Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Stiles was going insane. As he sat at his desk in the bullpen, twirling a pen around his fingers and staring off into space, his mind turned over and over. Something was happening. Derek had left three days ago after a mysterious call from Lydia in the middle of the night. Both Derek and Stiles had already been awake because there had been such a strong tug of fear and disgust over the pack bond that they’d been violently jerked out of their REM cycles. He still remembered the way Derek had gone completely still because of whatever Lydia said to him. Derek’s eyes had flickered over to him, before he growled into the phone “I’ll be there by morning,” and hung up on her. 

“What? What’s wrong?” Stiles had demanded.

“Nothing. I just have to head back home. I’ll be back as soon as I can and—”

“You wouldn’t be leaving like this if nothing was wrong!” Stiles protested.

“Stiles it’s fine. They just need my help with something.”

“Then I’ll go with you. You know I have an insane amount of sick days.” Stiles got up and retrieved his and Derek’s duffle bags from the closet.

“No Stiles. Stay. I’ll call you if we need you.”

Derek had taken his duffle bag and then tossed Stiles’ back into the closet. 

“Just tell me what’s going on,” Stiles demanded. 

“They don’t know yet.” Derek had stopped throwing random items of clothing into the bag for long enough to take Stiles’ hands, rubbing his thumbs over the backs in what was supposed to be a comforting gesture but only made Stiles more nervous. “I promise that I will call you when I land, and when we figure out whatever it is we need to figure out, and if we need your help.”

“You know figuring things out is literally my job right?”

“I know. But I don’t want to drag you away for what’s probably nothing.” It was definitely not nothing if the persistent tugging on the pack bond both from the others and from Derek had anything to do with it, but having been married to Derek for five years, Stiles could recognize when he was going to be a stubborn ass.

“Call me and keep me updated on everything ,” he ordered.

Derek nodded seriously. He leaned in for a short kiss then went back to packing.

***

Derek had called when he landed in California, but other than that Stiles had only received a few texts. After twenty-four hours of only ‘still figuring it out’ texts, Stiles was forced to call Derek, where he got the exact same answer, only verbally, and then Derek was saying that he ‘had to go’. Stiles had then called Scott, who hadn’t even picked up. Lydia had given the same responses as Derek. Liam had sounded guilty as hell when he told Stiles that he couldn’t talk just then. So yeah, on day three Stiles was going a little bit insane. Was he a horrible person for hoping that JJ would show up with a gruesome case for him to distract himself with?

“You’re here early,” Morgan remarked, collapsing at his desk across from Stiles. 

“Couldn’t sleep,” Stiles replied distractedly, eyes fixated on the movement of the pencil twirling between his fingers.

Morgan eyed the complete lack of files on Stiles’ desk. “How long have you been here?”

Stiles shrugged. “What time is it?”

“Nine am.” 

“Six hours.” 

“Kid,” Morgan sighed. 

“You look like shit,” Emily remarked cheerfully on her way in, ruffling Stiles’ hair as she passed.

“Probably because he didn’t sleep.” Stiles sent a glare at Morgan for throwing him under the bus. “What, you said it yourself.”

“I told you that in confidence,” Stiles complained.

“Anything going on that we can help with?” Emily asked.

“I don’t know, that’s the problem.” Stiles set his pencil down and rubbed at his eyes. “Derek got a call from home and left right away, and nobody is telling me shit !” he ground out in frustration. “They’re all either ignoring my calls or giving bullshit answers! Even my dad is being cagey. I have half a mind to fly there myself and wring the answers from them in person.”

“You’ve got vacation days,” Emily said. “I say go for it.”

“Go for what?” JJ came down from her office with a file in hand, a grim look on her face that meant they had a particularly rough case coming their way. 

“Home,” Morgan answered.

“I wouldn’t say you’re in luck,” JJ said, “but at least you’ll be flying in style.” 

Stiles frowned as she held up the case file. Nothing was written on the front, but Stiles knew what that had to mean. “I’m gonna kill them myself,” he said. “There’s a case there and they didn’t tell me. I work for the FBI! I literally solve murders. For a living! Wait. I work for the FBI. Who called us in?” There was no way in hell anyone high up in law enforcement asked for help from the FBI. His dad was retired, but Parrish was sheriff, and he definitely knew better than to purposefully bring outsiders to town.

“Some newer officer went over the sheriff’s head,” JJ said apologetically.

“That’s gonna go over well,” Stiles sighed. 

“Sheriff not a fan of outside help?” Morgan asked.

“Small town things,” Stiles replied, and held his hand up for a high-five, which JJ stepped forward to complete. 

“Anyway, Reid’s on his way, and Hotch, Rossi and Garcia are waiting,” JJ said. Stiles, Morgan, and Emily followed her up the steps and into the round table room. Moments after they had sat down, Reid rushed in.

“Sorry I’m late.”

“You look like you slept as well as I did,” Stiles said, noting the dark circles under Reid’s eyes and the even messier than usual quality of his hair.

“I went to a midnight screening of Les Diaboliques in the original french. It’s this really great 1955 horror movie done by—”

“We should get started,” Hotch interrupted before Reid could really pick up speed.

“Alright crime fighters,” Garcia said, shuffling up to the projector. “Beacon Hills, California needs our help. But for this one, we need to go back in time. Thirteen years ago, there was a massacre in Beacon Hills Memorial Hospital.” 

Stiles sat up straighter. What on earth could that have to do with anything? He remembered the way Derek’s eyes had flickered over to him when Lydia called, before darting away. The fear and disgust that had tugged so forcefully at the pack bond to wake him up. It couldn’t be.

“The unsubs in question were never caught. It was reportedly perpetrated by three people, two of them wearing full samurai gear, swords included as they were the murder weapons, and a third, who was a maskless young man who appeared to be the one in charge. Nobody could give a proper account of what the leader looked like, other than that he was young, caucasian, and had either blond or brown hair. In addition to the currently unsolved hospital massacre, and taking place afterwards, there were the murders of two students at the local high school done by supposedly the same trio. Aiden Steiner first, and then only a few days later, Allison Argent. Now I did some digging,” Garcia continued, clicking her remote as a picture that Stiles recognized was put up on screen. He recognized it because he and Derek had a copy of it framed in their house. “I know the stereotype of everyone in small towns knowing each other, but Ms. Argent and Mr. Steiner were apparently close friends.”

“Were those the only two murders other than the hospital massacre?” Reid asked.

“Yes, and after Ms. Argent’s death, the unsub apparently disappeared. Now—”

“That’s Stiles,” Emily said, squinting at the picture that Garcia had put up to demonstrate Allison and Aiden’s closeness. 

“I was getting to that,” Garcia said, glancing at Stiles sympathetically and then refocusing on the board. Stiles hardly noticed. This was the nogitsune. This was him . The young man in the hospital had been Stiles, and he had ordered the deaths of his friends. And now they were talking about it here, and Derek had rushed off back home without telling him anything, and now Stiles wished that he didn’t know why. The nogitsune was supposed to be gone. They had buried that motherfucker in the Hale vault in a jar in fly form. But the FBI wouldn’t have been called in just for a cold case. 

“From left to right in the image we have Scott McCall. The girl whose head is in his lap is Kira Yukimura. Sitting on the table is Malia Tate, with our very own Stiles between her legs. Lydia Martin is beside Stiles. Then Allison Argent, with Isaac Lahey behind her  and standing to the side are Aiden and Ethan Steiner. This picture is out of the 2012 yearbook. Allison and Aiden would die mere weeks after this was taken.” 

Reid glanced uncomfortably at Stiles, but spoke up anyway. “Ethan and Aiden are clearly the outsiders of the group. They’re the only ones not actually at the table, and Allison looks uncomfortable with her place. She’s sitting drawn into herself. Scott’s not looking at the camera, but he’s not looking at anyone else either. And—“

“I look like I haven’t slept in a week,” Stiles interrupted. In the photo he was smiling, his head leaning against Malia’s knee, but there were visible circles under his eyes and the grin was strained.

“Scott’s mom, Allison’s dad and my dad had all been kidnapped a couple weeks before this. We were all still a little messed up from it. Allison had also been dealing with a lot of deaths in her family, and she and Scott had broken up. He’d just started seeing Kira, and she didn’t know how to feel about Isaac. The twins were newer additions to the group, and none of us were super sure about them. They’d been dicks to all of us and then randomly had a change of heart.”

“Ah the ups and downs of high school,” Rossi said. He had no idea. 

“Not quite living up to the yearbook caption then,” JJ remarked, and Stiles couldn’t help but smile, reading the small text declaring them ‘most likely to stay in touch.’

“You’d be surprised. Scott, Lydia, Malia and I are still close. Isaac, Ethan and Kira all check in every once and a while. Isaac and Ethan are in Europe and Kira moves around a lot, but we make it work.”

“That’s rare. I don’t keep in touch with half of my high school friend group.”

“It’s not a small town thing when you’re the person who got out,” JJ agreed.

“We were just us. Everything that went down that year messed us up for a while but we found our way back to each other.” He looked to Garcia, then at Hotch. “He’s back isn’t he.” Hotch didn’t have to ask who he meant. He just nodded to Garcia.

“After Allison Argent’s death, the killing stopped.”

“It’s possible she was the intended target,” Morgan said.

“Then why go after a hospital?” Emily posited. 

Because it was there and it wanted to send a message , Stiles thought but didn’t say. Chaos, strife, and pain. It went to the place where pain was the most common, and caused some chaos.

“So if he wasn’t after Allison, the next most likely thing is that he got arrested for something else,” JJ said. “We should look at recent releases from nearby prisons.”

“In the past week, three students at Beacon Hills high school have been killed. The first, Carina Daniels was found in the forest, arms and legs stretched out on a large stump.” A picture of the crime scene came up on screen, and Stiles took a deep breath. Carina had dirty blonde hair, and was wearing an outfit that suggested she’d been at a party. It was stained with blood from the wound in her chest. Stiles had a pretty good guess for what the murder weapon was. “The second was Arthur Coin. He was found outside of an abandoned warehouse. The same warehouse where Allison Argent was killed all those years ago. And third, was Dylan Thomas, in the high school, stuffed into the AP Chemistry closet.” 

“Alright everyone,” Hotch stated. “Keep in mind that we are not wanted in this investigation, so tread lightly with the Sheriff. Wheels up in thirty.” Stiles remained seated while everyone else filed out. Morgan gripped his shoulder briefly, and Emily offered a lopsided smile. Garcia sent him a look like he was a lost puppy, finally leaving him alone with Hotch.

“Stilinski, if you—”

“If you say something about a conflict of interest, don’t bother. I have one. But that’s also not going to keep me from doing my job,” Stiles said firmly. “If you try and leave me behind I will take sick days and follow you there anyway. And trust me, you’ll want me there to mediate between the team and the townspeople.”

“I was going to say,” Hotch said when he was sure Stiles was done with his little rant, “was that if you need anything while we’re working this case, don’t hesitate to ask. We’re all here for you, and I wanted to warn you…there might be some things during this case that have to do with some of your sealed files.” 

“You mean Eichen House,” Stiles said. When Stiles was first recruited for the team, he and Hotch had had a very frank discussion about his sealed record and his dubious pass when it came to his psych evaluation. In the end, Hotch had taken a chance on him, and Stiles had done his best not to let him down, proving himself to be one of the best at getting into the minds of the worst kinds of killers, possibly due to his own mind being taken over by one. “I can keep Garcia from telling the team but—”

“No,” Stiles found himself saying. There was so much he was going to have to lie about during this case, and lies were always the most effective when there were kernels of truth embedded within. And he did trust the team…with this part anyway. “It’s fine. They were going to find out eventually.”

“They won’t hold against you,” Hotch reassured him.

“I know.” Each team member had had issues, and they were all there for each other when those issues came to light. It wouldn’t be any different for him. His pack may have been back in Beacon Hills, but he’d made his own sort of family at the FBI.

“Wheels up in twenty,” Stiles imitated Hotch’s gruff voice. The man did not smile with his mouth, but Stiles was sure there was at least a little bit of humor in his eyes. He gave a two-finger salute and left the office. He made his way straight to the bathroom. He could feel the eyes of the team on him as he rushed passed, but he just waved at them and kept going.

The moment he was sure that nobody was inside, he shut himself into the stall at the end farthest from the door, turning around and leaning against it. He closed his eyes, breathing out slowly through his nose. He stayed like that for a few precious minutes, then fished his phone out of his inner suit-jacket pocket. 

Derek picked up on the fifth ring. “Stiles I told you we’d—”

“If you lie to me again, I am going to put wolfsbane in your next meal,” Stiles snapped, and before Derek could protest, he kept going. “Want to know something crazy? The team got called in for a case. Want to guess where?” The silence was deafening. “No? Fine, I’ll tell you. Beacon Hills. Apparently, the same person that committed the famous hospital massacre is back and better than ever, which, I have to say, was a very interesting thing to find out at work , and not from my own husband!” 

Derek didn’t say anything for a moment, and in the silence, Stiles thought he heard Lydia in the background, and it sounded like her ‘I told you so’ voice. Derek sighed. “Give me a minute.” Stiles heard some shuffling and then a door slamming. “Stiles, listen,” Derek implored.

“Choose your next words very carefully ,” Stiles warned.

“We didn’t want to worry you until we knew for sure.”

“Who is we?” Stiles demanded. “Actually, never mind. This has Scott written all over it. I swear to god, alpha or not, I am going to kick his ass.”

“It was a group decision,” Derek said.

“Why don’t you enlighten me as to what the thinking was behind this group decision?”

“I already told you. We needed to be sure before we told you that…it was back. We just didn’t want to worry you for nothing.”

“First of all, three murders, regardless of the culprit, are not nothing. Second of all, you did worry me! I have been losing my mind these past few days because I knew all of you were hiding something from me!”

“You know that’s not what I meant,” Derek defended.

“Derek, how could you not tell me this?” Stiles wasn’t shouting anymore. He couldn’t bring himself to. He closed his eyes again, willing the stinging behind them to go away.

“I’m sorry. You’ve just…” Derek sighed. “You’ve been doing so well. This year? It’s been your best yet, and I couldn’t ruin that for you.”

“So you lied to me?”

“It was the wrong move, and if it makes you feel any better, your call interrupted the pack’s brainstorming session about how to tell you.” So he had heard Lydia in the background then.

“Well there’s no need for that now.” Stiles couldn’t keep the bitterness out of his tone. He could practically see Derek wince at it, and part of him was glad. “I’ll be there tonight. The whole team is flying out so tell the idiots not to be their usual level of stupid and to fly under the radar.”

“They’re not very good at that,” Derek said.

“Well if they don’t then they’re gonna find themselves suspects in a serial killer investigation, which nobody has time for. And tell Scott that I will be having words with him about this.” 

“Oh he knows. You should have seen his face when you started yelling at me over the phone. Pretty sure all the alpha drained out of him.”

“Good,” Stiles muttered. He banged his head gently on the stall door. “I gotta go. And for the record Scott is not the only one I’ll be having words with.”

“I know,” Derek replied. “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah yeah. Love you, bye.” He hung up before Derek could reply. He didn’t think he could handle Derek saying that he loved Stiles right after lying to him for days. Scott though. Stiles wished he could say that he was surprised by Scott’s behavior. Unfortunately though, this was exactly the type of shit he expected out of him and his stupid holier (and stronger)-than-thou attitude. Stiles and Scott had never been the same after Donovan. To be honest they hadn’t been the same since Allison. Scott always said that he never blamed Stiles for what had happened, but Stiles knew deep down that not even Scott could be that forgiving. It only became crystal clear when he believed that Stiles had killed Donovan in cold blood off the word of a kid that he’d known in preschool for like a year who showed up out of the blue as a werewolf—because that wasn’t suspicious at all.

The worst part was, the bad things Scott did were always for what he thought were good reasons. Scott was a good alpha, because above all else he always wanted to protect his pack. He was just sometimes really bad at doing that in a way that wasn’t infuriating. At least it seemed like Lydia had been on Stiles’ side. Scary ex-girlfriends for the win.

Stiles started, banging his head against the door when someone knocked on it. He hissed in pain, rubbing the spot.

“Hey kid, we’re heading to the airfield,” Morgan said. Stiles cleared his throat and opened the door. He almost couldn’t bear the worried look on Morgan’s face.

“Are you gonna be okay? I mean this case man…”

“It was a long time ago.”

“It never feels like that though.”

“No. It doesn’t.”

Chapter Text

“Beacon Hills is like the bermuda triangle of strange deaths,” Garcia said. The team was gathered around a computer in the jet. “First of all, there’s no petty crime. I mean like, zero. And yet, the amount of deaths is crazy. Murder, arson, animal attacks, you can name it? This town’s got it.” 

“You grew up there?” Reid asked Stiles.

“Yep, and my dad was the sheriff.” 

“That actually explains so much,” Emily said, and Stiles rolled his eyes.

“The town’s surrounded by woods, so animal attacks aren’t that surprising,” Stiles pointed out.

“A very small portion of the attacks took place in the woods,” Garcia argued. “Anyway the point is, the web of murders going on here, that are all only circumstantially connected is crazy, and it all dates back to an arson case in which the Hale family residence was burned down, with the entire family, except for siblings Derek and Laura inside. There was only one survivor besides the kids, and that was their uncle Peter. He remained in a vegetative state for six years, until one day he randomly snapped out of it. That case went unsolved until it was finally uncovered that it was a woman named Kate Argent who set the fire.”

“Argent?” Derek asked. “As in—”

“Allison Argent’s aunt,” Garcia confirmed. “And, to make matters even more interesting, Laura, one of the kids who was at school during the fire, was killed by an animal. The medical examiner and lab work declared that she was killed by a wolf, which at that time—”

“Wolves weren’t reintroduced to the California ecosystem until recently. At that time there were no wolves in California,” Reid stated.

“Precisely, boy genius.” 

“Want to know who else died from what was apparently a wolf attack that same year? Kate Argent. Now I already don’t believe in coincidences, but that…there’s just no way.” 

“Stiles you mentioned that Allison was dealing with deaths in her family before she was killed,” JJ said.

“Yeah,” Stiles confirmed. “Kate, and then Allison’s mother committed suicide, and then her grandpa died.”

“Jesus,” Morgan breathed. “Poor girl.” 

“I looked into Aiden Steiner as well, but there’s almost nothing on him. He and his brother moved to Beacon Hills the same year that he died. There’s nothing on them. No medical history, no birth certificates, no internet presence. Before moving to Beacon Hills, they didn’t exist.”

“I didn’t know that,” Stiles said when the team all looked at him. It was true. He’d never really considered what kind of paper trail being orphan alphas in a werewolf pack would leave. Apparently it was none.

“Garcia did you look into people that were put in prison after Allison Argent’s murder and released before Carina Daniels?” Hotch asked.

“I did, but in terms of prisons I came up empty. The closest one is High Desert State, and although there’s a couple names, none of them have ever set foot in Beacon Hills. There is a place called Eichen House that came up. Apparently it’s a mental institution on the outskirts of the town, but I came up empty in terms of recent releases there as well.”

“Are there any connections between the recent victims?” JJ asked.

“Only that they attended the same high school, and given that there’s only one in the town, that doesn’t mean much. Carina Daniels was a sophomore, and both Arthur Coin and Dylan Thomas were seniors. It seems like Carina didn’t know the boys. Arthur was on the lacrosse team, Dylan worked in the library and played violin. The two couldn’t have been on more opposite ends of the social sphere.”

“So he kills across gender and race lines, but only goes after teenagers,” Reid summed up.

“Except for the hospital,” Emily pointed out.

“How sure are we that the hospital was even the same person?” Derek asked.

“It was connected based on the murder weapons. In all cases, a katana was used. The Sheriff's office figured the chances of two lunatics wielding japanese swords wasn’t all that likely,” Garcia replied. 

“And what about the team that he supposedly used for the hospital?” Emily asked. “That’s the only one that was perpetrated by multiple people.”

“No it wasn’t,” Stiles spoke up. “There were multiple when Allison was killed.”

“It says in the police report that a group of kids apparently did say that there were multiple assailants,” Garcia said. “But they never found any evidence at the scene. There was a brief exploration into the idea that there was an accident and the kids had killed Allison, but given the clear cause of death being by katana, the death was attributed to the same person who killed Aiden.”

“That group of kids were distraught, but they weren’t blind. There were other people there,” Stiles maintained. 

“How do you know?” Hotch asked.

“How do you think?” Stiles snapped, then took a deep breath. He remembered seeing his face on that monster. They’d been physically separated, but part of him was still mentally linked to the nogitsune. It was how the nogitsune drained his strength as it grew stronger. He remembered stumbling along on the edges of the fight, weight almost entirely on Lydia. He remembered feeling the hatred of the nogitsune. He remembered the feeling of triumph when the oni stabbed Allison through the heart. 

