating him.
"You don't need to be here," Scott says. "Do you want to go?"
"No," Stiles says as they follow the track of blood through the hallways. They both know there's nowhere for him to go. Stiles isn't entirely sure he should even be alone right now.
There's bodies strewn all over the place.
There's a few people huddled together, helping each other. Blood splatters the floor and dots the walls.
"Scott?" Melissa calls from where she's standing by a gurney. "I need your help."
Stiles watches numbly as Scott goes and leaches someone's pain away.
Kira goes to a mother and son who are both crying, the mother's tears only worsening her son's, and offers what little comfort she can. Lydia falls to her knees by someone's feet and rips some of dress away, bundling it up against a wound that was bleeding too fast.
Stiles stares at a spot on a wall where there's the tell-tale signs of arterial spray. A body lay not too far away.
Sudden movement and gurgling in the corridor to his right startles him and he spins and sees someone staring up at him with wild and fearful eyes.
Stiles shakes and gasps.
The figure clutches at their neck, blood pooling between their fingers. They gurgle some more. Panic because they know they're dying. Panic because they think that it's him.
"Sorry," Stiles croaks out. He feels tears leak. "I'm sorry."
Scott's dad suddenly appears in front of him.
"Hey," McCall says, grabbing him by the shoulders. "Are you hurt?"
Stiles manages a shake of his head. He can't tear his eyes away from the dying figure behind McCall's shoulder.
"Focus on me, okay?" McCall says, shaking him. "Don't look."
McCall's voice blurs into Noshiko's and suddenly it's not some random stranger dying and trying to shuffle fearfully away. It's Allison. Allison with big wide eyes. Allison. Allison. Allison.
"Hey! Breathe, kid. Breathe…" McCall keeps telling him. "Now is not the time to freak out."
Stiles feels like the floor shift beneath him. Not like before. Not like he was panicking. It was like it was pushing him up. Up. Up. Like he wasn't even on the first floor.
His body stiffens and his eyes roll upwards and stare at a flickering light. It crackles and sparks but no one seems to notice.
"Stiles?" McCall says, following Stiles gaze. When he sees nothing and Stiles body doesn't react to his shaking, he turns and yells over his shoulder. "Mel! I don't know what's wrong with him!"
He's here.
He's up there.
Melissa finally gets to the person – god, Stiles can't even tell through all the blood if they were a man or a woman – and tries stem the blood flow.
"Get him out of here, Rafe…" Melissa says.
Stiles flinches at the words
I'm sorry
I didn't mean to
Please please
A sudden rage fills him, sparking some new renewed energy he was sure was actually being fired up from somewhere else entirely, and he doesn't even know if it's a plan or if it will even work but he ends up shaking out of McCall's grasp and bolting.
"Shit!" he hears McCall shout after him, Lydia's and Scott's scream of his name following after, banging off the walls of the stairwell.
He races up the stairs as fast as he can and stumbles his way through the roof door exit, knowing Scott and the others won't be too far behind.
"A divine move?" the nogitsune says with a scoff. He's leant against the pillar of a low rise wall, arms folded over his chest. He grins, his demeanour amused. "I'm a thousand years old, Stiles. Do you really think you can kill me?"
"I never said I could kill you," Stiles says quietly, panting for breath.
The door rebounds off the wall as Scott stumbles though. Lydia, Kira, Melissa and Scott's dad appear soon after. Derek and Isaac are with them with their box. Stiles watches as the Nogitsune hardens his eyes.
McCall squawks in surprise.
"Oh my god. There's two of them."
"Been there. Done that. Got the t-shirt," The Nogitsune says, gesturing to himself. "Not literally. I would not be seen dead wearing plaid. A little too lumberjack for me."
The Nogitsune tilts his head and looks over the back of the wall with a little wave.
"Your dad just arrived," he says as he turns back. "I wonder what it will be like for him to find your dead body up here."
"Fuck you!" Stiles spits. There's no way he's letting this thing drag his dad into this.
