(please read part i first :)
Stiles is acting strange after waking up from the coma, even when he gets his memories back. Sometimes he's a completely different person: aggressive, distant, and cold. Others, he's back to his old self. Once the pack n...
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Stiles couldn't breathe. He couldn't move.
He was pressed against the concrete, his leg pinned underneath a rubbery tire. The pavement, he nearly broke down in tears to discover, was soaked in gasoline.
I'm back to where I started.
Though he prayed it was an illusion, it felt too real to be one.
He pushed himself up onto his elbows, despair welling up in his throat as he stared up at the starry sky. It looked like the same parking lot, with the same horrible lamppost looming above him. It shone a sharp blue light into his eyes, making them water. He gave his leg a little tug to try and break free, hissing when an ache throbbed up up from his knee.
Shivering, he curled in on himself, praying that the monster would leave him alone.
The Nogitsune, as Scott had called it a few days ago during a pack meeting. Filling him in on what they had discovered from Kira's mom.
A Japanese fox spirit. And it was possessing one of them.
Possessing me.
It explained everything---his personality changes accompanied by blackouts. How everyone said he acted like he had a split persona. Like the Green Goblin or Moon Knight. He couldn't not be the one possessed, he thought as he turned his cheek to look across the parking lot, stones scraping gently across his skin, wet from a mix of tears and gasoline.
Sure enough, he spotted it. The mummy-thing stooped over several feet away, pouring gasoline all over the pavement next to his jeep.
"What d'you want?" Stiles asked softly, voice wavering. His jaw trembled, making it even harder to form words than it had been before.
The mummy-thing, the Nogitsune, stopped pouring the gasoline and straightened, carrying the container closer to him. It stooped over, regarding him with a swollen, purple smile. Sharp, silver teeth bared.
"You let me in," it drawled, voice a wheezing whisper. "And now...you are going to let me through."
"What d'you want?!" Stiles shrieked again, trying in vain to scramble away from the Nogitsune as it bent closer and closer. Until Stiles could see every rip and tear and smear of dirt in the bandages. Their faces were mere inches away now, and Stiles could smell smoke on the spirit's breath.
Not the sour kind that came from cigarettes. The rich, deep smoke that came from bonfires. The kind that, though it told you of the danger, warmed you and drew you closer.
Stiles shivered in fear.
"We're going to kill all of them, Stiles," it said gleefully. "All your friends... Everyone you've pushed away."
"B--because I love them." Stiles shook his head, glaring up at the monster before him. "I'm different now, I'm--m gonna hurt them."
"That's right, we are." The Nogitsune stood, drawing back his arms that held the canister of gasoline. Stiles realized what he was doing not a second too late.
He squeezed his eyes shut and turned his head away, but the gasoline still made him jump. It was cold, a lot colder than he had thought, and it made him squirm uncomfortably as it soaked through his shirt and dripped in his ear and down his back.
"Would you like to hear a riddle, Stiles?" the Nogitsune mused. Stiles coughed and spluttered, wiping his mouth on his sleeve.
"N--no. Leave me...'lone."
The demon threw the container, now empty and hollow, to the ground, where it clattered out of sight. It reached into his pocket, pulling out a small matchbox.
"I eat darkness and birth light. I'm not alive, but I grow. I don't have lungs, but I need air."
Stiles sobbed. He knew the answer. But his mouth had gone slack, unable to move as terror overcame him.
"I eat darkness and birth light," the demon snarled. It started to unwrap the bandages from its head. "I'm not alive, but I grow. I don't have lungs, but I need air."
Stiles groaned, tightly gripping the sides of his head with his hands as if he could squeeze the two simple words out of his mouth. He let out a frustrated scream.
"I eat darkness and birth light. I'm not alive, but I grow. I don't have lungs, but I need air."
The spirit loomed closer, nearly finished with stripping the bandages from its face.
Stiles let his head drop to the concrete, giving it a good smack. His jaw and tongue muscles instantly tightened into his control.
"A fire," he whispered into the pavement, inhaling the scent of the gasoline.
With a barely audible crack, the creature swiped what only looked to be a harmless little toothpick alongside the box's side. It caught on the first try, burning deep into Stiles' eyes. The match was so familiar, like a beacon calling to him in the storm.
Though it was not the time and place, his mind drifted to Lydia. And her flaming red hair.
As if in slow motion, the Nogitsune's fingers rubbed together, releasing the match to the floor.
- - - - - -
Heat blazed across the Nogitsune's body as their minds were fused together. Like the fire in the internment camp that had brought along this curse in the first place.
Smiling, the fox spirit tugged the phone from his pocket and clicked on the first number that had been saved to speed dial.