“We were just stupid kids. Allison was nationally ranked in archery, and we all thought that was pretty much the coolest thing ever.” The rehearsed story came out easily, as though Stiles had said it a million times before. It felt like he had. “We went out to the warehouse so she could teach us how to shoot. Blunted arrows, obviously. They came out of nowhere. It was like they melted out of the shadows. They moved like actual ninjas. They attacked all of us, but it was pretty clear that Allison was their target. She shot one of them in the chest, but they were wearing some kind of armor, and her arrows were just for practice. None of us could do anything. So yeah, I don’t care what the police report says. There were multiple attackers that night. Two of them, in full samurai gear, just like at the hospital, and I’d be willing to bet they were there on his orders.”

“Alright,” Hotch stated. “Multiple assailants then for the original killings. However, the likelihood of the team coming back together after so long is unlikely, so as of right now it appears that the current murders are being committed by one person.” The team seemed to be drinking in the fact that Stiles had watched one of his best friends die, and they didn’t even know that it was on the orders of someone with Stiles’ face. In many ways, Stiles had killed Allison himself. 

“When we land,” Hotch said. “I want Reid and Morgan to go straight to the first crime scene in the woods. JJ and Emily, you should go to the warehouse scene. Stilinski, you and I will stop at the sheriff’s station, then head to the chemistry classroom. We’re already years behind on this case, and with three new deaths inside of a week, this could very quickly get worse.” 

Stiles couldn’t help but think that it was definitely going to get worse than SSA Aaron Hotchner could ever imagine.

***

He didn’t know why he hadn’t expected his dad to be at the station. Noah Stilinksi may have been retired, but he still spent the better part of his time there. Parrish had told him in no uncertain terms that he was not allowed in the field anymore, but ex-Sheriff Stilinski was still one of the best damn officers out there, and he was very well liked, so more often than not he could be found in the conference room with a bunch of files—mostly unsolved cases. 

However, Stiles’ dad was not in the conference room today. He was at the front desk, talking with the receptionist on duty. Stiles’ first thought was that he looked old. He was old, but even with most of his hair being gray he usually didn’t look it. Now his face was drawn, his hair unkempt, clothes ruffled, as though he’d slept there, or not at all. His eyes lit up when Stiles and Hotch entered though, and Stiles couldn’t help but grin back. He didn’t come home very often. He’d forgotten how much he missed his dad. 

“Hi dad,” he said, and allowed himself to be tugged into a tight embrace.

“I wanted to tell you,” his dad said into his hair. 

“Later.” Stiles shook his head, pulling back. “Dad, this is SSA Aaron Hotchner.” His dad cleared his throat and stuck his hand out. Hotch met him halfway with a firm handshake.

“Pleasure. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“Likewise.” That wasn’t true at all, but Stiles appreciated Hotch lying on his behalf like that. Stiles very rarely talked about Beacon Hills and the people he had left behind there. It was just hard to police what he said in regards to the supernatural once he’d gotten started, so he made the executive decision not to get started at all. “Is the Sheriff in?”

“Parrish is in the office,” Mr. Stilinksi replied. He’d never called it Parrish’s office. Occasionally he slipped up and called it his office. Usually though, it was just ‘the’ office. 

“It was great to meet you,” Hotch said, and gestured for Stiles to follow him.

“Stiles, you’re coming for dinner tonight?” Mr. Stilinski asked.

“Oh I’ll be there.” Stiles knew that the whole pack would be there for his return, and boy did he have things to say to them. 

“Don’t be too hard on them,” his dad cautioned. “Derek already thinks he’s in the doghouse.”

“Derek is absolutely in the doghouse. In fact he’s lucky he’s not six feet underneath the doghouse.” 

“It was a group decision.”

“And the group is going to hear about it tonight,” Stiles stated. “Now I have work to do.” Stiles didn’t like snapping at his dad like that, but at the end of the day his dad had been part of the group that had lied to him about this. It only cemented that the lie was out of love, but that didn’t actually make Stiles feel any better. Hotch was already conversing with Parrish when Stiles walked up. 

“…here to help. We don’t want to step on any toes,” Hotch was saying.

“Look, we can use the help, but excuse me if I don’t jump for joy at your presence. Last time the FBI came knocking it was to fire our previous sheriff. That didn’t go well for them.” 

“Damn right,” Stiles agreed.

“Stiles. Well I guess we’re saved then.” The sarcasm was palpable. 

“Come on Parrish, you know you love me.”

“I did not miss you being a massive pain in this department’s ass.”

“You mean the way I solved all your cases for you?”

“I mean the way you hold the record for nights spent in the jail cells here.” They were locked in a staring contest for a few moments before Stiles couldn’t stop his lips from twitching, which caused Parrish to break. “It’s good to have you back. Everyone really missed you.” 

“Obviously. I’m a delight,” Stiles said. 

Parrish rolled his eyes and turned back to Hotch. “We prepared a conference room for the team that I’m assuming has already been sent out to scenes.” Hotch nodded. “If you sent them to the woods, hopefully they came across some of my officers. It’s real easy to get lost there if you’re not from here.” 

“I’m sure they’ll manage,” Hotch said gruffly. Stiles had actually told Reid and Morgan to search out some officers to guide them to the scene. Parrish wasn’t kidding about the woods, even without mentioning the dangers of literal werewolves roaming around in them.

“I think I can manage to get us to the high school,” Stiles told Parrish.

“Classes are in session, but the scene’s blocked off,” Parrish informed them.

“You sent the kids back to school?” Hotch asked.

“Agent, if we canceled classes every time a mysterious death or…something happened in that school the students would never graduate,” Parrish replied evenly. “We have a curfew in place, however little it does.”

“I can tell you that we never paid attention to the curfews,” Stiles said. 

“Exactly,” Parrish agreed. “At least if school’s in session, we know where the kids are. I needed to head to the high school anyway. I’ll take you.” Parrish took his jacket off the hook behind his desk, and strapped his holster on, clipping the shiny gold badge that Stiles was still so accustomed to seeing on his dad onto it.

“Why are you going?” Stiles asked as he and Hotch followed Parrish out of the precinct. 

“Lydia.”

Stiles nodded. “She doing okay?” 

“You know how it is. It’s never exactly fun for her.” Stiles made a noise of agreement. 

“Lydia Martin? The woman who found the body in the school?” Hotch asked. Stiles and Parrish exchanged a glance, and Stiles shrugged.

“Yeah. This is gonna sound a little crazy, but she’s kind of psychic? I’m only telling you because I imagine you’ll be looking into her, and she’s got quite the track record of finding dead bodies in this town,” Parrish said.

Hotch looked at Stiles, who nodded. “It started when we were teenagers. She’s like an omen of death with strawberry blonde hair and heels high and sharp enough to act as daggers. Call it small-town superstition if you want, but it’s pretty creepy. Don’t tell her I said that,” he added to Parrish.

“We’ll follow,” Hotch said, and Stiles followed him to one of the black SUVs they’d rented at the airport on the FBI’s dime. Once they were on their way, Hotch broached the subject again.

“Psychic,” he stated. 

“It’s a superstitious town,” Stiles explained. “We’ve got our share of werewolf myths you know. The weird shit that happens in this town? You can’t really blame them.”

“And you?” Hotch asked.

“I grew up here. I’ve seen some…strange things. Anyway don’t call Lydia psychic. It annoys her.”

Hotch left it alone. “How long has the Sheriff been at the department?” he asked instead. “He looks young.”

“He gets that a lot,” Stiles replied. “The samurai murders was his first case with us. He’d been a big city cop for a few years, and then decided he wanted the small town life or something. Our previous deputy was murdered just before he arrived in the triple kills a couple months before.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Yeah she was my dad’s deputy basically since I was born. She was there for us when my mom died. She’d pick me up from school when my dad forgot, and read me a bed-time story while he was passed out on the couch. She’s the one who told him to slow down with the drinking or else she’d report him.” Stiles didn’t know why he was telling him all of this. Probably just to fill the silence of the drive. Hotch never had a need for noise, which meant that one on one car rides could get painfully awkward for Stiles, who abhorred silence. “Her death was hard, and then my dad got kidnapped by the unsub, along with Allison’s dad and Scott’s mom.”

“I assume the unsub was caught?” Hotch asked.

“No, actually. We found our parents though, before the police department did.” Technically they had caught the unsub as well, but the police department had never solved the case. They’d never even found Jennifer Blake’s body, and it was years before Peter confessed to the pack that he’d actually been the one to kill her, having found her crawling toward the Nemeton, likely in the hopes that it would heal her again.

“Why weren’t we called back then?” Hotch asked.

“There was already an FBI agent out here. Agent McCall. He was investigating my dad, trying to get him fired for a lack of case resolutions, and before you ask, yeah he was Scott’s dad.” 

“What happened with the case?”

“Well he proved himself not to be quite as much of a dick as we’d all thought. Even saved my life one night. Still an asshole, to be clear, but you know, could’ve been worse. In the end, he reported that it was only because of my dad’s outstanding police work that any cases in this town got solved, because this place was just so goddamn weird.” Stiles laughed humorlessly. “He was here for the samurai murders too.”

They pulled into the high school parking lot after Parrish’s squad car. It was mostly empty, as school had let out for the day. The only cars either belonged to teachers or those few students that had after school activities. Stiles’ eyes automatically locked onto the school sign that served as the entrance to the Hale vault, where the Nogitsune had been locked up until recently. Only a Hale could open that vault. Stiles’ money was on Peter. He didn’t believe that Peter would intentionally release the Nogitsune, but if anyone was going to open the vault for some stupid reason it would be him. He was also the only Hale that was in town. Cora was always off in some far off land, perpetually traveling, and Derek was obviously with Stiles in DC. 

Walking through the halls of Beacon Hills high school was surreal. It was so familiar and yet it felt like an entirely different world. He saw where Scott’s locker had been senior year and wondered who it belonged to now. He wondered what it looked like on the inside. Scott’s had been a complete mess, and the walls were bare except for a single picture of Allison. There had been a time where there’d also been a photo of Stiles with Scott, but after Donovan the picture had come down, and even after they had somewhat fixed things between them it didn’t go back up. 

Stiles knew they were approaching the chemistry classroom because he’d been there before, but also because of the yellow tape blocking off the room. Parrish held it up so Stiles and Hotch could duck underneath.

“Everything’s as it was except for the body,” Parrish said. “Figured you’d rather look at the scene as is rather than through pictures.”

“It’s appreciated,” Hotch declared, looking around the room. The desks were in perfectly straight rows.

“The desks were moved,” Stiles said. “No classroom ever has had desks that perfect. Fifty kids go in and out of here every day.” Stiles fished a pair of gloves out of his pocket, and looked up at the board. He stopped in the middle of covering his right hand in the latex. 

“According to Lydia, the numbers on the board were not put there by her.” 

“No, they wouldn’t have been,” Stiles said, walking over.

“Do they mean something to you?” Hotch asked. Stiles nodded. He picked up a piece of chalk.

“They’re atomic numbers, each corresponding to an element. Selenium, Lithium, and Tennessine. Or…” He wrote out the abbreviations next to the numbers: SeLiTs . “There’s no way to spell my name with elements.” Stiles found himself chuckling. “So he spelled it backwards.” Parrish didn’t look the least bit surprised. Stiles assumed that Lydia had known immediately what they meant and told the pack. “He did this before,” Stiles told Hotch. “A murderer named William Barrow from Eichen House was brought to the hospital for surgery, but he escaped. He was sighted in the school, but nothing ever happened here. Supposedly he was hiding in the chemistry closet. A message was left for him on the board; atomic numbers that spelled Kira’s name. Barrow kidnapped Kira, and was going to kill her, but Scott and I found her and managed to get her out of there. I’m the one who found the numbers the first time.”

I’m the one who wrote the numbers . 

“That’s two bodies that were found in places that were significant to the old case,” Hotch pointed out. 

“The tree stump in the woods is where the triple kills unsub stashed my dad and the others,” Stiles offered. “They’re separate cases but…” he shrugged.

Hotch nodded. “Could still be connected.”

“We have people watching the hospital,” Parrish said. “I’d like to have people in the woods but that’s not only unsafe but pointless. There’s just too much area and we’re a small department. I’ve got a car on each of the main roads that goes through them but anyone who knows this town will be able to get around them easily.”

“You should put someone on the school too,” Stiles suggested, and Parrish nodded, understanding what he really meant by that. One of the pack should be watching the vault . 

“I’ll call Morgan and see if they’ve found anything. You should call Prentiss.” Hotch was in the midst of taking out his phone when the sound of heels clicking on linoleum could be heard coming closer out in the hallway. Hotch paused, and a few seconds later, Lydia was poking her head around the corner, looking radiant as always in a stunning green pantsuit. Her face broke into a relieved smile.

“Stiles. I thought I heard your voice.” Stiles wondered if she’d heard it physically, or felt him draw near. He really hoped she meant out loud, because when she was hearing people mentally it was usually dead people. 

“Hey Lyds,” he said, making his way over. He ducked under the tape and engulfed her in a hug. He breathed in the smell of her perfume, and felt that it really felt like he was home then. She let go first and held him at arm's length, surveying him with sharp eyes.

“If you need help killing those idiots, I’m here,” she stated, and Stiles laughed. “I was outvoted.” 

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Stiles said. “Let’s let talk of murder cease in front of my very serious FBI boss though yeah?” Lydia rolled her eyes and looked past Stiles at Hotch and Parrish.

“Hi Jordan,” she said. “Thought you might come to check on me, so I waited.”

“You could’ve told me to meet you somewhere else,” Parrish pointed out.

“But then I wouldn’t have been able to see Stiles before tonight,” Lydia stated. Nobody questioned how she knew Stiles would be brought along. “In case nobody told you, we’re having a little get together at your dad’s house.”

“Yeah my dad told me. I’ll be over as soon as I can, but I am working.”

“You’ll be there at five, or I’ll find you,” Lydia replied with a smile. 

“Yes ma’am.” Stiles gave a two-finger salute. “Anyway, I’d like to introduce you to my boss. He’s got some questions for you. This is SSA Aaron Hotchner.” Hotch ducked under the tape to meet them in the hallway. Stiles appreciated that he hadn’t interrupted his moment with Lydia. Lydia surveyed him with a critical eye, head tilted slightly to the side.

“Ms. Martin,” Hotch said. Lydia took his outstretched hand and shook it firmly. “You found the body?”

“It’s my classroom. I’m the last to leave and first in every school day.” There was nothing that sounded defensive in Lydia’s voice, but Hotch clearly picked up on the undertone in the phrasing.

“Who has a key to the room?” he asked.

“The janitors, the principal, the vice, and me.”

“Would you be willing to give us those names?”

“Sure.”

“I’d also like you to come down to the Sheriff’s office at some point for an official interview.”

“Naturally. It’ll have to fit around school hours. I can come in tomorrow at four.” 

“That works perfectly.”

“And I want Stiles there.”

“I’ll be there,” Stiles immediately chimed in, daring Hotch to say differently. He respected his boss, but nobody was going to question one of his best friends without him there to make sure nothing too harsh was happening. Hotch nodded his assent, and Lydia’s face broke into an easy, yet predatory, smile.

“Will that be all?” she asked.

“Until tomorrow.” 

Lydia turned her whole body away from Hotch and towards Stiles. “Tonight. Five. You’ll be there.” It wasn’t a question. She didn’t offer any further acknowledgement to Hotch but for flipping her hair over her shoulder with more force than was entirely necessary when she turned and click-clacked down the hallway toward the exit. 

“You can’t be in there when we question her,” Hotch said.

“It’s either me or a lawyer, and trust me you do not want to meet her lawyer.” Putting Lydia and Peter was risky enough at the best of times. Putting them in the same room, on the same side , was suicidal. 

“It’s only preliminary questioning,” Hotch responded.

“It won’t matter to her. I’ll stand quietly in the corner. You won’t even know I’m there, but she will, and it will make her relax more. A stiff Lydia, is a Lydia who will answer zero questions, no matter how preliminary.” 

“Trouble with authority figures,” Hotch said.

“Trust issues,” Stiles added. “I think you’ll find most people in this town have trust issues on some level.” Hotch already knew that Stiles had trust issues from the way it had taken him almost a full year to become completely comfortable with the team. It had happened faster with Emily and Morgan, but Reid especially it had taken ages, because Reid reminded Stiles too much of himself, and in analyzing Reid to measure trustworthiness, he had to analyze himself, and that was not something Stiles enjoyed doing. 

“I’ll call Emily,” Stiles said. “I know Lydia ordered me home by five, but if you need me I’ll stay later. I can actually stand up to her, and she’s the biggest workaholic ever, so she’s got no room to judge.” 

“Go,” Hotch said. “But I’d prefer if the Sheriff’s office had a car on you. The last time someone’s name was spelled on the board like this, they were kidnapped and nearly killed.”

“Parrish is coming to dinner,” Stiles argued.

“Is he staying the night?” Hotch asked.

“Yes,” Parrish interrupted. “I’m not about to leave Stiles and Mr. Stilinski alone with a killer who clearly has a vendetta on the loose.” It was likely that most of the pack would stay the night at the house. Stiles foresaw a dogpile in the living room in his future, and wondered how long he’d be able to keep it at bay with pure anger at their lying to him. He was thinking for at least three hours, more if he could keep specifically Scott and Derek away from him. If he was still mad at his husband and best friend, then the others wouldn’t want to approach. 

“Alright, but nevertheless, I want eyes on you at all times,” Hotch told Stiles.

“Oh believe me, I know some people that are not gonna let me out of their sight.”

Chapter Text

The Stilinski household was almost empty. Stiles was early after all, and that was on purpose. He didn’t want to enter into a room full of werewolves. He’d rather they had to face him individually as they entered his territory. His dad answered the door when he knocked.

“You didn’t lose your key again did you?” Noah asked with a fondly exasperated look at his very adult son who definitely had not lost his key. He had just forgotten it back in DC.

“I know exactly where it is,” Stiles defended himself. His dad did not look like he believed him, which was crazy. Stiles knew that the key was…somewhere in his and Derek’s house, probably. Noah stepped aside and Stiles stepped over the threshold. He could feel the mountain ash that he’d laid himself across every threshold of the house. Deaton had taught him a thing or two before he’d moved away for college, claiming that to leave Stiles’ natural spark untapped would be actively detrimental to the pack, who would need an emissary whenever Deaton got too old or simply did not want to continue being in constant danger in the interest of the trouble magnets that made up the McCall pack. 

Stiles was so not ready to be the pack emissary, as it would require him to remain in Beacon Hills with the rest of the pack. It was yet another thing that drove a wedge between him and Scott. Derek had understood though. He was technically co-alphas with Scott, but was more than happy to go with Stiles when he’d expressed interest in seeing the outside world. However, he had taken Deaton up on his lessons, and it turned out he was actually kind of fantastic at magic. He’d managed to infuse the wood of the door with mountain ash, so that only when it was open could a werewolf or other such creature pass through. He’d also done the same with the wood of the windows, so gone were the days when Scott could crawl through his bedroom window in the middle of the night. Whatever it took to keep his very human dad safe though. 

“Derek, you can stop hiding. You know I can feel you in there,” Stiles said, not bothering to raise his voice, knowing the nosy werewolf would no doubt be listening in. A few seconds later, Derek walked around the corner, looking upset at being caught. “Wow. Fancy seeing you here,” Stiles said.

“He was helping with dinner,” Stiles’ dad said.

“I sure hope not,” Stiles snorted. “I’m mad at the pack but I don’t want them poisoned.”

“I can chop vegetables,” Derek protested. It was all Stiles ever allowed him to do at home after he’d gotten a panicked call at work when Derek somehow set the oven on fire . Stiles hadn’t even known that was possible. Derek’s eyes flickered down to Stiles’ left hand, where his wedding ring had resided for four years, and Stiles felt something inside soften a bit. Everybody knew Derek had a mountain of abandonment issues. 

“Yeah I’m still wearing it dumbass,” Stiles said, tapping that hand against the side of his leg. He suddenly became aware that his father had left at some point.

“I swear I was going to tell you,” Derek started, and Stiles raised his hand. 

“I don’t want to hear it. I just…no. No excuses. I expect this sort of thing from Scott, he’s always been more overprotective than helpful but you?”

“I wanted to wait—”

“No you didn’t. You knew the moment Scott called you, and even if you didn’t, you definitely knew after you saw the crime scenes. I think you’ve lied to me enough.” 

“That depends on how you define lying,” Derek said, and Stiles rolled his eyes.

“That’s my line,” he said begrudgingly. Derek took a step forward, and when Stiles didn’t move back, he kept going until he was standing within touching distance. How was Stiles meant to stay upset when Derek was looking at him like that?

“Just tell me it was Scott’s idea,” Stiles said. Derek took Stiles’ left hand in his, and Stiles refused to stop glaring at him despite the way the gesture instantly comforted him. 