"Tell me Stiles," he asks. "You're not going to kill me, you've used your divine move. What is your next move? Have you even got one?"
"I thought you were smarter than that," Stiles says, forcing a grin. He's surprised the Nogitsune hasn't picked up on it yet.
"THIS IS MY GAME!" The nogitsune snaps, finally losing his cool, striding forward a few steps. "YOU THINK YOU CAN BEAT ME AT MY GAME!"
Someone snags Stiles by the arm and tries to pull him back.
Derek's voice hisses in his ear.
"What do you think you're doing?"
"I've got this," Stiles says, pulling away from the hold and stepping back towards the Nogitsune. Well, at least he hopes he does. This idea came to him sometime between standing in a hallway full of blood and barrelling his way up the stairwell. It was based more on faith than logic. He glances at where some freshly cut wires hang loosely, whipping harmlessly out of reach of the two of them. There was a few splattering's of puddles scattered over the rooftop, one that was just a foot away to Stiles right.
That hadn't originally been at the forefront of Stiles thoughts but it reminded him of something equally important nonetheless.
Kira's foxfire had, in effect, electrified Stiles and sparked the Nogitsune into existence. What if the opposite was also true?
"That wasn't my divine move," Stiles says.
"It wasn't?" The Nogitsune asks, amused and intrigued.
"A divine move is an out of the box, original move. Something not used before. Think about it," Stiles says. He shifts sideways, just a little, not enough to draw attention, enough that some of it sinks into the soles of his sneakers. "I chose not to play in the white room. I flipped the board when I heard Scott. And then again when I refused to play your little seppuku. They can't be divine if they are the exact same move."
The Nogitsune bristles with anger.
"It wasn't a divine move," Stiles says. He closes his hand into a fist and shuts his eyes, picturing Harris' old bumper sticker behind his eyelids. He says the words silently over and over again imagination is greater than knowledge imagination is greater than knowledge imagination is greater than knowledge and prays that it's true. He tells himself to believe, to believe that that night meant something, that it was always there for this moment, that Talia and Laura and everyone who was dead where there believing with him too. Everything that happened between then and now had to mean something. "This is," he says slowly. He opens his hand first and then looks a second later. "Holy shit!" he murmurs quietly, surprising himself when he sees the mountain ash in his hand that had definitely not been there before. "It freakin' worked!"
He has no idea if it will work and he's never had any practice at magical mountain ash throwing – he's always presumed it takes years of practice – but he just hopes that the belief is enough to get a half-decent one. He sucks in a breath and flings his hand up and the Nogistune huffs out angrily when they fall into two – not quite perfect – circles around them.
"Mountain ash? C'mon Stiles," he sighs. Stiles can hear the frustrated tone. The loose, sparking wires thrash more angrily, much closer to the pool of water to their sides. Once the mountain ash rings had fallen into place, the puddles of water under his feet had also been manipulated, the particles of water moving to surround the two rings of ash. "What are you going to do? Keep me up on the roof forever? You won't do that. You know why?"
Stiles refuses to answer. He needs the wires just a little bit closer.
"You're in me, Stiles…" The Nogitsune says, it hisses between them and Stiles can feel the hostility, the stench of it. "I can feel you. I'm in you. We're the same. I will fucking taint you for the rest of your goddamn life."
Stiles glances at the puddle again. The wires are there now, sparking at the edge of it.
"Stiles!" Lydia says. "What are you doing?"
"What I have to do."
"What if it's just a trick?"
"What if it saves you? What if it saves all of you?"
"Stiles, please don't. We'll figure it out," Scott says.
"This is my move, Scott…" Stiles says. He feels himself smiling. "I'm winning."
He glances over his shoulder and levels a glare at Derek, "You better revive me, sourwolf."
"You can't win," the Nogitsune says when Stiles turns back to look at him.
"You said 'we' and 'us' even when you were in my head but we're not the same," he says, shaking his head. "We're not the same because if we were I wouldn't be able to do this…"
Stiles takes the first step over the mountain ash barrier and hears the wail of a banshee scream even before the voltages hit him.