“It was Scott’s idea, but I backed it,” Derek answered honestly. “In fact, almost the whole pack was in agreement for once, not because we wanted to lie to you, but because we knew how hard this would be for you, and if you didn’t have to go through this again…if we could just solve this one without you, then everything could go back to being good again.” 

“When has this pack ever been able to solve anything without me?” Stiles asked. 

Derek’s lips twitched. “Good point.”

“One of these days you’re all going to have to realize that I can protect myself. More than that, I’m pretty sure I could take on anyone in the pack and win. Except maybe Lydia,” he added after a moment. There would never be a day where that woman didn’t scare him. “I survived the Nogitsune when it was actively possessing me. I can survive hunting it down from the outside.” 

“I know that. Believe me, I know exactly how strong you are. Nobody else in the pack could have survived what you have,” Derek said, squeezing his hand. “I just hate that you have to.” 

“It’s not exactly my favorite thing either,” Stiles replied. “No more lies,” he stated, staring directly into Derek’s eyes. Derek was never an overly emotive being, which is why the miniscule grimace he gave at that had Stiles pulling back. 

“Oh fuck no, there’s more?” he demanded.

“That night that the pull from the bond woke us up,” Derek grumbled, “it was because the Nogitsune showed itself to Scott.”

“Is he okay?” Stiles asked.

“Physically. The Nogitsune needs a host, and that host doesn’t have to be alive, as we know.”

“Well yeah but it prefers a live host. It can’t feed off of a dead host,” Stiles said, confused at where this was going. “So?”

“In this case, it doesn’t need to feed off the host itself, because it can feed on others’ reactions to…her.” An uncomfortable realization was dawning on Stiles, and he cursed his own brain for connecting the dots. Maybe he really would rather remain ignorant. 

“No,” he sighed, pulling farther back. He heard the blade pierce her body with a wet, metallic sound. He could see her bleeding out in Scott’s arms. Derek’s grip on Stiles’ hand tightened in response to his attempt at pulling away, at retreating back into himself. “No,” Stiles repeated.

“Stiles,” Derek stated, voice loud and steady. 

“I’m…” Stiles’ voice broke off. Breathing was a chore, let alone speaking. Stiles managed to gasp, then forced himself to hold his breath. One…two…three…four, five. Out. Another breath, and another. He could feel Derek’s calloused hand clutching his, grounding him. He could smell something cooking in the kitchen. He couldn’t see anything. Wait, that was because his eyes were closed. When had that happened? He opened them, tilting his head up slightly so the first thing he saw was Derek’s worried look. Stiles breathed deeply. “I’m fine,” he said. His voice was scratchy and dry, but it was audible, even to human ears, which Stiles counted as a win. If there was one thing he was practiced at, it was calming himself down from panic attacks. Yippee for valuable life skills. Therapy, what a good idea that had been. 

“How’s Scott?” Stiles asked, still focusing on his breathing.

“He’ll be alright,” Derek replied. “Shaken, but I think part of him knew before it was confirmed.”

“Chaos, strife, pain,” Stiles stated, and hated the way the words felt on his lips. “Is there a plan?” he asked.

“Deaton’s working on something. The problem is that what we did with you won’t work on Allison, because she’s dead.” Stiles could always count on Derek to be completely blunt once he’d gotten over his stupid werewolf instinct to protect Stiles from all harm.

“The bite won’t do anything to a dead person,” Stiles said, nodding. This helped. He was the man with a plan. Coming up with a plan to help this incredibly shitty situation was a good way to distract himself from anything it was making him feel or think about. Definitely don’t think about how it felt to twist a sword into Scott’s gut; don’t think about how powerful he felt running the pack around in circles with all his little tricks. Stiles thought back to his brief conversation with Emily before he’d been released to come here.

“Find anything?” Stiles asked.

“You could say that. You didn’t happen to find any riddles at the school, did you?”

“Kind of,” Stiles replied, dreading whatever Emily would say next. “More like a puzzle. The unsub wrote out my name backwards using atomic numbers.”

“Are you okay?”

“Huh? Oh, yeah I’m good. Not the first time I’ve been threatened, won’t be the last. Hotch is insisting on police detail, which is annoying, but what can you do?”

“You talk more when you’re nervous.”

“Well I’m being threatened by the same murderer that killed two of my friends, so I feel like I have the right to some nerves. What was your riddle?”

“At first we thought it was written in blood, but it’s just red paint.” Thankfully she dropped the line of questioning about how Stiles was feeling about all of this. 

“Nice to know he tried to avoid cliches,” Stiles said. “What’s it say?”

“When is a door not a door?”

“When it’s ajar,” Stiles sighed. “Of course.”

“Familiar?”

“Very. He always liked riddles,” Siles replied. “The really simple ones, like you’d find in a children’s joke book. He saved his real tricks for the murders. The riddles were just fun. He’s a fucking Batman villain.” Stiles felt like punching a locker, but speaking from experience that always hurt him way more than the locker. “Alright. I’ll tell Hotch. Thanks Emily.”

“Stiles, you know if you need to talk or anything…”

“I got it, but I’m fine. Really.” 

“Maybe if you say it enough times you’ll believe it.”

“Dude. Not cool. Can’t you see I’m trying to stay in the denial stage here?”

“Be careful out there Stiles. If you’re the target of this guy it probably means he knows you from back then. You could’ve been the target all along.” Stiles almost laughed. She had no idea how right she was. 

“I know. I’ll be fine. Police detail and I’m having dinner at my dad’s with the Sheriff. There’s pretty much nowhere in this town that’ll be safer than my dad’s house tonight,” Stiles reassured her.

When he regrouped with Hotch, his boss shared that Reid and Morgan had also encountered a basic riddle at the Nemeton. Everyone has it. No one can lose it . Of-fucking-course. After that, he couldn’t get to his dad’s house fast enough. 

He followed Derek into the kitchen, keeping a hold on his hand until they were forced to separate when Stiles automatically went to help his dad with the steaks. Each werewolf would eat at least an entire one, so it always took ages to prepare pack meals. 

“Wash,” his dad stated, smacking Stiles’ hands away.

“It’s not like they’ll ever know,” Stiles protested, but went to the sink anyway.

“I’ll know,” Derek said. Stiles turned to look at him with a raised eyebrow, the look of we’ve shared bodily fluids, are you really going to fight this battle? strong enough for Derek to almost smile. 

The first person to arrive was Lydia, who swept through the doorway with three nice bottles of wine and a kiss on the cheek for Stiles’ dad. Next came Liam, who was dragging a Theo behind him that looked like he’d rather be anywhere else. Stiles also wished Theo was anywhere else, and the two did not acknowledge each other. There had been a brief period where Scott had tried to get the two of them to ‘talk it out’. It had ended when Stiles had gotten upset enough to throw Theo against a wall with his mind, something he had not actually known he could do back then. Since then, Theo had stopped antagonizing him though, and it had felt really good. Stiles had no regrets. He was also taking immense pleasure in the way Derek was staring Theo down like he wanted to set him on fire. Liam strategically sat between the two of them.

Alec was next. He was a sweet kid, and Stiles had thought he was at UC Berkeley for school. Apparently Scott had called, saying they might need help, and he’d come running like the perfect pack member that he was. When Ethan and Jackson waltzed in, Stiles realized that apparently everyone was called except for him. The urge to sneak wolfsbane into Scott’s portion was growing stronger by the minute. Stiles had expected Mason to arrive with Liam, and when he didn’t Stiles assumed he was busy, but he was the next to arrive, Malia coming up behind him at the doorway and staring the shit out of him when she loudly went “Stiles!” in his ear after catching sight of him in the background and shoving past poor Mason to launch herself at him. He had almost forgotten how tactile she was. 

It was a well-known fact that Scott had never been on time to anything in his life, including pack dinners, so not a single person was surprised when he knocked at 5:20, after everyone (save Melissa, who was working the afternoon shift at the hospital and wouldn’t be there until around eight) had arrived. She’d almost retired the same year Stiles’ dad had, but she’d eventually decided it wasn’t the right time. She loved her job. 

“Look who finally decided to face me,” Stiles said, opening the door, only half joking. He stopped and stared. 

“I actually have a good reason for being late,” Scott said, with a smile at Stiles’ shocked look. “Had to pick them up from the airport.” Stiles blinked, sure he was hallucinating.

“Holy shit , Kira?” She laughed and jumped forward, wrapping arms around him. “Oh my god, how are you?” he said into the top of her head, squeezing her like she was liable to vanish at any moment. He pulled back, holding her at arms length. His shout had drawn the rest of the pack. Malia practically shoved Stiles into the wall to get to Kira. 

“Wow, really feeling the love,” Isaac said from Scott’s other side. 

“Shut up Isaac,” Stiles retorted, but his massive grin gave him away. He didn’t hug Isaac. Isaac wasn’t very big on physical touch unless he was the one initiating it. “It’s good to see you guys,” Stiles said.

“Does this mean I’m forgiven?” Scott asked.

“Not even close buddy, but nice effort,” Stiles replied, then pulled Scott into a hug anyway. That seemed to dissolve some of the tension that had been in the atmosphere for the whole night, and the alpha and two former pack members (former Stiles’ ass , they’d always be pack to him), made it through the doorway, only to immediately be pulled into hugs by the other pack members, except for Isaac, who suffered a few pats on the back and teasing about the scarf that apparently was still a regular part of his look. 

When they were all seated down to dinner (the Stilinski household had a frankly ridiculous amount of chairs lying around for this very situation), Stiles was the first to speak up. “Alright idiots, lay it on me.” 

Lydia curled her perfectly manicured fingers around the stem of her wine glass and tilted her head to the side. “Well, I for one thought we should’ve told you from the beginning.” 

“You’re perfect as always Lydia,” Stiles replied, and she nodded at him with a smile that said she absolutely already knew that, but thank you anyway.

“I didn’t want to bother you,” Scott said carefully.

“But you felt comfortable dragging Kira, Isaac, Jackson, and Ethan here from other countries,” he said frankly. 

“I was going to call you. I just called them…first?”

“Could you do me the honor, oh great true alpha, of not lying to my face?” The other pack members looked back and forth between them like they were a very entertaining tennis match, or maybe a train wreck that they couldn’t look away from. 

“I’m sorry,” Scott stated. 

Stiles drummed his fingers on the table. “Fine. I’m over it.” 

“Really?”

“No, but I don’t have much of a choice, so I’m moving on. What is our plan?”

“Well I called Kira because last time her mom did the thing with the tails,” Scott said.

“You mean the Oni? Tell me your whole plan wasn’t the Oni, because if you’ll remember, bring your little old memory back to high school, I ripped the fireflies out of the Oni, and then took control of them to massacre an entire hospital, and also to…well I doubt you’ve forgotten that .” 

Scott paled at the near-mention of Allison. “Okay, no Oni then.” 

“Thank you, what else you got? Kira?”

“Changing it’s form, like we did with you, won’t work this time,” she started off, poking absentmindedly at her steak with a knife. “Its host is already dead, so the bite wouldn’t do anything. But, because the host isn’t alive, it’s using its own energy to puppet it, like it did with Reese. That means it needs to feed more because it can’t feed on its host.”

“Which means there’s gonna be some grand scheme sometime soon,” Stiles said. “Okay. The three bodies were to draw us all back. Showing up as Allison in front of Scott was an appetizer. So what’s the main meal?”

“The three bodies weren’t to bring us back,” Isaac disagreed. “We were already on our way. The Nogitsune killed just enough people to get the FBI involved.”

“No one in this town would’ve called in the FBI,” Stiles mumbled to himself.

“The Nogitsune wanted Stiles here,” Liam said. 

“Fine,” Stiles said, fingers still drumming on the table. Counting. One, two, three, four five. “Fine.” He felt Derek’s hand reach over to squeeze his knee and relaxed a bit. “Well I’m here now. If it wants a rematch it can have one.”

“Stiles,” his dad said in a warning tone.

“I’m not a defenseless little kid anymore,” he answered. “I’ll send that fucker straight back to Hell…as soon as I figure out how. I’ll talk to Deaton, I’ll do some research, and I’ll keep my team away from the important parts of the case. Speaking of which, all of you,” he gestured at all the supernatural creatures at the table, and Mason too for good measure, “need to stay away from the crime scenes. I do not need my team thinking one of you is the killer because you’re lurking around scenes. Lydia is already suspicious enough—not her own fault,” he said before Lydia could even begin to protest. “But nevertheless. Stay. Away.” 

“Sir, yes, sir,” Theo said with a mock salute.

“Oh not you. You feel free to go near them. I would love to arrest you.”

“Kinky.”

Derek growled, and Liam didn’t exactly look pleased. “I hope you know that I could literally kill you without moving. I could explode your little fake-werewolf brain, with my mind.” Stiles had no idea if that was true or not, but that was the beauty of an empty threat, and he took extreme pleasure in Theo’s hesitance to respond. “That’s what I thought. I’ll talk to Deaton tomorrow. From now on, you all let me in on everything that happens, okay? No more bullshit secrets.” He got nods from everyone at the table, even Theo. “Good. Bon appetit.” He cut off a piece of steak and popped it into his mouth. “This is delicious.”

“Mouth closed Stiles,” his dad said with a smile.

Chapter Text

“How was dinner?” Emily asked when Stiles entered the conference room, carrying a couple trays of coffees from the best place in town. It was out of the way a bit, but there was nowhere better.

“Uh, it was good,” he said, shrugging. “A bit more crowded than I was expecting. Apparently everyone came home because of…everything.”

“That sounds nice,” JJ said. “It’s good to have people around you who understand…everything,” she finished with a smile, waving her hand in the same way Stiles had.

Stiles huffed a laugh in spite of himself. “Maybe. They can just be…intense, and some of them have questionable taste in boyfriends,” he added, sobering at the thought of Theo. He shook his head. “Anyway, anything happen last night?”

“Just the riddles, which we already know the answers to,” Reid said. He seemed personally annoyed that the unsub hadn’t been more imaginative.

“Not everyone can be a genius kid,” Morgan teased.

“But that’s the thing! He is a genius!” Reid protested. “Last night, I read through every Beacon Hills case file from the year that the hospital massacre happened, and remember how the bombing of the police station was connected to the unsub? Well before that, the police were led on a wild goose chase. First, there was a bomb threat at the school that turned out to be a fake, and then there was a trap laid along the running trail used by the cross country team that ended up shooting the coach in the chest with an arrow. All of that was to distract from the police station. It was a perfect plan, so why the terrible riddles?”

“Sense of humor,” Stiles answered. “Really twisted one. All of his plans were so convoluted that he took pleasure in the really easy riddles. Not just easy either, it was always the same ones. When is a door not a door. Everyone has it, no one can lose it.” 

“There’s no record of those in the case files,” Reid said. 

“No, there wouldn’t be. It was his personal little terrorizing touch for me…and my friends,” he tacked on as an afterthought. 

“Maybe we shouldn’t be working on this as a serial murder case,” JJ said thoughtfully. “Those are all stalking behaviors. This unsub is a stalker, he’s just willing to kill to get closer to his subject. He wants Stiles’ attention.” It was the same conclusion Stiles had arrived at the night before with the pack.

“Lucky me,” Stiles said with a grimace. “This is good though, if you think about it. It means we have something to work with.”

“The unsub is someone you’ve met,” Hotch said. Stiles hadn’t even noticed him come in. “Maybe just in passing, you probably wouldn’t even consider it a meeting.” 

“Great, but that was years ago. I was in high school, and also going through a lot of shit. I was literally in a mental hospital for part of that year, and that happened after the unsub made himself known, so I didn’t meet him there. Most days I didn’t even know if I was awake or dreaming.” 

“You have extra fingers in dreams,” Reid stated.

“You also can’t read. It got to the point where I couldn’t read when I was awake either.”

“Dude, that’s horrible,” Morgan said, frowning.

“Really? I thought it was good fun.” 

“Stiles,” Hotch said. “How would you feel about a Cognitive?” Stiles’ immediate reaction was to say ‘no’ as firmly as he possibly could, but that would be suspicious. He forced himself to relax.

“Sure, but I really don’t think it’ll turn up much,” he said, fingers tapping on his pant leg. He noticed Emily glance down at them and forced his hand to be still, curling it into a fist. His leg started bouncing in response.

“It’s worth a try, and we’ll stop anytime you want,” Hotch reassured him.

“Okay. Like I said, sure.”

“I’m also going to have Garcia look into your life more closely,” Hotch said.

“Awesome.” 

Hotch ignored the sarcasm. “We need to know about any of your past friends, acquaintances, people you went to school with.” 

“I get it. Good news is, it’s a small town. Won’t take long to figure out pretty everyone I’ve ever even seen from a distance.” Stiles knew it wouldn’t turn up anything, but maybe this line of thinking would keep the team busy for a bit. Stiles was a little worried about what they’d turn up in terms of arrest records for his friends, and Derek, though. Derek especially. At least Derek had an alibi for the first of the most recent killings. The FBI did background checks though. There’s no way some of what Derek was suspected of wasn’t already known. He was literally on the FBI watchlist for a while. Stiles would bet Hotch already knew. Garcia too, considering her complete inability to not look into her friends. Still, he’d really rather not do the cognitive interview. There were quite a few pieces of that era that he would rather not relive. 

After Hotch made the call to Garcia, he gestured for Stiles to follow him. He ended up following Stiles though, as Stiles led him to a little back room and took a seat in one of the chairs. He closed his eyes. He knew the drill.

“Where to?” he asked.

“You need to relax first,” Hotch said. Stiles heard the quiet scraping on the floor as Hotch dragged the other chair so he could sit across from Stiles.

“Relax? I’m relaxed. Why wouldn’t I be relaxed?” Tap , tap , tap , tap , tap . 

“Stiles.”

“Yeah, yeah, okay.” Stiles took a deep breath. His fingers stopped tapping. “If you want me to stop moving altogether, I think we both know that’s not gonna happen.”

“I just need you relaxed, not completely still.” Stiles thought he could hear a slight smile in his boss’s voice. Stiles breathed deep again.

“I want you to go back to the day of the bombing. What did you do that morning?” Great, he started with a day that Stiles really did only remember in pieces. That had been a day when the Nogitsune was almost completely in control.

“I’d been in the woods all night,” he answered honestly. “I’d been out there for a couple of days.” 

“Why?”

“I don’t know. I was barely awake. It’s a bit of a haze.”

“That’s okay. Focus on your senses. You’re coming out of the woods. What do you feel?”

“Awake. It’s like my whole body was humming with energy. The sun was too bright.” 

“It was sunny that day?”

“Yeah, real nice day. One of those days that isn’t too hot or too cold. The sun was out, but it wasn’t baking. Bright, though,” he reiterated.

“Where did you go?”

“I went straight to Scott.”

“Not to your dad?”

“I knew where Scott would be.”

“So you went to the school.” 

“Yeah.”

“How did you get there?”

“Walked.” 

“Did you see anyone on your way there?”

“Mr. and Mrs. Anderson were walking their dog.” He remembered wondering what would happen if he killed little Poppy in front of them. So much pain. It would be delicious. But he had bigger fish to fry. He’d spent all night preparing for the chaos of the day. 

“Anyone else?”

“A couple other people probably. I don’t know.”

“None of them stand out to you? No one is paying extra attention to you?”

“There’s one guy. He saw me and took out his phone right away. I think he was just calling the Sheriff’s office though. I’d been declared missing.”

“What did the guy look like?”

“Brown hair. White. A little taller than me. Young-ish. Unremarkable.”

“Did you recognize him?”

“Vaguely. I didn’t know his name, but I thought he might’ve gone to Beacon Hills high a few grades above me.” 

“Do you remember seeing him again at any point during the day?”

“No.” 

“Alright, keep going. What happened when you got to the school.” 

“Everyone was understandably pretty freaked out when I just showed up out of nowhere. Then there was the fake bombing. Everyone went outside out of some creepy sense of curiosity that people always have. There was a perimeter. The fake bomb was wrapped as a present. I remember it really freaked me out because…” Stiles paused. He was having trouble differentiating the perverse joy the Nogitsune had been feeling about it’s plan going so perfectly from his own feelings of fear.

“Why?” Hotch pressed.

“It was my thing. The present.”

“The present was addressed to you?” Hotch clarified.

“No, it was my signature. For mischief night. I’d taken all of the bolts and screws out of Coach’s furniture and left them in a present box on his desk. When he pulled the box, all his furniture collapsed. Kinda like a bomb.” 

“Who else would have known about that?”

“Scott helped me with the prank.”

“Anyone else?”

“I don’t know, maybe. Greenburg got him a real present in a similar box. Coach smashed it because he thought it was another prank.” Stiles almost smiled at the memory. He and the Nogitsune had found that equally hilarious. 

“Greenburg?”

“Uh yeah. I don’t know his first name. He was always just ‘Greenburg.’” 

“Okay. What happened next.”

“Well I was freaking out, even though nothing happened with the bomb.” Here Stiles’ memory went completely blank. It was just a series of feelings. “I think Scott and I went to see Isaac then?” His memories were all scrambled. He couldn’t remember if the thing with Coach had happened next, or the hospital. He knew the real bombing was last, and then going to Deaton’s and stabbing Scott. That was the clearest part, jabbing the sword into his best friend’s abdomen, twisting it, relishing in the pain he was stealing. It was a feast . 

“Isaac.”

“He was in the hospital. He’d been electrocuted pretty bad the night before. I hadn’t been there, so I wanted to check on him.” 

“How did he get electrocuted?” 

“There was an accident at the hospital. He was there looking for me. My friends were searching the whole town. A wire had been cut.” 

“Cut? It didn’t break?”

“Pretty sure it was ruled intentional. There should be a case file on it. Nobody ever caught the guy. We all kind of assumed it was the same guy as everything else.”

“And this happened when you were missing.” 

“Yeah.”

“Okay. What happened then?”

“I…um.” 

“Take your time. Remember, use your senses. The hospital smelled like antiseptic I’m sure. What did the outside smell like?”

“Clean, but not fake clean like the hospital, real clean. My Jeep always smelled a bit like junk food. It was nice.”

“Your Jeep?”

“Yeah, we picked it up before going to the Hospital.” Stiles had no idea if that was true or not, but he assumed they had, because there was no way they just walked to the woods and got there in time to see Coach get impaled.

“Did you go home at that point?”

“No, we were in the woods when Coach got hurt.” 

“Why did you go there?”

“I found something, somewhere. Bear traps? No, that was earlier in the year. Something like that. Coach got hurt by a tripwire so it must have been that.”

“Where did you find them?”

“The basement of the school.” That was where the twins and Scott had found him. The basement of the school.

“It’s me! I’m me!” The Nogitsune said, raising Stiles’ shaking hands, more convincing than Stiles probably could have been. 

“What were you doing in the basement?”

“That was where I found Scott.”

“Why did you go there?”

“I don’t remember. It just felt like the right place to go, and I did find him there, so there must have been some real thought process.” 

“So you found the materials for a trap, and your first thought was the woods?”

“No, Kira called us. She said something had happened to Coach.”

“I thought you said you were there when he was injured.” 

“We weren’t,” Stiles contradicted himself. There was no real way to explain that they had just known that the trap would be in the woods. “We got there after. Because Kira called us. She was on the cross country team. She was on that run. We got there at the same time as the police.” Stiles was surprised when Hotch didn’t press that angle, and it made him more aware of how suspicious he sounded. He’d just have to hope that Hotch would realize he definitely couldn’t have committed the newer murders, and they were operating under the assumption it was the same unsub because of the details that the average person wouldn’t have known.

“What happened next?”

“The bomb. The real one. It went off, and we all rushed here. My dad wasn’t answering, Derek and Mr. Argent weren’t either. We were worried.” 

“Derek was there?” 

“Yeah, he’d just been arrested.”

“For what?”

“I don’t know. I’m sure it’s on his record, which I’m assuming you’ve seen. FBI background checks and everything.”

“I have,” Hotch admitted. “All the charges against him were always dropped or he was found innocent, like with the serial killings of your sophomore year of high school.” 

“Which ones?” Stiles joked.

“Was there anyone else at the bombing that you remember?”

“It was chaos in there.” Sweet, sweet chaos. It had hung thick in the air, an irresistible incense. 

“Try to remember.”

“There was dust everywhere. All I could think about was my dad and Derek.” 

“You weren’t together at this point.” There was a question in his voice underneath the statement. A question involving age gaps and the ethics of an adult dating a high schooler.

“No, we weren’t. We just knew each other, and I was a hormonal teenager with a crush. He mostly thought I was an annoyance.” 

“Alright. We’re not here to dig into your relationship.”

“Isn’t that kind of the point?”

“Do you remember anything else?”

“I remember finding out my dad was okay.” Stiles was not about to tell Hotch about the animal clinic. There was just no way to explain that away, and no one that knew he’d gone there would ever snitch about it. 

“Okay, I think we’re done here.”

Stiles opened his eyes to find Hotch staring him down. “Sorry I couldn’t be more help. It was a long time again, and like I said everything about that time is a little scrambled from the sleep deprivation.” 

“You did fine. It was a long shot. We’ll see what Garcia comes up with.” Something was wrong here. Stiles did not like the way Hotch was looking at him. He looked careful. Stiles painted a smile on his face.

“Can’t wait for the rest of the team to find out I married a suspected murderer,” he said with mock cheeriness. Hotch didn’t smile, but he rarely did so that didn’t necessarily mean anything.

“Good luck.”

Chapter Text

Stiles was touched that Garcia called him first to talk about her findings. He reassured her that anything in his files he was fine with the team knowing. He needed to have the front of utmost transparency. If they thought he was hiding something, which he was sure Hotch did, they’d be less likely to share what they uncovered about the case, and that was crucial information. 

“Are you sure, because some of the stuff in there…”

“I promise Garcia, it’s fine.”

“I’m just saying I can re-seal these files. Technically they weren’t supposed to be unsealed in the first place so—”

“Garcia, I’m putting you on speaker now. Anything you leave out I’ll just fill in myself.” Before Garcia could respond he’d already pressed the speaker button.

“Hey babygirl, what’ve you found?” Morgan asked.

“Oh! Um, hello…crime fighters. So…I did some digging. Our lovely little hometown hero gave me permission to unseal his previously sealed juvenile records. You already know he spent some time in the very creepy Eichen House when he was seventeen. What’s interesting is that during the interval that he was inside, the killings stopped.”

“Was there anyone else that checked in and out around the same time?” Reid asked.

“Malia Tate, of the famed high school group photo, checked out a day after Stiles did, but she was in there before him, so she’s got a pretty good alibi for the hospital massacre at least. Other than that, zilch in the Eichen House route except that that place seriously should not still be running. I did find something interesting with the hospital massacre though. As I said, the footage has been long since deleted, and while the internet is forever, even I have limits. However, I did dig into hospital records, and during the massacre, Stiles was in the hospital for an MRI, and before you ask I didn’t find anyone suspicious who was there at the time.”

“That’s pretty much confirmation that the unsub is stalking Stiles,” Morgan stated.

“It shows a high level of discipline that he waited until you were out of Eichen House to start killing again,” JJ pointed out. “I know we said the unsub was on the younger side back then but that doesn’t really fit.”

“Some of his moves were so juvenile, but he’s obviously sophisticated enough to lead a cult of sorts. A master manipulator in a way that teenagers usually aren’t,” Rossi agreed.

“He also didn’t kill anyone I knew until after Eichen House,” Stiles said. “This hospital…that was just fun. For him, I mean.”

“Did he ever have any demands for you?” Emily asked, addressing Stiles directly.

Just give in.

Stiles shook his head. “He just wanted to play.”

The Go! board was set up. Stiles sat down cross-legged. There was somewhere he should be, something he should be doing, but the pieces gleamed. “Your move,” the bandaged mass that was his opponent stated. He should feel revolted, but there was a certain calm that had washed over him. He picked up a white tile and placed it.

“It was all a game. Silly little riddles and convoluted schemes, all designed to cause as much chaos as possible.”

“He wouldn’t want to just miss out on the outcome though,” Emily said. “That’s what doesn’t make sense here. He would’ve wanted to see the results of all his hard work.” Garcia was notably silent. 

“Garcia, I know you found something else,” he prompted. “If you want I can step out.” She remained silent. 

“Garcia?” Hotch prompted. “Was there something else?”

“Garcia I’m leaving now,” Stiles stated. He backed out of the room and headed straight for the front desk. He flashed a smile at Camilla and grabbed the desk phone, dialing Derek’s number. He picked up on the third ring.

“Hello?” the growl in his voice gave away his suspicion.

“Relax sourwolf, just me, calling to warn you.”

“What did you do now? Why aren’t you on your own phone?”

“Team’s using it, talking to Garcia, who is probably at this moment telling them all about how you kind of fit our profile.”

Silence, then “ Stiles .” 

“Yeah I know I know.” He ran a hand through his hair. “It’s not like I did it on purpose, but you were around for the original murders, and some of the newer ones. You have a traumatic past, and you’re close to me. The only thing that’s going to stall them is that you have an alibi for the first new murder, but they also think he’s a cult leader so it’s not far fetched for them to argue that you got someone else to do the first one specifically to provide you an alibi.” 

“ Stiles .”

“Look it’s fine. They don’t actually have any proof, but they’ll want to bring you in for questioning. They’re not going to get a confession out of you because you’re innocent, and…this could actually be a good thing.” 

“ How could this possibly be a good thing?”

“If they’re focused on you, the pack can get a head start on figuring out what its next move is.” 

Derek sighed heavily. “Do I need to call Peter?”

Stiles grimaced, but replied “yeah might be for the best. He’ll slow them down even more.” Stiles didn’t enjoy actively sabotaging his team, but it was necessary. They wouldn’t let him be around for Derek’s interrogation, which meant that he’d have plenty of time to come up with a plan with the pack. He actually already had a half-formed plan in mind, and having Derek out of the way would be good, because he certainly wouldn’t approve.

“We’ll be there in an hour,” Derek stated.

“Sorry,” Stiles said. “Love you.”

“You owe me.” Stiles heard the dial tone and hung up the phone, making his way back to the conference room. He knocked to give the team enough time to stop talking about him behind his back before he entered. 

“Derek will be here in an hour, with his lawyer. Lydia’s gonna be here in half an hour.”

“He’s bringing a lawyer?” Morgan asked.

“Per my instructions, yes.” 

“Kid, he’s not under arrest,” Rossi said.

“He’s also not the unsub, but I know he loosely fits some of the profile parameters, and that you’d want to bring him in for questioning. I also know that the smartest thing anyone can do is have a lawyer with them in the interrogation room. And for the record…” Stiles hesitated. This was going to be quite the leap of faith. “I fit the profile better than he does anyway.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Emily said immediately. 

“He’s actually right,” Reid chimed in, staunchly avoiding eye contact. “The only thing is that you don’t have any motive.” 

“I don’t know whether to say thanks for backing me up, or be offended that you just agreed I could be a serial killer.” 

“Considering I’ve fit the profile for several of our cases, call it solidarity.” 

Stiles laughed. “Fair enough.” He waited until Reid looked at him and then flashed a slight smile, indicating that he appreciated the vote of confidence. 

“We’re just exhausting all the avenues,” Hotch assured him.

“I know, which is why I told him to come in. The sooner you finish with Derek, the sooner we can actually catch this guy.”

“We should look into the cult aspect more,” Emily said thoughtfully. “The members have to come from somewhere, and they’re all outfitted with full samurai gear. That can’t come cheap, and there’s gotta be records of those purchases somewhere.” 

“I already looked into that,” Garcia chimed in. “There’s nothing. I mean, absolutely zero. Zilch. Nobody in this town has bought any kind of samurai gear ever in their lives.” Stiles knew for a fact that Kira’s family forged their own blades. Apparently it strengthened the bond between the blade and the kitsune wielder’s gift. 

“What about mercenaries? Could these guys be hired arms?”

“They are highly trained, as per Stiles’ recollections of the night Allison was killed,” Morgan reminded the group. 

“It goes back to money though,” JJ argued. “Hiring a group of highly trained mercenaries in the art of sword-fighting specifically would cost some serious money. I mean can anyone in this town afford that?”

“The Hales could,” Stiles said before Garcia could beat him to it. “They’re old family money. The Hale family practically founded this town, and yes, I know how that sounds, but I’m telling you this so that you look into Derek’s transaction history and find absolutely nothing.” 

“Garcia,” Hotch stated.

“Already on it.” Stiles could hear her typing away through his phone, fingers coming down especially hard on the keys in her haste.

“He’s right folks. Absolutely nothing out of the ordinary in terms of money to or from Derek Hale. While I was at it, I checked on the other remaining family members’ finances, and while they are certainly comfortably wealthy, none of them have made any suspicious transactions or purchases.” 

“You know there’s an aspect we haven’t considered, which would fall in line with the cult angle,” Reid said.

“Well don’t keep us in suspense pretty boy,” Morgan pressed.

“This town has a lot of werewolf legends, like…an abnormal amount, even for a small town in the woods.” 

“Okay? Last I checked werewolves didn’t use swords, aside from them being fictitious,” Rossi said.

“No I know but…bladed weapons would somewhat mimic claws, and there’s something about the animal attacks…I can’t put my finger on it. Aside from that though, all of the tricks, the riddles, and the whole need to cause chaos about all else. It sounds a bit like kitsune mythology.”

“I’ll bite,” Morgan said. “What’s a kitsune?”

“It’s a fox spirit rooted in Japanese culture. Fairly similar to werewolf legends, though they’re more equated with ghosts or demons in English tradition. They’re known for being tricksters. They have godlike powers, and in some legends can shapeshift. They become more powerful as they grow older and wiser.”

“What are you saying?” Emily asked.

“What if the unsub is using kitsune mythology? They would feel compelled to pull pranks, act out, live up to the kitsune name. They might’ve seen Stiles as a threat, someone who obviously has a high IQ, and could challenge them. You said the fake bomb was similar to a prank you pulled,” he addressed Stiles, who nodded. “The unsub wanted to prove they could do what you did, and do it better.”

“Foxes are solitary creatures, like Batman,” Stiles added as an afterthought. 

“Right, but in a town so entrenched in werewolf lore, it’s possible the unsub mixed the legends and formed a pack.” Sometimes Stiles really wished Reid was just a little bit dumber, and Reid wasn’t even done yet. “In which case his jealousy would’ve been heightened, because of your close friend group. He would’ve resented that your pack was better than his, especially if his friend group was having problems. He would’ve wanted to destroy that closeness, tear apart your pack. Once you graduated and your friend group split as you all went off to do your own things, he would’ve cooled off, but then maybe something sets him off, or he checks in on his old competition and finds that you guys are still just as close as before.”

“It would enrage him,” Emily said, nodding along. “He did all that work for nothing.”

“Did you and your friends start to drift apart at any point in high school after the murders?” Rossi asked.

“I mean, I guess. Isaac left after Allison died. Ethan left after Aiden. Kira followed a year later. And then…”

“I would’ve figured something out!”

“Of course you would have! Because you’re Scott! True Alpha! Well not all of us are True Alphas! Some of us have to get our hands a little dirty sometimes! Some of us are human!”

“Scott and I had this massive fight. I mean…friendship ending type of shit. And then Derek left. We didn’t even reconnect until I was in college.”

“In his mind, his work was done,” Emily said. 

“Garcia, look into all the students in Stiles’ class,” Hotch stated. “Figure out every social aspect of that high school. I want to know how all the cliques fit together.”

“You got it oh captain my captain. I will call back when I have a single whiff of anything nefarious.” Morgan handed Stiles’ phone back.

“There’s something else,” Stiles said. “I asked around, and no one knows who called us.”

“It was an officer named Natalie Or who claimed the Sheriff wouldn’t do it himself, but would accept help if we showed up,” JJ replied. “It all checked out.”

“Isn’t it weird that she hasn’t tried to talk to us since we got here though?” Stiles said, shaking his head.

“I’m telling you, she exists. There was a file on her.” 

“Our servers aren’t exactly foolproof,” Stiles stated. “I admit the days are gone when I knew every officer’s name, but let’s just call it a hunch. I’m gonna have Garcia look into it.” He sent the tech analyst a text, and pocketed his phone once he’d received a confirmation in the form of a sparkling smiley-face, just in time for Lydia Martin to walk through the front doors of the precinct. 

Chapter Text

Stiles stood behind Reid and Hotch. They wanted to put forward the idea that this was not an interrogation, so they were conducting Lydia’s interview in the Sheriff’s own office. Parrish wasn’t there, but he’d given permission so long as Stiles was, and that had already been part of the deal. Lydia looked resplendent as always, completely at ease, and generally unimpressed. Stiles sent her a look behind Hotch and Reid’s backs. If she could turn down the antagonistic vibe she was giving off that would be great. She just tilted her head to the side and looked Reid up and down like he was a specimen under a microscope. 

“You must be Dr. Reid,” she said with a smile as sweet as honey and sharp as a knife. The team had decided that having Reid take point on the interview would be best, as Lydia would be more likely to respond favorably to someone she viewed as even close to the same level as her.

“You teach AP Chemistry, is that correct?” Reid asked, pulling back a chair and sitting down. Hotch followed suit a second behind. 

“And you have a PhD in that,” Lydia replied, not bothering with a yes or no answer. Stiles had been transparent about the fact that Lydia, as his best friend, knew a lot about the team, which had earned him plenty of teasing from Morgan about how much he talked about them. 

“Along with mathematics and engineering,” Reid confirmed. “I hear you’re not far behind.”

“I confess I don’t have very much interest in engineering, but I’ve been thinking about Psychology.”

“I have a Bachelor’s in psychology,” Reid admitted. “So two PhDs, BAs in Education and Classics and an IQ of 170. Yet you’re a high school teacher. You could be a professor if you really wanted to teach. Any University would be lucky to have you.”

“What can I say? I’m just selfless like that.” Lydia tapped her immaculate red nails on the wooden desk. 

“Hence why you stay so late and get to school so early.”

Lydia nodded once. “Did you have a question for me Doctor? I have quizzes to grade.” 

“You came across the body of Dylan Thomas in the chemistry closet very early in the morning. Are you always at work so early?” Reid slid a picture of Dylan Thomas out the folder on the desk and turned it so it was facing Lydia. She looked at it impassively. 

“I don’t sleep very well, and being surrounded by the chemicals and supplies calms me,” Lydia replied, looking away from the photo to meet Reid’s eyes again. “Do you remember anything suspicious? Was anything out of place?”

“Well there were atomic numbers on the board,” Lydia said, pretending to think it over. “Oh yeah, and the dead body in the closet.” 

“Is the closet usually your first stop when you get to school?” Reid asked.

“No.” 

“What was different about today?”

“Something felt off. I tested the nob and it was unlocked, which it shouldn’t have been because I always lock it when I leave, and the janitor’s never left it unlocked before.” 

“You have a history of something feeling off, isn’t that right?” Hotch asked. Lydia’s eyes flickered over to him, plainly dismissed him, skated over Stiles, and refocused on Reid.

“You could say that.”

“You’ve been described as psychic.” The glare she sent Hotch would’ve quelled a lion. Hotch only blinked. He’d faced off against the worst humanity had to offer. 

“I am not psychic . If anything, I’m exceptionally unlucky.”

“Statistically, the amount of dead bodies you’ve found is next to impossible,” Reid stated. “Without prior knowledge of them, that is.”

“I’m well aware of the statistics Doctor, but considering the amount of deaths in this town the statistics are a bit skewed here, don’t you think?” 

“If that were the case everyone would be finding more bodies, but it seems to be largely a you thing, indicating that it is you who are skewed, and not the statistics.”

Lydia leaned forward. “You are a very scientifically-minded individual, Dr. Reid. I imagine it makes you uncomfortable to think of me as being psychic. I share your uncomfortability, and yet have yet to find a scientific explanation.” Stiles was reminded of how fantastic of a liar Lydia was. They all were, but Lydia was a masterclass. She could have been an actress if she wanted. Really she could’ve done anything with her life, if this town didn’t have a death-grip on her, on all of them.

“You’d be surprised. There are plenty of things that can’t be explained by science,” Reid replied. “Why don’t we discuss some of those?”

“Oh please. I love a good myth. Classics BA, as you so generously pointed out.” 

“What do you know about Kitsune?” 

She raised a perfectly penciled eyebrow, eyes skating over Stiles once more. He blinked once. “Japanese fox spirits,” Lydia said.

“We’ve heard some peculiar rumors about werewolves here,” Reid pressed.

“Well, do you want to know about kitsune or werewolves, because they’re different things from vastly different cultures.” The bite in her voice was unmistakable.

“They share several similarities though. For instance, they both contain myths about being able to shapeshift into a human form, or vice versa.”

“So they do. Are you insinuating that a mythical fox is responsible for my best friend's death?”

“So you do believe that our current unsub is the same as the one that was responsible for the death of Allison Argent.”

“Are you saying it’s not?” 

“Do you know anyone that would have a grudge against Allison Argent?”

“No.”

“What about Aiden Steiner?”

“No.” She punctuated the statement with an extra hard tap of the tip of her fingernail on the table. 

“What about Stiles Stilinski?”

“Stiles,” her eyes flickered to him again. “Despite his tendency to annoy, was not hated by anyone enough for them to kill over it.” Stiles rolled his eyes. 

“What about mild dislike, or as you put it, annoyance?” Hotch asked.

“Annoyance? The list is longer than I have time for. Are we done here? Derek Hale just arrived.” Lydia’s back was to the bullpen, but she was right. Derek was chatting with Camilla, with Peter lurking behind him like the big brooding asshole he was. Stiles hid a smile behind his hands as he saw Hotch’s shoulders tense slightly when he caught sight of the pair, and likely started trying to figure out how she could have known that. The funny thing was that it wasn't even a banshee thing, the pack bond had just hummed a bit because of the proximity. She’d probably also noticed the way Stiles’ eyes had found his husband immediately when he entered the precinct and made the deduction from there. 

“You’re free to go,” Hotch told her.

“I always was, but I appreciate the useless gesture,” Lydia replied coldly. She didn’t offer to shake either of their hands, but gave a polite nod to Reid as she swept from the room, brushing her fingers against Stiles’ hand briefly on her way. Stiles didn’t follow her immediately. He saw Hotch pause the recording device and put it into his suit pocket. They’d review it with the rest of the team later, along with whatever recording they got from Derek’s interrogation, which Stiles would definitely not be allowed in the room for. That was fine though; he had something else to take care of.

“Since you don’t want me around for this next part anyway, I thought I might go out for a bit, walk the crime scenes I didn’t get to see in person yet,” Stiles said.

“Take Prentiss with you,” Hotch stated. Stiles had been afraid he’d say that. 

“I was planning on taking Parrish. I thought you’d want all perspectives on your interrogation with my husband.” Was driving the point that Derek was someone Stiles loved and he wasn’t happy about what was about to proceed manipulative? Absolutely it was. 

“I don’t want you going anywhere alone. We know this unsub has it out for you,” Hotch said.

“Which is why I’m taking the Sheriff,” Stiles replied. “Sir,” he added as an afterthought. 

“I want regular check-ins.” Stiles resisted the urge to say ‘ok dad,’ and just nodded. 

“Stiles, I thought you said he was bringing a lawyer,” Reid said, staring through the blinds at where Lydia was talking with Peter and Derek. “That’s Peter Hale.”

“Yeah, his lawyer. Good luck.” Stiles was out of the room before Hotch could reconsider his decision to let him leave without a BAU escort.

***

“You have a plan,” Parrish stated, pulling off the road where a couple other cars were idling. Isaac, Ethan and Jackson were all leaning up against one, chatting, while Scott, Kira and Malia stood off to the side with their heads together. Theo, Liam, Alec and Mason were nowhere in sight, but he could feel them; they must be on perimeter duty.

“Course I do. I always have a plan,” Stiles replied cheekily, exiting the vehicle.

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” he heard Parrish mutter before he shut the door. 

“Alright puppies, gather round!” he called. Jackson rolled his eyes, and Theo looked just a little bit more murderous than usual, but the pack had long stopped begrudging Stiles the nicknames he came up with. “I have decided that I’m tired of waiting for Deaton to get his face out of those dusty old books of his. Ideally we wrap this up before anyone else dies. So, here’s the plan.” 

***

“You have got to know how stupid of a plan this is,” Jackson said, for the fourth time.

“It’s a brilliant plan.” 

“Using yourself as bait has historically never gone well,” Jackson argued.

“I’m still alive aren’t I?”

“Only because both alphas would rather chew their own hands off than let anything happen to you,” Jackson grumbled.

“Which is exactly why you’re the one walking with me, Derek is not here, and Scott is on perimeter watch. You’re the least likely to do something stupid thinking you’re saving me or some bullshit like that.” He knew that all the were-creatures around could hear him, and he didn’t care.

“Technically Theo would be the person most likely to let you die.”

“Yeah well I don’t trust Theo not to kill me himself.” 

Jackson didn’t argue the point. “Do you even know what you’re doing?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“You know I can tell when you lie, right?”

“Quit listening to my heartbeat, it’s creepy. It’s a solid plan.”

“Which is why you needed Derek to be somewhere else, because it’s such a solid plan.” Stiles didn’t answer. Truthfully this was a stupid plan, but it was all he could think of. The Nogitsune wanted his attention, and it had it, but that didn’t matter if Stiles didn’t know what the creature really wanted. He had an idea, but it was the sort of idea that he definitely needed explicit confirmation for before he allowed himself to freak out a little bit about it. 

Stiles felt his phone start to buzz in his pocket. He ignored it. If it was any member of the team, then their next call would be to Parrish, who would be instructed to say that Stiles was with him and completely fine. If they asked to talk to him, he would say that service was dodgy out here and hang up. Admittedly, that part of the plan was not very good, and would raise several alarm bells with the team, but their first thought wouldn’t be that Parrish was lying out of something sinister; it would be that Stiles was up to something, which meant it would buy him at least a little bit of time because they didn’t like to go into things blind and they’d want to know what exactly it was he might be getting up to. There had been several times that Stiles considered what would happen if through this case his team—his friends—found out about the supernatural world. It already seemed like Reid suspected. Lydia had been wrong in her assessment of the doctor. He was the most likely out of any of them to accept a supernatural explanation as long as he had proof. Stiles wasn’t really worried about how the team would react in terms of him; he was worried that they, specifically Hotch or Rossi, would feel obligated to report their findings back to the FBI. Stiles was pretty sure Morgan and Prentiss would have his back, and JJ would have Emily’s back. Reid was a wildcard, but Stiles thought he’d side with Morgan. Hotch and Rossi though. They were older generation government men through and through. Then again it wouldn’t be the first time they’d bent rules to protect a team member. Stiles would rather not force them into that choice, any of them. 

Technically he hadn’t even lied to them. He was going to one of the crime scenes. It just happened to also be a magical tree stump that he could use to amplify his power when he reached out to the Nogitsune.

There was yellow tape stretched between the trees, but no officers in sight. Parrish had made sure nobody would be around. At this point, most officers knew better than to question an order to get out of the woods. Even if the town didn’t technically know about were-creatures, there was no way most people didn’t at least suspect something supernatural. The good part about small town folks was that they would rather go up against a werewolf than rat out any of their neighbors to the feds. Stiles rolled his neck as the magic from Nemeton seeped into him. He acted like a kind of sponge for it. It rolled off the ancient tree in waves. He’d asked Derek once if he could feel it. Derek had said he could feel something . It felt like a wrongness to him, like something to be avoided. To Stiles, it was like sinking into a hot bath. Jackson’s head started to swivel, eyes scanning the trees. The Nemeton also made were-creatures extra paranoid apparently. Stiles would know if someone was out there who wasn’t supposed to be.

He approached the stump. The remnants of the red pain spelling out the riddle about his shadow still stood out against the caramel wood. “Stand over there,” Stiles said, gesturing vaguely a little to the right. “Anything tries to come close, paralyze them.” That was the other reason he’d chosen Jackson of all people to accompany him to the tree. If something made it past all the werewolves, plus a werecoyote and a kitsune in these woods, then the only thing that might stop them before getting to Stiles was a dose of kanima venom.

“This is a stupid idea,” Jackson repeated. “Derek is going to kill me.” 

“Only if I die,” Stiles replied, shooting a sharp smile at him. So don’t let me die , was written all over that look. Jackson rolled his eyes and went to stand where Stiles had indicated. 

“Do you even know what you’re doing?” Jackson asked. 

Stiles contemplated the bark in front of him. He bit the inside of his lip in thought, because no, but surely he could figure it out. He didn’t both answering Jackson, who scoffed at the silence like it answered the question as well as anything Stiles could have come up with. Stiles took a deep breath and leaned down, pressing a hand to the stump and wishing he’d practiced the things Deaton had tried to teach him a little bit more often…or at all. 

“How hard can it be?” he muttered to himself. 

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” he heard Jackson complain, and then Stiles was closing his eyes, tuning Jackson out along with the rest of his earthly atmosphere. He didn’t even feel as he moved to sit cross-legged atop the Nemeton, his hands pressed down into the wood once he had settled. “Where are you, you son of a bitch.” Stiles let the tree’s magic flow through him, and made sure anything magical in the town would be able to tell. He didn’t bother masking his presence. He wanted attention, which was another reason he had the pack stationed around the woods. There was no telling what things other than the Nogitsune might be drawn in. He tried to contain the giant pulse of magic to just Beacon Hills, but his control had always been shit, so who knows if it actually worked. He followed the pulse of magic, consciousness fracturing , riding the waves of power. Looking, searching. He was a spark. He didn't do spells. He ran on pure belief. Anything he believed was true, would be made true. He believed the Nogitsune would respond to him. The best part was that he wasn’t even forcing the belief, like he sometimes had to, which always made for weaker magic according to Deaton. This was pure, real, true belief. The Nogitsune had killed three people to get Stiles back to Beacon Hills. There was no way it wouldn’t take the outstretched hand of communication that Stiles was plainly offering. 

Stiles knew the moment they found each other, because all the scattered pieces of him slammed together with enough force to have his eyes flying open, to be greeted with a completely different sight than he’d been expecting. 

Chapter Text

“Anyone else get the feeling we’re only working with half the information?” Morgan asked, eyes following Stiles as their teammate briefly stopped to exchange a quick word with his husband and then left, Sheriff Parrish right on his heels.

“Lydia didn’t even blink at the sight of the body. In fact the only times her eyes moved at all from mine, it was to glance around the room,” Reid said. He looked thoughtful, but didn’t elaborate. 

“I’m surprised Hotch let Stiles leave without one of us,” JJ remarked.

“Stiles wanted to be alone.” Reid replied, looking like he was still a million miles away. “He was angled away from us, tense, his fingers were doing that thing where he taps them in the one two three four five pattern, like he’s counting. It’s a self-soothing gesture.”

“Well we are about to interrogate his husband for serial murder,” Emily said. Reid made a non-committal shrugging gesture. Hotch had gone out to the bullpen to meet Derek and his uncle, Peter Hale, who was apparently his lawyer. That would’ve been nice to know ahead of time. When Hotch returned to the conference room after showing the Hales to interrogation, he nodded to Morgan and Emily.

“I want you two to run point,” he said. “You know Derek best, and he’ll automatically relax a bit around people he’s familiar with.” Normally it was frowned upon for agents to interrogate people they knew, but Hotch trusted them to be professional, and sometimes a personal touch was necessary. “Reid, keep working on the geographical profile. JJ and Dave, with me. I want more sets of eyes on the interrogation.”

***

Reid’s eyes flew over the pages. He went between the files and the map of Beacon Hills pinned to a board. There was something strange going on here. He’d already pinned up all the locations of today’s murders along with the ones from years before. There were definitely correlations, but it also wasn’t that big of a town. The tree in the woods was clearly significant, as it was in the middle of the woods and out of the way. No roads led directly to it. Unfortunately, according to Stiles, everyone in town knew where it was because it was popular with teenagers, so all the murder site proved was that the killer was a local, which they already knew. 

Reid’s eyes wandered to the stack of files about killings that had been deemed animal attacks, and next to it, the pile full of murders committed by a different unsub to the one they were hunting now. Morgan was right. It felt like they were working with only half the picture. He’d meant what he said about this being related to kitsune and werewolf lore, and with all the animal attacks in this town, it could be more related than any of them realized. Reid pulled the first pile closer, grabbed another color of pin, and started plotting.

***

To the untrained eye, Derek Hale would have looked completely relaxed. He was never a man to sport a friendly visage, but he was leaning back in one of the chairs, straight-faced. However, there happened to be four sets of very trained eyes on him at the moment. From the observation room, Hotch noticed the way his hands were below the table. He was drawing into himself—fortifying, so to speak. Emily, sitting across from him, saw the twitching in his jaw. Morgan watched Derek’s eyes flicker to his left at his uncle. Rossi’s eyes were on Peter Hale who, unlike Derek, was plainly annoyed. 

“Sorry about this Derek,” Emily said with a commiserating scrunch of her face.

“Bullshit,” Peter sang. Hotch was beginning to understand why Stiles had wished them luck with that one. 

“We know it was a long time ago, but we need to ask you some questions about the deaths of Allison Argent and Aiden Steiner,” Morgan stated, ignoring the elder Hale.

“What do you want to know?” Derek asked. 

“You seem tense,” Emily remarked, feigning offhandedness.

“Gee, I wonder why,” Peter sniped. 

Derek licked his lips, and spoke in his usual short sentences. “It’s fine.” Rossi was actually pretty sure he’d never heard Derek Hale string more than ten words together at a time. Not because he couldn’t—Rossi didn’t see a world where Stiles Stilinski married someone who wasn’t smart—but because he chose not to. Rossi respected that. He said what he needed to say, and then let others figure out what he meant by it. It could be a byproduct of what happened to his family. There was nothing about going to therapy in Derek’s file, though the kid definitely could’ve used it. He’d gotten used to not speaking to anyone about anything. Not to mention being married to Stiles meant that he surely never got more than a few words in edgewise.

“Were you close with Allison or Aiden?” Emily asked. “We know Stiles was.”

“Stiles and I weren’t…anything, then.”

“You did know each other though,” Morgan said.

“It’s a small town.”

“So you also knew Allison and Aiden.”

“You don’t have to answer that,” Peter chimed in, and Derek kept his mouth closed. Rossi could already tell they weren’t going to get anything out of Derek with Peter in the room.

“Derek, you know we don’t actually think you did any of this,” Emily stated, leaning forward. “But we can’t fully exonerate you if you don’t help us.”

“Look man,” Morgan started. “None of us want Stiles pissed at us. We’re just doing our jobs.”

“Is my client being charged with anything?” Peter asked.

“Of course not,” Emily replied immediately.

“Good. That means that we are here right now as a courtesy to you and your investigation. None of us want this murderer to walk free, trust me. But do you really think you’ll make a difference now? The FBI has been here before and done jack shit. Excuse my client if he’s a little untrusting of the same governmental institution that had him on their most wanted list with no actual proof of him doing anything wrong.” If Rossi was a younger, more impulsive man, he might’ve felt the urge to punch Peter Hale in the face. There was something relentlessly patronizing about his whole person. 

“We are only here to help,” Morgan stated. 

“You have no idea what you’re walking into,” Derek finally spoke up. Peter sent him a look.

“Why don’t you tell us then?” Emily asked. Derek’s jaw remained clenched shut.

“This unsub is obsessed with Stiles,” Morgan stated, and Derek twitched again. “I think you already know that. Have you and Stiles been having any problems lately?”

“No,” Derek snapped, temper showing outwardly for the first time.

“The first murder this time around happened when my client wasn’t even on this side of the country,” Peter argued. “So what are we doing here agents?”

“We’re working with the information that the unsub is highly manipulative.” Peter raised both his eyebrows and looked from the agents to his nephew and back.

“And you think that’s Derek? The man can barely walk and talk at the same time.” Derek turned his head to glare at his uncle for that one. “Trust me agents, my client is about as far from a cult leader personality as you can get. I mean really, have you seen the way he and Stiles interact? We all know who wears the pants in that relationship.”

“You can shut up now,” Derek growled. Peter raised his hands in surrender, smirking. 

“What about you Peter?” Emily asked, changing gear. “You seem to know your way around words.” 

“What can I say, law school will do that to a guy.”

“Have you been diagnosed with anything?” Emily continued.

“What an interesting question—”

Emily didn’t bother letting him finish. “Because you do exhibit traits of textbook narcissism. You like the sound of your own voice don’t you? Yeah.”

“Where were you when Carina Daniels was stabbed?” Morgan took over. “We already know you were in town for the first murders.”

Peter narrowed his eyes. “I was here. I confess I don’t know the exact timing of that girl’s tragic death, but I was either at work or at home.”

“Carina was killed between the hours of midnight and two am, six days ago,” Emily provided. 

“At home then, like any sane individual would be at that hour on a weeknight.”

“Can anyone corroborate that?” Morgan asked.

“Not likely.” Despite technically being on the back foot, Peter Hale didn’t look even a little bit put out by the way this interrogation had flipped onto him. He wasn’t nervous, indignant, or upset. He looked like he was in his element, a little smirk still tugging at the corners of his lips, eyes alight from the back and forth. He was thriving off of all the attention he was getting, and he’d successfully taken the heat off of his client and nephew. Rossi was sure that Peter Hale wasn’t their unsub, but he was willing to bet the secret ingredient to his pasta carbonara that he was something. Even if he hadn’t committed any crimes before, he was an unsub waiting to happen. 

“We should have Garcia look into him,” JJ voiced Rossi’s own thoughts a moment later. Hotch made a noise of agreement.

“My uncle is the worst,” Derek had interrupted the little tete a tete. “But if you think either of us would hurt Stiles, you’re wasting your time. Time that should be spent figuring out who has been stalking my husband for over ten years.”

“That is what we’re trying to do,” Emily insisted. “We’re just covering all of our bases.”

“Cover them faster,” Derek stated. 

“Derek, do you know who might be doing this?” Morgan asked. Derek’s jaw clenched as he shook his head once.

“We can’t help Stiles if you don’t help us,” Emily pressed.

“If you want to help Stiles, keep him as far from this case as possible,” was Derek’s response, and then he was leaning back in his chair again, arms crossed and plainly done talking. Rossi turned to Hotch and JJ as Emily and Morgan stood up, allowing Derek and Peter Hale to leave the interrogation room. 

“Morgan’s right, there’s a lot we don’t know here. I know he’s Stiles’ husband, but he’s more worried that he should be.”

“Stiles could have told him that we’re treating the unsub as a stalker,” JJ suggested.

“I don’t think so, and even if he did, he didn’t say keep Stiles safe, he said keep him away . If you ask me, that’s not a man who’s worried about what the unsub will do.”

“He’s worried about what Stiles might do,” Hotch agreed.

“If Stiles knew who the unsub was, why wouldn’t he tell us?” JJ demanded. 

“He could want to confront him himself,” Rossi said. “Where did Stiles say he was going with the sheriff?” 

“The dump site in the woods,” Hotch replied, already pulling out his phone. Behind him, the door opened, and Morgan’s face appeared.

“Guys Reid’s doing…something.” 

“Something?” JJ asked. Morgan just shook his head in that way that he sometimes did when it came to Reid. Like ‘I don’t know man, it’s Reid’. The trio followed him out of the observation room and back into the conference room, where Ried was in fact doing…something. The map of Beacon Hills was covered in way more multicolored pins than it had been before, and though the files were still all neatly stacked, they had clearly been moved. Reid was standing in front of the map, frowning and mumbling to himself.

“Spence?” JJ asked gently. All she got in response was a brief head-shake, indicating that he was aware of her presence and didn’t want to be interrupted. Normally JJ would leave him be, but when it came to cases it was important to not let him get too far into his own head.

“Reid what’ve you found,” Hotch said, more forcefully, shaking Reid out of the trance he’d entered. 

“Guys I don’t think the animal attacks in this town are actually animal attacks. Not most of them anyway. I plotted them out, and look. None of this is regular animal behavior. Garcia was talking about how a lot of the animal attacks didn’t happen in the woods, but that’s a huge understatement. We have everything from the fire at the Hale House. I called Garcia and she said that there were only a couple of attacks before that, all attributed officially to mountain lion activity, and all whose bodies were found in the woods, where a mountain lion might actually attack.” Reid picked up speed as he got into it, eidetic memory allowing him to recount the details of every case file he’d looked at. “The thing is, it’s not the Hale House fire that was actually the catalyst for the increase in animal attacks. In fact, it seems that whatever animals were in the woods went entirely dormant for several years afterwards, until Laura Hale was killed by a wolf. That’s also the first wolf attack on record and—”

“Reid what are you getting at here?” Morgan interrupted before Reid could start taking them into the minutiae of whatever he had stumbled on. 

“I don’t think there’s one cult in this town, I think there’s several, all vying for power, and killing to get it.” This proclamation was met with complete silence for nearly ten full seconds before Reid felt the need to fill it with a clarification. “Similar to the theory that the unsub thinks he’s a fox spirit, I think there’s a group of people in this town that operate as a wolf pack.”

“Tell me it’s not a furry thing,” Emily groaned. 

“I don’t think so,” Reid answered, completely serious.

“We did profile the unsub as highly manipulative,” JJ said. “He had followers during the first round of killings.”

“They killed with swords though,” Emily pointed out.

“Claws can’t be easy to manufacture, especially claws that would so convincingly imitate what an actual wolf’s claws would do,” Reid said. 

“That would be easy to trace though,” Emily added.

“I asked Garcia and she couldn’t find anything,” Reid responded.

“So either these freaks are making the claws themselves in a basement, or they have someone who is completely off the radar,” Rossi summed up.

“Back to our current unsub,” Hotch said. “If Reid’s right, we’re not looking for a community member. Someone who thinks they’re a Japanese fox spirit, charismatic but jealous of the sense of community that a…wolf pack would provide.” They investigated some weird cases, including cults, but this one was definitely up there in terms of how strange it was starting to get.

“Do we think this wolf pack cult actually believes that they’re wolves? Someone in this place would have to notice that right?” Morgan asked.

“We should deliver the profile,” Hotch stated.

Chapter Text

When Stiles was a teenager, his mindscape had been chaos, which is part of why Nogitsune had felt so at home there. Scott had told Stiles what he and Lydia had seen when they’d pulled him out of his own mind. The bare white walls of an abandoned warehouse, nothing but the Nemeton. If Stiles didn’t know that Scott didn’t have it in him to lie about something like, he’d have insisted that Scott was bullshitting him. Stiles had seen Nemeton too—he’d been sitting on it—but he’d also seen the forest around it, darker and more sinister than the real woods around Beacon Hills had ever been, werewolf-infested or not.

This time, when Stiles opened his eyes, he saw neither the forest nor an abandoned warehouse. He blinked up at the periodic table on the wall, the desks in neat rows, the board cleaner than it had ever been in real life. This was Lydia’s classroom. This was where Barrow had hidden, where Nogitsune had left the message to kill Kira on the board. This was Adrian Harris’ classroom, the man who had made it possible for Kate Argent to kill Derek’s family and set everything in motion.

He remembered the table that Allison and Lydia had shared, and he didn’t have to make any guesses about who was sitting at it now. Her hair was cut short, just as it had been when she was alive. Her back was too Stiles. 

“You can cut the act,” Stiles stated, refusing to allow her appearance to throw him. He was sitting at the same place he’d always shared with Scott (and Danny when Mr. Harris got particularly upset with him and Scott distracting each other). Allison turned to look at him over her shoulder. 

“But it’s so fun to taste everyone’s reactions.” The voice was Allison’s but the tone was one that she’d never used. It was pitched higher than Allison had talked, and had a chilling, slightly deranged lilt, like she was trying to keep from giggling.

“There’s no need to keep up the facade with me,” Stiles replied, standing up and dragging his chair so it was on the opposite side of the desk. He sat down facing his worst enemy wearing the face of one of his best friends. Between them, a Go board was laid out. Stiles picked up a piece, inspecting the white tile. “Not this time.” Between one breath and the next he was holding a king carved of ivory. 

“Changing the game won’t change how this goes Stiles,” Nogitsune said, smiling with Allison’s lips and all her teeth.

“We’ll see.” Stiles set down the king and moved a pawn forward two spaces. “You wanted me back in Beacon Hills. Why?”

“I think you’re smart enough to figure it out,” she replied, moving a black pawn forward one square. Stiles took his turn and when he looked up it was like he was staring into one of those weird fun-house mirrors. It was Stiles, but younger, high school age; it was the version of Stiles that had been possessed.

“Subtle,” Stiles said dryly. “You know I’m not letting you in again.”

“You already have. We’re here aren’t we?”

“I needed to speak with you, and you were being cagey.”

“Couldn’t make it too easy for you.”

“How exactly do you think this is gonna go? I let you possess me and then you just get to go on your merry way? How did that work out for you last time?” Stiles moved one of his knights, mirroring the move that Nogitsune had just made. It smiled at the parallel, and Stiles made sure not to mirror the pawn that it brought forward, reaching for his queenside bishop instead. 

“You’ll make a different choice this time,” it replied, moving its kingside bishop, thankfully not mirroring Stiles’ move. Stiles glanced down at the board, trying to channel every game he’d ever played with Reid. He moved his queen. 

“You must be desperate,” he remarked. “Allison would've been decomposed when you got to her body. I can’t imagine how much power you’re expanding into keeping her together.”

It picked up a black pawn, inspecting it. “I did what I had to do for the intended reaction. “Stretch my legs and see me run. I’m not fast but I get the job done.” It set the pawn down. “What am I?”

“A puppet. Why do you think I’ll make a different choice this time?”

“Because you think you can outsmart me.” They traded bishops, Stiles taking Nogitsune’s with his queen. “Aggressive,” it said.

“I do what I have to for the intended reaction,” Stiles replied. “You prefer your knights and bishops, but sometimes the best route is the most direct.” He castled his king. 

“You build walls around your mind. Knights are particularly good at jumping over walls,” Nogitsune fired back, finally bringing out its queen. 

Stiles moved his king closer to the corner to buy time. “Then they become just as trapped as the king. You could’ve gone anywhere once you were freed, instead you stayed here. All for little old me.”

“The chaos of your brain is delicious, I admit.” Nogitsune toyed with one of its pawns thoughtfully.

“That’s just the ADHD. Surely we can be honest here.” 

“You were powerful,” Nogitsune stated, castling its own king. “Now you know it.”

“But I’m not a werewolf. I’m the most powerful host available that’s still technically human.” Stiles sacrificed one of his pawns. 

“This body is a host.” Before his eyes, Nogitsune’s form flickered, and again it was Allison seated in front of him. “We both know you could be more than that.” Stiles took one of its pawns with the rook that had been protecting the right flank of his king. “Lost me, and you will surely fall, for I am what helps you stand against it all.”

“Where are you?” Stiles asked, ignoring the riddle and moving his rook back to its defensive position. 

“Right here,” Nogitsune replied, easing one of its knights out into the fray again. 

“Where is Allison?”

“Why do you want to know?” it asked, moving its king in much the same way Stiles had a few moves previously after Stiles shoved a pawn forward distractedly. “It won’t do you any good to find her. You can’t force me out.”

Stiles moved his knight forward to a snug little spot between a couple pawns. “And what if I let you have me? Let her rest. You can have me.” 

It moved its bishop back, retreating with a smile. “I will have you, but not yet.”

Stiles moved his bishop forward in response, leaving Nogitsune’s king only one place to go, but not forcing it to move yet. “Why?” he pressed. 

Nogitsune moved a sacrificial pawn forward. “I have unfinished business.”

“Business that can’t be conducted in my body?” Stiles asked. “Who let you out of the vault?” Nogitsune didn’t reply. “You don’t know, do you?” He slammed his queen down with enough force to rattle the board, then laughed. “You. Don’t. Know.”

The Nogitsune moved its king once more with a facade of calm as transparent as glass. He’d seen a stressed out look on Allison enough times when she was alive to recognize the way her jaw clenched. Stiles was fully on the offensive now, still chuckling with wide eyes, almost unable to believe this. The two of them exchanged a couple of moves in quick succession, ending in the two of them trading knights. “You’re being used,” Stiles stated. He lost a rook to Nogitsune, but he couldn’t bring himself to care.

“If I’m being used, so are you,” Nogitsune finally said, taking its king on the offensive. 

“Maybe,” Stiles replied, taking Nogitsune’s last bishop. “But I work for the government. I’m used to that. This must be eating you up.” After another couple of moves, he was taking Nogitsune’s last knight as well. Nogitsune’s eyes flashed from Allison’s brown to luminescent silver, and it took Stiles a moment to realize that Stiles too had lost quite a few pieces. In fact, despite feeling as though he had had the upper hand, he was down to only his queen, king, and three pawns. 

“You shouldn’t be nearly as worried about me as you should be about whatever got into the Hale vault. They want me to possess you, maybe you should wonder why that is.” It was so distracted that Stiles was able to take its queen.

Nogitsune toppled its own King, and Stiles frowned in confusion. “Mate in twelve,” it explained, plainly thinking much farther ahead than Stiles had ever been able to when it came to chess. “I would let this go on, but I don’t need to stall you anymore.” 

Stiles gasped and woke to Jackson shaking his shoulder hard enough that a little more and he would have dislocated it.

“—fucking kill you myself.” Stiles wrenched himself free of Jackson’s grip, sending himself rolling off the Nemeton. “Finally!” Jackson exclaimed. “I thought I was gonna have to drag your ass up into a tree.”

Stiles blinked a couple times, trying to figure out what the hell was happening. “Why would you drag me up a tree?”

“To keep your team from finding you in your weird trance thing a mile from two dead cops.”

That woke Stiles up. “What?” He scrambled to his feet. “Is Parrish—”

“He’s fine. He’s stalling your team. He said that you’re on your way.”

“What happened?” Stiles demanded.

“We think the Nogitsune got the two cops that were supposed to be watching the in-road. Parrish sent them off to give you time to do your thing.”

“Son of a bitch,” Stiles ground out. “I let it stall me in there with some bullshit story about…fuck, it doesn’t matter. Where?”

“The main road, a mile that way,” Jackson responded.

“Everyone else?”

“Gone. Most of them heard the screams. Liam got there first and got the word to Parrish. He waited until everyone else was long gone before calling in the Feds, but you wouldn’t wake the fuck up.”

“You stayed? I’m…touched.” 

“Shut up. Derek’s already gonna be pissed we let you do this. My self-preservation instincts are better than most of this dumbass pack.”

“Uh huh.”

“Next time I’m leaving you.”

“Sure buddy.”

“Go,” Jackson stated, scowling at him, and pointing like a scolding mother toward the road where the dead bodies would be. Stiles sobered up. God, please don’t let it be any of the officers that had helped raise him. Stiles felt like a bit of an asshole for hoping that certain officers were more dead than others, but he couldn’t stop himself either. Hopefully Parrish was a good liar with that whole boy-scout look of his, because Stiles could practically hear the questioning he was going to be put through by his team to figure out where Stiles was and why he’d been left alone with a serial killer after him.

***

“—again.” 

“Look agents, service out here is spotty at best. Stiles will be here at any moment.”

“I never should have let him leave the station.”

Stiles felt his phone start to buzz in his pocket, and picked up his pace, seeing through the trees that Morgan had his phone pressed to his air, other hand worriedly rubbing at his face. Parrish was attempting to calm Hotch, who despite appearing completely calm in his face, had his fists clenched tightly at his sides.

“Guys!” Stiles shouted, raising a hand in greeting. Morgan ripped the phone down from his ear and marched over.

“What the hell man,” he demanded, meeting Stiles halfway.

“What? I told Parrish to say I would be right there.” He plastered a look of good-natured bewilderment on his face. 

“I explicitly ordered you not to go anywhere alone, Stilinski,” Hotch stated. Oh boy, the last name was brought out. 

“I wasn’t alone for more than a few minutes, and evidently the unsub was otherwise occupied,” Stiles replied, going for the line between respectful and ‘I-know-more-than-you’ that he walked so well. Hotch narrowed his eyes. 

“That isn’t the point. You disobeyed a direct order.”

“Barely,” Stiles muttered.

“Excuse me?”

“Very sorry sir, it won’t happen again.”

“Why weren’t you answering your phone?” Morgan asked. Stiles fished his phone out of his pocket, clicking it on to reveal seven missed calls from Morgan and two from Hotch. He flicked the switch to take it off of silent-mode.

“Whoops,” he laughed. 

Morgan looked at him like he was caught between wanting to deck him and hug him. “Do not do that again kid,” he said, voice strained.

“I really am sorry for worrying you guys. Now can we stop worrying about the guy who is completely fine, and worry about the two murdered police officers?” Morgan gave him a weird look and opened his mouth, but Hotch cut across him before he could voice whatever was bothering him.

“This conversation isn’t over, but we should get started here as soon as possible, considering the identity of one of the victims.” Stiles’ heart dropped into the pit of his stomach. “Garcia got back to us about Natalie Or, the officer that supposedly called us here. JJ was right, everything did check out. Garcia managed to get us her number, but it was too late. She, along with her partner Carson Kerhald, were stabbed roughly forty-five minutes ago.”

“We already have a time of death?” Stiles looked around, trying to locate the coroner’s van as though he didn’t know that it was because Liam had heard the screams.

“No. We have a witness,” Hotch said, gesturing a little ways away, where Liam Dunbar was giving a statement to an officer. Sensing Stiles’ gaze, Liam looked over and nodded. 

“Liam. Is he okay?” Stiles asked. He could feel the pack bond nudge him comfortingly, letting him know that though a little shaken, he was in fact, fine. Morgan and Hotch looked at each other, and Hotch nodded.

“He’s fine,” Morgan said. “But he gave a description of the unsub and…let’s just say it’s a good thing we didn’t get the chance to deliver the profile yet. There was also no riddle left this time.”

Shit. Stiles knew exactly what this was about, and it definitely complicated things. He supposed it was a good thing that Liam didn’t lie about the gender of the person he’d seen, in case it was revealed some other way later on and he was cast into a suspicious light for it, but fuck. “What changed? Who’d he see?” 

“We don’t have a positive ID yet, but the one thing he was sure of was that our unsub is a woman,” Hotch said.

Stiles frowned. “But that means…”

“Going off the eyewitness testimonies from the hospital twelve years ago, that unsub was a white male,” Hotch said.

“This is a different unsub then. It can’t be a copycat though,” Stiles argued. “There are too many details that never made it to the public.”

“A past partner,” Morgan agreed. “Maybe a second-in-command in the cult structure.” 

“We profiled a loner though,” Stiles argued, just for the sake of it, because apparently he could never leave well enough alone. “That was the whole thing. Someone obsessed with me and what I had with my friends. The chances of the past cult leader and the current unsub both having this level of obsession are astronomical. Probably. Ask Reid.”

“Maybe this person got involved because her obsession with the past unsub was the same. They could’ve found common ground,” Morgan said. 

“It’s possible,” Hotch agreed. “Regardless, now that we know the unsub is a woman, it changes things.”

“And it begs the question…” Stiles prompted.

“What happened to the original unsub?” Morgan finished.

Chapter Text

When they got back, Garcia’s face was already on a laptop in the center of the conference room table. As soon as she saw Morgan, Stiles, and Hotch enter the room, she was off, the clacking of her keyboard audible through the computer.

“Okay, so. Buckle up for this one folks because things are about to get weird.”

“About to?” Emily scoffed.

“Fair point,” Garcia conceded. “The officer that called us in named herself as Natalie Or. She gave her badge number, and all of that information is correct, right? But, evidently she had no desire to greet any of you on site.”

“And now she’s been murdered,” Rossi stated. “Which could just be a coincidence…”

“But that is quite doubtful,” Garcia broke in again. “Especially because I traced the number that called us, and it wasn’t Natalie Or’s cell phone. It wasn’t even a phone at the sheriff’s station. The call came from a burner phone.”

“Why would she give her name and badge number after going through the trouble of getting a burner phone?” JJ asked. 

“Exactly, it doesn’t make sense. Luckily, I am an all-powerful, all-knowing goddess and managed to track down where the phone was purchased from, which is where things get…hinky. The call was made from Beacon Hills, but the phone itself was purchased all the way across the country, in Quantico, Virginia, three weeks before, and before one of you starts on a profiling tangent, there’s more, because the pawn shop that the phone was purchased from has a security camera out front that I was able to get the footage from, which revealed the purchaser as Natalie Or, or so I thought, but Natalie Or was working at the sheriff’s station in Beacon Hills that same day. I have her on the station’s security camera within an hour of the time that she was seen on the streets of Virginia.”

“How is that possible?” Morgan asked.

“It’s not,” Reid stated. “The fastest way to travel would be by jet. The fastest jet in the world could make the journey in 21 minutes, not including take-off and landing, which would actually put the time at over an hour anyway, and unless a small-town cop has access to the NASA X-43, the fastest she would be able to go from one end of the country to the other would be five hours.”

“Like the genius said, it’s not possible,” Garcia stated. “But I’ve fully authenticated both sets of footage. Neither was tampered with.”

“Evil twin?” Reid put forward. 

“If Natalie Or has an evil twin, she doesn’t have a digital footprint, or a birth certificate. Natalie doesn’t even have any siblings. She’s not adopted. She was born and raised in Beacon Hills. I take back what I said about being all-knowing because I am at a loss here folks.”

Stiles listened to all of this with a carefully blank face, even as his mind whirled with the possibilities. Not even Nogitsune could be in two places at the same time, even if it had somehow gotten out earlier than they thought and took a possession detour into Natalie. Obviously something supernatural was happening here, but for once Stiles was not going to be able to blame Nogitsune for it. It sounded like magic, which meant a magic-user was involved, which meant Stiles would have to do the thing that he’d really been trying to avoid after how things had gone last time; Stiles was going to have to talk to Alan Deaton. 

The team was still discussing possibilities (fruitlessly), when Stiles tuned back in.

“Does anyone else find it suspicious that Natalie was killed not-so-long after we had that conversation about wondering why she hadn’t tried to see us in person?” Emily asked. Her eyes moved to the window that looked out at the bullpen.

“You think there’s a crooked officer?” Morgan asked, and Emily shrugged, frowning. None of them ever enjoyed putting forward the theory of local police being linked to unsubs, but it did happen occasionally. Stiles especially was uncomfortable with this idea. A lot of the officers here, he’d grown up with. Most of them had been officers throughout his teen years, and a few of the younger ones he’d gone to school with. Unfortunately, Stiles knew that pointing that out would only make the team more suspicious, because of the link between Stiles and the unsub.

“We should deliver the profile,” Hotch stated. “And keep an eye on how the officers react. I don’t think our unsub is a cop, but given the cult aspects, it’s highly possible one of them is a member.”

“Maybe even multiple,” Rossi agreed.

“Stiles I hate to ask you this, but do you know anything about cult activity here?” JJ asked. 

“I know what people say about small towns, but come on. Cults?” Stiles tried to joke. Nobody smiled. “No, I don’t know anything about any cults.” 

“You know about the werewolf legends though,” Reid said.

Stiles couldn’t help the way his fingers started tapping against his leg. Reid’s eyes went to the motion immediately and why did Stiles have to be surrounded by profilers? “It’s a town surrounded by woods. Of course there are werewolf legends.”

“You know the animal attacks and murders are concentrated close to full moons,” Reid stated.

“Yeah, which probably didn’t help with the werewolf rumors.” 

“No, I’m sure it didn't.” Surprisingly, Reid backed off, and Stiles could not find it in himself to be relieved. He almost wished that Reid had kept pushing, because this was a hundred times more suspicious; it meant that Reid was thinking , and that could be very dangerous indeed.

“If the burner phone was purchased three weeks ago,” Morgan stated, getting them back on track and breaking the staring contest that Reid was having with Stiles’ tapping fingers, “then this could all be much more premeditated than we think, especially considering the phone was purchased on our home turf.”

“It can’t be a coincidence,” Emily agreed. “Which means that Stiles has been being watched since before this case started, for god knows how long.” Oh. Right. Well that wasn’t an uncomfortable thought at all. 

“We only got called in after the unsub was sure I wasn’t going with Derek,” Stiles found himself musing. “He left in the middle of the night after the first murder, but didn’t tell me what was going on, so I didn’t follow.”

“Then the unsub killed two more people, and you still weren’t told,” JJ continued. “So Natalie Or, or whoever, made sure that our team was called there.”

“Someone had to have been watching me in DC. Closely.” Stiles felt a shiver run down his spine. 

“If I’m being used, so are you. They want me to possess you, maybe you should wonder why that is.” Nogitsune’s words rang in Stiles’ ears. This was all some grand plan, but it wasn’t being orchestrated by Nogitsune. Someone was daring to use an ancient, evil fox spirit as a pawn. Who could possibly be that stupid?

“From now on, you don’t leave this station,” Hotch stated, tone firm enough that Stiles knew there was no point in arguing. It was going to make his own little investigation much more difficult, but what was the point of being a spark if he couldn’t use his magic to sneak out of a police station? Again, Morgan looked at him strangely, as though waiting for him to say something. Too late, Stiles realized why.

“I want units on my family,” he rushed to say. 

“Of course,” Hotch acquiesced easily. Truthfully, the last thing Stiles wanted was his pack being under police surveillance, but if he hadn’t asked for the bare minimum of keeping his family under watch, it would have looked incredibly suspicious. Stiles was pretty sure he still looked incredibly suspicious, if Morgan’s expression was anything to go by. Reid was still staring at Stiles’ hand, so he put it in his pocket.

“Okay, we’re ready to deliver the profile,” Hotch said. 

“What do we say about Natalie Or?” JJ asked.

“Nothing about her involvement, especially not until we know how she managed to be in two places at once,” Hotch replied, and the team nodded as one.

“I’ll gather the officers,” JJ volunteered.

“Stiles,” Morgan said as soon as she was gone. “Coffee before we have to face the masses?” His tone was joking, but Stiles could recognize that steely glint in his eye.

“Sure,” he said, trying not to sound terrified, and followed Morgan out of the conference room and down a hall that definitely didn’t have a coffee machine in it. 

As soon as they were out of earshot of anyone around the bullpen Morgan stopped. “What the hell is going on with you?” he demanded.

“Well I’m being stalked, threatened, my husband was interrogated as a murder suspect, there’s apparently a cult operating in my hometown without my knowledge, I’m being relegated to staying safe at the station rather than actually being allowed to investigate a case that has haunted me since I was a teenager, and Reid keeps staring at my hands. All things considered, I think I’m coping pretty well.”

“I want to believe you man. You have no idea how much I want that, but you’re not telling us everything,” Morgan insisted. “And I get it. Believe me, I get it . This is your town, your past, your business. But we’re trying to help you. You know that right?”

“Of course I know that!” Stiles exclaimed. “But you can’t honestly say that you’d be fine with the team just prying into your life. My life in Beacon Hills was not a good time for me, in case that hasn’t been abundantly clear. I spent most of this original case in a mental hospital known for its horrific ‘therapy’ methods.”

“Exactly. You’re allowed to not be okay,” Morgan said. “And like I said, I get it. More than you know.” He took a deep breath. “Look kid. This isn’t…I know this is hard for you, and that we're all up in business that you’d rather us have never known about. But we’re here now. There’s no going back. The sooner we solve this case, the sooner all of this can be over. This team…we’re more than just coworkers. We look out for each other. If you’re worried that we’ll look at you different for something that happened over ten years ago, and obviously messed you up pretty bad, then you don’t know us as well as I know you do. You can talk to us.”

“It’s not…” Stiles huffed in frustration. “It’s not that I don’t trust you guys. I trust you guys more than I trust…a lot of people. Most people. But I need you to trust me . If I knew something that would help close this case, I would tell you, but you are not entitled to my every thought and feeling. My past is none of anyone’s business.”

“Stiles, please,” Morgan said, a hint of real desperation entering his voice. “I don’t want to bring this to Hotch, but if you won’t be honest with me—”

“What do you want me to say! What is it that you think I’m hiding?”

“I don’t know! That’s the problem! When you walked up to the Natalie Or crime scene, you knew exactly what was going on, despite not answering your phone.”

“Considering it was a crime scene, it wasn’t difficult to infer. I am a profiler.”

“You knew there were two victims. Specifically.”

“Officers usually travel in pairs.”

“They weren’t in a cop car. The Sheriff thought, and Hotch agreed, that the officers who were meant to watch the in-roads to the woods shouldn’t be easily identifiable.”

“I made an assumption.”

“Hell of an assumption, but fine. You don’t want officers watching your friends and family. Why?”

“I specifically asked for someone to be stationed on my family,” Stiles argued. 

“If I thought my family was in danger, making sure they were safe would have been my top priority. You hesitated so long I honestly thought you had forgotten about them.”

“What are you saying?” 

“I think you don’t want anyone watching your people because they’re running their own investigation. I think you’re keeping information from us because you want them to get to the unsub first. I understand Stiles. But there is a right and wrong way to go about seeking justice.”

“And what if you were right? You claim to understand, but it’s plain that you don’t. This bastard had a hand in murdering two of my friends, not to mention an entire hospital of people, just because I was there! They are killing people, and it is my fault! There was nothing I could do about it back then, but this time they are not getting away ! I won’t let them.”

“You’re letting them by hiding things from us.”

“I’m not.”

“ You are .” 

“This is none of your business. None of you should even be here. You’re only here because the unsub wanted me here. Technically, local PD didn’t call you in, and they could tell you to get out at any time.”

“We wouldn’t listen.”

“You’d have to, or the Director would have to get involved. I want your help on this case. But my personal life is none. Of your. Business. So back off Morgan.” 

Morgan did not back off. “Stiles, we are your friends. This isn’t just a case to us. If the Director ordered us home, we wouldn’t go, because we know that you would do the same for any one of us. We would all risk our jobs, jobs that we are good at, that we love, to see you safely through this. None of us are going to back off, because that would mean backing away from you, and none of us would ever do that. You are our friend Stiles, even when you’re acting like you don’t want to be. If you don’t start telling the truth, I’m going to Hotch, not because he’s obligated, by law, to report an intentional or unintentional obstruction on your part, but because he cares about you just as much as I do. Then I’ll tell Emily, and the two of us will handcuff you to a table until you let us help you.” The pure sincerity in Morgan's expression and tone almost broke Stiles, but he stopped himself before he did something monumentally stupid like blurting out “werewolves are real.”

“I…” Stiles rocked back and forth from heel to toe as he thought about what he could possibly say. Morgan waited. “Thank you for being here,” he started. “But there are some things that I can’t tell you, not yet, and it’s not because I don’t trust you,” he rushed because Morgan looked ready to blow a gasket again. “There are just some secrets that aren’t mine to tell, but I swear to you, from the bottom of my soul.” He looked Morgan directly in the eye. “If I honestly thought it would help keep this unsub off the streets, I would tell you. If you want to break out the handcuffs, go ahead. I’m stuck here anyway.” Morgan examined him, but not even a talented profiler could see the lie in Stiles’ eyes, because he wasn’t lying. Telling the team about werewolves and kitsune and nogitsune wouldn’t help with anything. All it would do was put more people that Stiles cared about in danger. They’d still want to catch the unsub, and with the knowledge that magic was real, they might do something stupid like actually go after Nogitsune. They had nothing to do with this, and they never would if Stiles had anything to say about it.

“Fine,” Morgan said. “We’re here for you though. All of us, but especially me. Anytime you want to talk, I am here.” 

“Still gonna talk to Hotch?” Stiles asked.

“Only if you do something stupid,” Morgan replied, shaking his head and clapping Stiles on the shoulder. “By the way your uncle-in-law is creepy as hell.” 

Stiles let out a startled laugh. “Yeah, Peter’s just like that. I’m surprised nobody thinks that he’s the unsub.”

“I get the impression he just wants attention.” 

“That would be a very correct impression. We good?”

“Kid, we’re always gonna be good, you know that. You’re not getting rid of me that easy.”

“Likewise,” Stiles returned, unable to meet Morgan’s eyes this time, because if he was honest, Stiles getting out of this alive was looking less and less likely with every new piece of information that came to light.

When they got back to the bullpen, it was to find it crowded with officers, and most of the team standing in front of the group. Morgan went to join them, but Stiles caught sight of Reid still holed up in the conference room and went to investigate that instead.

“You can’t possibly still be going through files,” Stiles said, closing the door behind him.

“No, I’ve been through all of them several times.”

“Really?” Stiles wrinkled his nose up. “Thought you automatically remembered shit after the first read,” he teased.

“I do, but I wanted to see if I somehow missed something.”

“Oh. So why are you still in here rather than helping deliver the profile?” Reid looked up from the file that he definitely hadn’t actually been reading. 

“I was waiting for you to get back.”

“Look Morgan just read me the riot act, there’s really no need to—”

“Are you in a cult?”

…what?

Chapter Text

“Excuse me?” Stiles blinked at Reid dumbly.

“Are you part of a cult?” Reid asked again, and okay yeah he had definitely heard him right.

“No?” 

“Really?” Shit, that was the tone Reid used when he was about to tell someone exactly why they were wrong. “Because you really do fit the profile of our unsub, except that you seem genuinely horrified by the murders. However, it would stand to reason that one cult leader would be jealous of another, more successful, leader in the same town. Almost like two gangs fighting over territory, but with the belief structures of a cult.”

“So not only am I part of a cult, I’m the leader.”

“When Lydia Martin was here, she kept an unsettling amount of eye contact.” Stiles decided not to point out that it was probably extra unsettling because anybody who’d ever interacted with the genius could tell that Reid didn’t like eye contact. “Except when she was looking around the room,” Reid continued. “At first, I couldn’t figure out why, but you were standing behind me and Hotch the whole time. Every time she looked around the room, her eyes passed over you, and she only looked around the room when we asked particular questions. “You have a history of something feeling off, isn’t that right?” Reid said, reciting the exact words Hotch had spoken in the interview. Ms. Martin looked around the room, not at you, but it was the first time she looked away from me. 

“What do you know about kitsune?”

“You know it’s kinda creepy that you can just do that–”

“Do you know anyone that would have a grudge against Allison Argent?” “No.” “What About Aiden Steiner? “No.” “What about Stiles Stilinski?”

Stiles licked his lips, waiting. “She looked at you when we asked if anyone would have had a grudge against you.”

“It’s natural to look at a person whose name was just mentioned when they’re in a room,” Stiles was quick to respond. 

“She looked at you when I asked about kitsune, and before that when Hotch asked about her…psychic feelings.”

“Reid come on, what are you getting at here?” Stiles asked, plastering an easy-going smile onto his face. 

“I think that the two cults vying for power in this town operate like a werewolf pack, and that they’re responsible for most of the ‘animal attacks.’” 

Stiles laughed, and hated how strained it came out. “That’s ridiculous. Last I checked, werewolves aren’t real.” 

“Neither are psychics.” 

“Okay, well technically psychics are more likely than werewolves. Intuition is very real, whereas shapeshifting is not. I’m also definitely not a werewolf. You’ve worked cases with me on full moons.”

“I didn’t say they were actually werewolves,” Reid argued. He seemed annoyed. “I said they operate like a pack. Lydia looked to you anytime something supernatural was mentioned, like she was trying to gauge how much to say. Both mine and Hotch’s backs were to you; you could have been giving her signals about what to say or not say.

“I’d like to see someone try and grant Lydia permission to do anything,” Stiles scoffed. 

“I don’t think you’re a murderer,” Reid stated, apparently switching tactics. “You’re my friend.” 

“Am I?” Stiles asked, a little incredulous. “Because you just accused me of being a cult leader.” 

“You’ve been acting strange since this case started. We’ve been teammates for four years. You rock back and forth when you’re stressed. You tap your fingers from pinky to index finger on the table when you’re thinking. You tap each finger to your thumb only when you’re really upset. I think that’s because of the time you spent in Eichen House, not knowing whether you were awake or dreaming. You have extra fingers in dreams, which you would know. Cases where unsubs aren’t aware of their actions affect you the most. The Darrin Call case was the first time I saw you count your fingers.” 

“Wow, you watch me a lot,” Stiles said. “You know I’m married right?”

“I wanted to figure out why you didn’t like me.” 

That gave Stiles pause. “What? Of course I like you.”

“It’s okay. I’ve been told that I can be a lot. Except you talk just as much as I do, and the things you say are usually less useful.”

“Gee, thanks.” 

“You don’t talk in statistics like I do, but otherwise we’re pretty similar. I was confused for a long time why that would bother you, but I get it now. It’s because of the unsub. They’re just like you, and I remind you of you, so I remind you of them. The unsub was a rival leader, and I think you know exactly who they were, and you know why this is a different unsub now.”

“What are you insinuating?”

“You know for a fact that the original unsub isn’t a threat.”

“Of course he’s a threat,” Stiles was quick to correct.

“But not right now. I don’t know how you could possibly know that for sure unless you know who it was. You said that it was always a game. Last time, you won the game.” Stiles recalled the thought that he’d had not even half an hour before, about not telling the team anything because it would only make things worse, but things were apparently getting worse all on their own. 

“I can’t talk about this,” he said.

“Because I’m right.”

“No, because I can’t talk about it.” 

“There’s a cult running this town,” Reid stated. “Except really it’s a gang with a cult-like structure, which would reduce the chances of betrayals because of the zealous belief factor. It’s actually pretty smart. There’s another group that wants to take it down though.” 

“I am not a cult leader, or a gang leader, or any kind of leader!” Stiles insisted. “How would I even run a gang in California from DC? Reid, you know me better than that.” 

“I thought I did. Turns out for all I know, you could be the original unsub yourself. It would explain why you’re so upset about this newcomer, stealing your methods, taunting you with your own tricks.” 

“Don’t,” Stiles said, stilling completely.

“It’s the only thing that fits! Unless you can give some kind of explanation for all the ways this case doesn’t make sense!” Stiles recognized the fixated look on Reid’s face. Reid was so used to being right that sometimes he got tunnel vision, and only JJ could pull him out, sometimes Morgan if it wasn’t too bad. Unfortunately, Stiles couldn’t risk bringing this to Morgan or JJ because Reid was so close to being right. 

“This bastard killed my friends,” Stiles said, voice barely a whisper. “You honestly think I would do that?”

Reid stood up. “No, I don’t,” he said firmly. “I think your rival did, and you killed them for it.”

Stiles took a deep breath and leveled one of his icier looks at Reid. “What are you going to do with all this supposed information you think you’ve uncovered?” The look of abject betrayal on Reid’s face was almost enough to crack Stiles.

“I wanted you to tell me I was wrong,” he said, voice cracking. Stiles didn’t bother pointing out that he’d tried that and Reid had shot him down.

“You are, but not about everything. So I need to know what you’re going to do here.”

Reid didn’t even hesitate. “I want to know everything.” 

“You realize that that means you can’t tell anyone anything.” 

“If you killed someone, I can’t keep that a secret. That makes you a murderer.”

“I can promise you that I was never at fault for any murders. If I was, then you can go to Hotch and have me arrested.”

“I don’t want to arrest you.” 

“Great, then we’re on the same page. I would also like to not be arrested.” 

“Okay,” Reid said.

“Okay?”

Reid nodded, and Stiles sighed, leaning forward onto the table. “I can’t tell it to you here. They’re probably almost done delivering the profile.”

“You’re not allowed to leave,” Reid reminded him.

“I don’t need to leave. I grew up in this station; I know all the good hiding spots.” Stiles winked, and grabbed a stray piece of paper and a pen. He scribbled a quick note and waved for Reid to follow him out the door. Surely telling one team member, who was sworn to secrecy, wouldn’t cause too much damage. He needed Reid to trust him, and at the moment he thought Stiles was a murderer and a cult/gang leader, so trust was definitely not in the cards until Stiles convinced him he was neither of those things. Granted, he kind of was those things, but it was different . Reid would see that. He had to. Having just one team member on his side could even be good. Reid might help him sneak around and actually solve the case. 

Then again…could he really ask Reid to lie to the rest of the team? To Morgan? To JJ ? Okay, so maybe Reid wasn’t going to actively help him sneak out of the station, but at least he wouldn’t be telling anyone that Stiles was the unsub. Probably. God, Stiles was fucking exhausted.

***

“That’s not funny.”

“No, it’s not. I know it’s hard to believe, but I can prove it. Well…okay I can’t technically prove that werewolves exist, but at the very least I can prove that the supernatural exists, and I feel like that’s enough. That’s enough, right?”

“You said you weren’t a werewolf. Do werewolves not actually follow full moon patterns?”

“I’m not . I’m…well I guess I’m kind of a…witch. That’s the closest colloquial term I think. Technically I’m called a Spark, but that’s not…important…You good Reid?” 

Reid was staring fixedly at the wall a little to the left of Stiles’ head. They were in a supply closet towards the very back of the station building. No one came back here unless they needed cleaning supplies. 

“I was right,” Reid stated, still staring at the wall. For someone who was a genius, and therefore was right quite often, he sounded very surprised. “I was just operating under the wrong assumptions about reality. I was right.” 

“About some of it,” Stiles allowed. “Other stuff…not so much. I’m not the pack leader. Thanks though, I really should be, one of our alphas is a bit of an idiot sometimes.” 

“One of? That doesn’t follow traditional–”

“We’re pretty much the definition of a non-traditional werewolf pack. We’re not all werewolves, for one.”

“You’re a witch,” Reid stated.

“Sure.” Stiles actually really hated being called a witch, but Reid obviously needed a concept he was familiar with to cling to. His eyes had a feverish light to them.

“Can you do magic?”

“That’s a hard sometimes,” Stiles stated. 

“What do you mean?” 

“My magic runs on belief. If I believe I can do something, I can do it, but it has to be true belief; I can’t just fake it. So…sometimes yes. It depends on what I’m trying to do. I haven’t really been practicing as much as I should have been.” 

“Can you show me?”

“Sure.” Stiles had been expecting that, so it barely took a thought before the room was bathed in light. There wasn’t a floating ball of it, it was just there, inexplicably, because Stiles believed that this room was light enough to see clearly. Reid looked around, searching for the non-existent source. Not finding one, his gaze went to Stiles, who offered a half shrug. The light faded, probably because Stiles kind of wanted to hide in darkness at the moment. 

“I want to know…everything,” Reid said.

Stiles wanted to protest that he couldn’t just tell Reid everything. Stiles didn’t even know everything, but he couldn’t bring himself to say the words. When Stiles had first found out that werewolves, that his best friend was one, he’d wanted to know everything there was to know too. It hadn’t even been a want; it had been a need, a thirst for new information, an idea grabbing him by the throat and refusing to relinquish its suffocating grip until he knew everything he could possibly find out. He still felt it sometimes, whenever some new creature made an appearance. 

“Okay,” Stiles said. 

“Not right now though. Right now we have a case, and the team is going to go out there searching for someone that they don’t actually know anything about.”

“Exactly,” Stiles breathed, thankful that Reid was quick to grasp the gravity of the situation. He’d never really doubted it, but this was a lot to take in, even for a genius. 

“The unsub. Who is it?” 

“It’s complicated.”

“More complicated than werewolves? Wait, no. Kitsune. It’s a kitsune. That’s why Lydia lashed out when I mentioned it.”

“Kind of,” Stiles said. “It’s a Nogitsune, which is–”

“A dark kitsune,” Reid interrupted. “I’ve been doing research.” 

“Of course you have. Well the Nogitsune is a spirit, which means it needs a host. It’s like a parasite, only when it’s inside someone, it has the capacity to take full control of them. It’s only rule is that the person has to be a human. A wolf and a fox can’t coexist in the same body. I really need a chessboard,” Stiles fretted.

“What?”

Stiles waved a hand, wishing the room wasn’t so small so he could at least pace. “It’s how I explained all this to my dad. I put everyone’s names on chess pieces. Wait.” He stared at the ground. “I’m an idiot. Here.” A chessboard appeared on the ground between them.

“So did you just create that out of nothing, or take it from somewhere else? Because if you just created it, that goes against the first law of thermodynamics. You can’t just create energy, or objects.”

“I don’t really know how it works,” Stiles said. Labels had not appeared with the board and pieces, but that was fine. Reid would remember when he pointed out certain pieces.

“Energy can change forms, so maybe you unconsciously converted some of the natural energy into the room to make what you needed. That doesn’t make any sense though–”

“Reid, it's magic. It never makes sense.”

“It has to though!” He sounded genuinely distraught about it. 

“Well you can contemplate the science of magic later. Sit down.” Reid obeyed, though he didn’t look happy about it, and Stiles could practically hear the high pitched whirring of his brain still going a mile a minute. The white king is Scott McCall. He’s a true alpha, which is like an alpha but he didn’t kill anyone to get his powers. He just…became an alpha because of his leadership qualities or something. And no, it doesn’t make sense, but we’re stuck with him and his stupid, good heart.”

“So he’s the pack leader.” Stiles could tell that Reid was still thinking about how the magic worked, but he knew that Reid had more than enough brain capacity to multitask this conversation. 

“Yes. Technically, Derek is also the alpha, but because he lives in DC with me, he’s not exactly there to co-lead most of the time. Come to think of it, the chess thing doesn’t really work, but it’s fine. We’ll call Derek a white knight.”

Reid frowned. “If Derek’s a regular alpha, does that mean he killed someone?” 

“Yes, but Peter came back to life, so does it really count? Also Peter murdered Laura in cold blood, so like…he deserved it.”

“What? Wait. Peter Hale?”

“Yes. He’s one of the white castles.” Stiles was no longer sure how useful this chess board was going to be. 

“Maybe you should start from the beginning.”

“I don’t know if we have time for that,” Stiles hedged.

“Talk fast then.” 

Chapter Text

“Where’d you two sneak off to?” Morgan asked. The rest of the team had evidently finished delivering the profile. 

“Coffee,” Stiles replied.

“Where’s the coffee then?” Emily asked, noting both his and Reid’s empty hands.

“It was empty,” Stiles said. He glanced at Reid, hoping for any help at all, but Reid just nodded along and went back to his chair. At least he wasn’t blurting things out about werewolves. “Anyway, anyone catch your eye when you delivered the profile?” 

“Almost everyone in the room,” Emily scoffed. “Most of the officers reacted, even if it was only slightly, when we brought up the cult angle.” Stiles didn’t fail to notice that the blinds had been closed in the room. 

“Okay, well to be fair, saying ‘oh yeah our guy is a cult leader who thinks he’s a fox spirit’ is pretty reaction-worthy,” Stiles pointed out.

“Reactions of disbelief would have been expected,” Rossi agreed. “Even anger, if they thought we were sending them on a wild goose chase. The officers in that room were scared, and not the least bit surprised.” Stiles really wanted the Beacon Hills police department to hire officers who were better liars. 

“Stiles,” Hotch stated in a tone that Stiles definitely didn’t like, “is there anything you haven’t told us? I find it hard to believe that you don’t know what the entire department knows.” 

“I’m flattered.” 

“Stiles.”

“I don’t know anything, okay? Why am I being interrogated? I told you this town is full of superstition and rumors.” Stiles glanced at Reid, who was keeping his mouth shut, for better or for worse, as the rest of the team now looked like they believed Stiles even less than before. Defensive outburst had probably not been the way to go. Stiles’ mind was spinning. He needed out of this situation, and he needed out now. 

A knock came at the door, and Stiles was ready to thank any gods out there, until a stab of panic lanced down the pack bond. It felt a little stale, subdued, like someone that hadn’t tapped into the bond in a while but still one of his people , was under attack. His spine straightened and his head whipped toward the door. 

“Come in,” Hotch called begrudgingly. 

Parrish poked his head inside, eyes seeking out Stiles instantly, and Stiles knew it wasn’t good. “Isaac’s here,” Parrish said, outwardly calm, but now that Stiles was paying attention, no longer caught up in his own head, coupled with the fact that the sheriff was right in front of him, he could feel anger and fear and worry, so much worry.

Stiles was out the door, practically shoving Parrish to the floor as he made a beeline for the front desk. Isaac was there, pacing and wringing his hands. Stiles didn’t care that his team was following him. All he cared about was how much fear there was; it hung over and around Isaac like a storm. As much as Stiles wanted to, he resisted the urge to wrap Isaac up in his arms. Isaac heard him coming, and turned to face him.

“I didn’t—I don’t.”

“Breathe Isaac,” Stiles said, trying to imbue a little bit of magic into the words, just enough that they might get through that storm of panic. Isaac took a deep breath.

“My dad,” his voice broke. 

Stiles hated it, but he made himself shake his head. “Not here,” he murmured. The team was arrayed behind him.

“Did something happen?” Rossi asked, stepping up slowly beside Stiles, as though approaching a wild animal. He kind of was, two of them. Stiles felt himself bristle.

“Rossi back up,” he ground out. It wasn’t a tone he’d ever used with Rossi before. Rossi was not only Stiles’ superior, but he was also someone that Stiles respected a great deal, and someone that Stiles considered a friend, maybe even family, like a nice uncle (nothing like Peter). But he was too close, and Isaac was pack. Isaac was more than family, he was like one of Stiles’ limbs. Rossi did take a step back, and Stiles didn’t know if it was because Stiles had asked or because he’d demanded it. He didn’t notice whether he’d used any magic there. He hoped he hadn’t. He didn’t like doing that to people he cared about.

“Isaac, let’s go somewhere quiet, okay?”

Isaac’s jaw was clenched so tightly, Stiles was worried about him breaking teeth when he nodded.

“My office,” Parrish offered.

Stiles nodded. He reached out gently. “May I?”

Isaac nodded again. There were unshed tears in his eyes. Isaac hated crying. He felt like it meant whoever hurt him had won. He was wrong, but the fact he was this close to crying did not bode well for whatever had happened. Stiles took some small comfort in the fact that Mr. Lahey was definitely very dead, and then he took less comfort in the fact that he wouldn’t be able to kill him again. 

“One of us should—” Morgan started.

“Leave them,” Reid finally spoke up. Stiles ignored them all, gently leading Isaac by the arm toward Parrish’s office, trying to pour as many calm feelings as he could down the pack bond, hoping that the physical contact would make them stronger. 

“You’re safe,” he murmured, so quietly that only someone with werewolf hearing would be able to hear. “I’m here. You’re okay.” When the door closed behind them, Parrish staying outside, possibly to guard it from any of the team trying to follow them in, which Stiles was thankful for, he had Isaac sit down. 

“Are you okay?” Stiles asked quietly, kneeling in front of him.

“I—I saw him . He was there .” 

“Who? Your dad?” 

Isaac nodded. “Okay, what happened? Did he…what did he do?”

“He just stood there. In the street. But he was there. I swear he was there, I’m not crazy.”

“I know that. I believe you. Who said you were crazy? Actually, don’t answer that. It’s passed time I threw Theo down a well, Liam’s puppy love be damned.” 

Isaac chuckled, which had been Stiles’ goal. Stiles squeezed his hand gently. He could feel some of the calm finally dissipating the panic. “I’m sorry I came here, I know we’re supposed to stay away—”

“None of that. Never be sorry for coming to me for help. Ever .”

“You know this is why they call you the pack mom.”

“Nevermind. Get out,” Stiles joked, making sure to keep contact so that Isaac knew he was joking. “First of all, that wasn’t your dad. That’s the most important thing.” Isaac opened his mouth to protest, but Stiles talked over him. “I didn’t say you didn’t see what you thought you saw. But your father is dead, and good riddance. Was the Nogitsune there as well?”

“I don’t know. I was—I don’t know.” 

“Okay. That’s okay. Where was the rest of the pack?”

“At your dad’s house. I was heading home.”

“Holding meetings without me?”

The guilty look on Isaac’s face was enough confirmation. “Alright. I’m not mad at you,” he made sure to clarify.

“If it makes you feel better, Lydia wasn’t invited either.”

“Yeah, cause she would’ve told me,” Stiles scoffed. “Back to the problem at hand, we’re dealing with a shapeshifter.”

Isaac narrowed his eyes at him. “Obviously.” 

“Hey, don’t sass me. I meant the witchy kind of shapeshifter, not the were-creature kind. Here.” Stiles angled his body so that he was blocking the team’s view and handed Isaac a glass of water.

“Where did you even…” he took the glass. “Right, magic. Witches.”

“Which officially makes this a Deaton problem,” Stiles said. Isaac scrunched up his face unhappily, a sentiment Stiles shared. “Yeah, problem is, I’m not sure if I’m gonna be able to get out of here to talk to him, and I don’t trust Scott not to roll over for him.”

“You want me to go talk to him?” Isaac asked, clutching the now empty glass in his hands. Stiles squeezed his arm.

“No, you’re staying here. I want you to call Kira and ask her to do it.” 

“Why don’t you call her?”

“Again with the sass. The team’s watching me too closely. I already had to spill the beans to Reid.” Isaac’s eyes widened and his head whipped around to stare out the window, where the team was in fact watching them. “Subtle,” Stiles scoffed. “He won’t tell anyone, probably. He thought I was a cult leader, so it was kinda necessary.” 

Isaac considered for a moment. “I mean…”

“Yeah I know, I know.” 

“I’ll call her,” Isaac said. “What exactly do you want her to do?”

“I want her to ask about shapeshifting witches. If there’s a specific coven or sect known for it, and what they might be doing here. They’re probably here because of the Nemeton, because they always are, but it would be good to know for sure, and I want to know if he knows anything about someone co-existing with a Nogitsune in the same body. Not full possession, co-existence.”

“Stiles don’t be an idiot.” 

“It’s just a question. I just want to know if it’s possible .” 

Isaac looked like he didn’t believe him, even though Stiles had had enough practice lying to werewolves that his heartbeat was even. “And tell Kira that she’ll have to push Deaton for answers. He’ll probably give something cryptic that sounds profound and is actually a load of crap,” Stiles added.

“She knows.”

“Well, remind her, and tell her to go without Scott.” 

“She knows that too.”

“He means well, he’s just a little too noble and trusting, especially of people that have helped him at any point in the past, regardless of the actual strength of their characters.” Stiles didn’t know why he was justifying this choice to Isaac. Isaac had a lot of respect for Scott, and thought of him as an older brother, but he wasn’t blind. 

Isaac was nodding along. “Stiles, your team is still staring at us, and their heartbeats are all elevated.” 

“Speaking of meaning well,” Stiles muttered, standing up. His knees cracked, and Isaac snickered. “Shut up. You gonna be okay in here?”

Isaac nodded. “Thank you. I’m sorry if I caused you any trouble here, I just didn’t know where else to go.”

“I told you, never feel bad for coming to me for help. I’m just glad you’re okay.” Stiles rubbed Isaac’s shoulder one last time then went to face his team. He shut the door gently behind him.

“Is the kid okay?” Rossi asked. 

“Better now. He’s calling one of our friends right now to let them know where he is.” 

“What happened? Did he encounter the unsub?” Hotch demanded.

“No,” Stiles lied easily. “He saw someone that looked like…someone he would rather not see.”

“And went straight to you,” Morgan stated.

“Yeah, he’s my friend.”

“Just your friend?”

“You all know I’m married.” 

“That’s not…I only meant that you must care about each other a lot. You told us that Isaac moved away to Europe, and has been there consistently since Allison Argent’s death, yet the first person he goes to is you, who he hasn’t seen in years,” Morgan explained. “You also about bit Rossi’s head off when he got near him.” 

“He went through a lot in high school, and he doesn’t deserve to deal with all of this now.”

“Oh my god, you’re totally the mom friend,” JJ exclaimed.

Stiles threw his head back with a groan. “I am not the mom friend.”

“You so are,” Emily agreed.

“He is,” Isaac agreed. Stiles jumped; he hadn’t heard the door open. Isaac must have finished briefing Kira. “Has been since high school. You know Liam actually slipped up and called him mom once. Stiles didn’t even notice, he just answered like nothing was wrong.” 

“You weren’t even there for that,” Stiles protested.

“Scott told me. He could barely get the words out through how hard he was laughing.” 

“Why do I put up with you?” Stiles asked.

“Your motherly instincts are too strong to throw me out on the streets.”

“Get out,” Stiles stated, pointing towards the door, but the point was somewhat undercut by the fact that when Isaac started to actually head for the door, Stiles reached out and grabbed his arm to keep him where he was. “You stay in my line of sight.”

“Yes mom,” Isaac replied with an eye roll, smirking. JJ giggled, covering her mouth unsuccessfully with a hand to stifle it. 

“Are you alright now, son?” Rossi asked. “Is there anything we can help you with?”

“I’m fine. Thought I saw someone.”

“But you didn’t?”

“Nope.” 

“You’re sure?”

“Very sure. He’s dead.” 

Stiles could see Isaac’s shoulders tensing. “Since I’m stuck here anyway, I’m going to keep an eye on Isaac,” he interrupted the questions.

“He can’t be in the conference room,” Hotch stated.

“I know, sir. He can stay in Parrish’s office.”

“Sticking me in a corner so that you can work? Mother behavior,” Isaac stated.

“That’s not funny,” Stiles retorted. “I just want you where I can see you so that I know where you are. No slipping off to get yourself into trouble.” 

“I’m a grown man. I’m good to leave, really.” 

“Isaac,” Stiles said, using his ‘don’t-test-me’ voice that Liam definitely had never called his ‘mom voice’. Isaac rolled his eyes again, but raised his hands in surrender.

“Fine.” 

“Thank you,” Stiles breathed. Isaac disappeared back into the office. “My life was so much easier when he was in France,” he said, knowing that Isaac could hear him. 

“Not the mom friend huh?” Emily teased.

“It’s not my fault my friends are idiots who consistently get themselves into trouble that I then have to pull them out of.”

“What kind of trouble?” Hotch demanded.

“Not the illegal kind, just the stupid kind,” Stiles assured him. “Has Garcia gotten back to us yet about every single person I’ve ever known?” 

“Not yet, it’s a lot of digging, even for her,” Morgan replied. “And she’s also trying to look into Natalie Or some more, figure out what could have happened for her to be in two places at once.” 

“So, what now, fearless leader?” Stiles asked Hotch.

“Before we were interrupted, we were having a conversation about you,” Hotch stated, and oh, awesome, he remembered that. 

“Were we? I don’t recall.” 

“Stiles,” Hotch said. 

“I’m sorry, but I can’t tell you what I don’t know!”

“Stiles, we can help you if you stop lying to us.” 

“I’m not lying to you! Seriously, why would I lie to you? I want to catch this guy more than literally anyone else here, believe me.” The rest of the team exchanged looks that Stiles didn’t like. “Don’t do that. Don’t look at each other significantly.”

Rather than answering him, Morgan turned to Reid. “You’ve been quiet.” Reid startled. “What’s that big brain telling you?”

“Most of the officers in this department are superstitious, but that doesn’t mean they know anything about the cult. They might’ve heard whispers, but they’re not necessarily corrupt. That said, we’ll have the best luck with any officers who weren’t raised here. We should talk to transfers from other counties. They’ll be the most likely to talk to outsiders because they were once outsiders themselves.” 

“You’re right,” Hotch stated. “She’s already got a lot on her plate, but we should have Garcia come up with a list of officers from outside of Beacon Hills.” Morgan nodded, already dialing Garcia. Stiles sent Reid a quick nod of thanks. Reid didn’t return it. 

Chapter Text

“I don’t think Stiles should be in the room when Garcia gets back to us about his past,” Emily stated into the quiet of the conference room. Stiles was still with his friend in the sheriff’s office. Part of Emily had wanted to bring this up in private with Hotch, but she didn’t want to put that decision fully on him when it was her idea. 

“I hate to say it, but I agree. We need to have fresh eyes,” JJ said, always quick to back her up. “I’m not saying he would do it on purpose, but if he tried to explain aspects it could color our interpretations.” 

“He’s definitely lying to us already,” Morgan said. “I don’t blame him for it,” he was quick to add, “but we can’t properly work this case if he’s keeping information from us.” 

“Won’t excluding him now only alienate him further though?” Surprisingly it was Reid who spoke up on behalf of Stiles. “It’s not like he won’t realize what we’re doing.”

“The kid’s right,” Rossi said. “But I agree with Emily. We’re at the point where his feelings need to matter less. The case comes first and when we solve it, it will be better for him in the long run.”

“But if he has vital information, we need to make him trust us enough to tell us about it,” Reid persisted.

“Trust me, I tried to drive that point home. He’s put up quite the set of walls,” Morgan replied.

“Maybe you just weren’t direct enough,” Reid muttered, frustration clear in his tone.

“What’s up with you?” Morgan asked.

Reid shook his head. “Nothing. I’m just putting forth logical arguments. If we make it seem like we’re keeping things from him, he’ll keep keeping things from us.” 

They all looked to Hotch, who was scowling, which could mean anything. “I’ll talk to Stilinski,” was all he said. 

***

“They’re gonna sideline you from the case,” Isaac said as the two of them waited for a call from Kira. Stiles nodded, lips pressed together.

“It was bound to happen. I need to get out of here.”

“You could just walk out,” Isaac suggested. “What’s the point in magic if you never use it?”

“They’ll notice once I’m gone and I’m worried what conclusions they might draw from it.” 

“Who cares?” Isaac said with his usual level of tact.

“I do,” Stiles admitted. “They’re my friends.”

“But they’re not close enough that you trust them with our secret.” 

Stiles ran a hand through his hair. “It’s not about them. They work for the government. Hotch at least would be obligated to report it. Do you feel like being hunted down by the United States government, because I’m pretty sure the others would have something to say about it. This is like the whole message of X-Men, and I don’t want to have to be Magneto, because Scott would absolutely be Xavier.”

“I have no idea what you just said.”

Stiles rolled his eyes. “The point is, I can’t tell them unless I know they’re willing to lie for us.”

Isaac shrugged, not pressing the point anymore, though Stiles knew he was right. There was no way he was getting out of this without some serious secrets being revealed. He wondered if he was powerful enough to wipe memories, and then mentally slapped himself because even if he could, doing that to his team was just wrong . He didn’t want to consider the possibility that he might have to choose between the pack and the team.

“What are you gonna do? If Deaton says that it’s possible for a Nogitsune and its host to coexist,” Isaac asked with false calm. 

“I don’t know Isaac. I don’t know.” But he did know. If it kept Nogitsune contained, Stiles would let it in in a heartbeat. He would fall on the sword, even if the pack had to find a place to lock him away while he and Nogitsune battled for control of his mind and body. Scott could always bite him again and rip them apart. Somehow Stiles knew that if that happened when he and Nogitsune were in the same body, he wouldn’t survive it. It didn’t matter.

“What about the witches?” Isaac asked.

“I’m going to drive them out, and I’m going to make it hurt so much that they not only never return, but tell every coven they come across not to cross our borders because the McCall-Hale pack’s emissary is fucking insane.” 

“Emissary huh?” Isaac said, smile tugging at his lips.

“Long distance emissary,” Stiles clarified. “I don’t—” he shook his head, searching for the right words. “I don’t want to. I never did. But I will, because the pack needs one. The pack needs me.” He looked at Isaac. “You could come home, you know.”

Isaac shook his head gently. “No, I can’t. There’s too much history in this town, and besides…”

“You found another pack.” 

“I don’t know, maybe. There’s…one group. I didn’t plan on finding them, but I almost got killed by hunters a couple months back and—don’t look like that, I’m fine—anyway, they found me. They’re nice. The alpha, Kara, kinda reminds me of Allison. She’s fierce, but she also took me in, a lone wolf who she knew nothing about, without a second thought, and said that I could stay if I wanted.” Isaac was looking at Stiles like he was afraid Stiles would be upset.

“I’m so happy for you Isaac,” Stiles said, putting as much force behind the words as he could. 

“Really?” 

“Of course. Do you know how much I worried about you all alone in France? I could barely even feel you over there. You could die and I wasn’t sure I’d even feel it.” 

“Ok mom, you can turn it down a couple notches.” 

With anyone else he would’ve cuffed them over the head for that, but Isaac just got a withering glare.

***

Getting away from Scott had been harder than Kira had anticipated, but after saying she would grab some pizza for the pack, who were all camped out at the Stilinski’s, unwilling to leave each other, or Mr. Stilinski and Scott’s mom, alone, he let her go. It helped that Derek encouraged him. They were all doing pretty much whatever Derek wanted at this point, considering how worried he was pretending he wasn’t about Stiles. She took her bike straight to the animal clinic, hoping Deaton was there because he had no idea where he actually lived. He seemed to just lurk around like some creepy, mostly unhelpful, wizard. All he was missing was the long beard and pointy hat.

Thankfully it was during work hours, and he was in the clinic. He was already looking at the door when Kira entered. She got the feeling he’d known she was coming somehow. Kira had already decided that she was going to ask her mom about Nogitsune coexisting with hosts, but she wanted to ask Deaton first so that she’d have the upper hand in the conversation. She knew her mom would say it was impossible, regardless of the truth. 

“Kira,” Deaton said, smiling. “I was wondering when someone would come to ask me about what’s been going on.”

“You could have come to us if you knew anything,” Kira pointed out.

“Unfortunately I wasn’t sure I would be well received. Stiles left on…less than friendly terms with me I’m afraid.” For someone who wasn’t even part of the McCall-Hale pack, Deaton had been reportedly very upset when Stiles refused to become the emissary. Apparently he’d told Stiles he was squandering his power, and that if the pack fell it would be Stiles’ fault. Kira understood why Deaton didn’t want to seek out the pack after that. Derek at least was liable to rip his head off. It was fifty-fifty on whether Malia would help Derek do it, or simply hold Scott back from stopping him. 

“We need your help,” Kira said. Deaton opened the barrier to let Kira behind the desk. She could feel the mountain ash on either side when she passed through and was grateful that he didn’t close it again behind her. 

“There’s a coven in town,” Deaton said. 

“Stiles thinks so. He says they’re shapeshifters. Not the were-kind, regular magic shapeshifters. Do you know anything about witches like that?”

Deaton looked thoughtful. “There are spells that make shapeshifting possible for certain powerful witches. They require extreme concentration to hold, usually by multiple witches, just to shift the form of a single of their brethren.”

“How many would you say? Right now we only know that there’s one doing the shifting.” 

“At least three, if those three were very powerful. Less powerful witches, it would have to be at least five.”

“Are there any covens you know of like that?”

“Not specifically. I’ll endeavor to look into it.” The fact that he hadn’t already been looking into it only served to confirm for Kira that Stiles had always been right about him. He only ever helped when specifically asked because he wanted the pack to feel like they needed him. 

“Thank you,” Kira said.

“Until then,” Deaton continued, only after Kira had thanked him of course, “there is something that I can do, or rather that Stiles can do.” He picked up a pen and drew a pad of paper with the animal clinic logo in the top corner towards himself across the counter. “I’m going to write out the ingredients and steps of a spell that, on the person it’s affecting, should allow them to see through any magic, including shapeshifting.” Kira waited patiently until Deaton ripped off the page and handed it to her. “Is there anything else I can help you with Kira?” he asked when she hesitated, not quite ready to leave.

“Stiles asked me to ask something else, but…”

“There’s no harm in asking,” he pushed.

“There might be, if you give me the answer I think you will.” She tucked away the spell.

“Does this have anything to do with the Nogitsune? I admit that was what I thought you were coming here to ask about.”

“Is it possible for the mind of a host to remain in at least partial control of the body?” Kira forced herself to ask, ripping the bandaid off.

Deaton frowned, but he didn’t seem surprised by the question. “Seeing as Allison doesn’t have a mind anymore, I assume this isn’t in regards to its current host.”

“Is it possible?” Kira repeated, not willing to give up any more information.

“In theory.” The air left Kira’s lungs in a rush. She’d been hoping he would just tell her it was entirely impossible, so that she could relay the information to Stiles and he’d let go of whatever mad plan he was concocting. “It would have to be a mutual understanding,” Deaton continued. “There would be no…wresting control from the Nogitsune. A bargain would need to be struck, a balance agreed upon, and there are very few individuals who would have the respect of the Nogitsune to strike that kind of bargain. Fewer still who could actually keep the balance once the deal was made, as I have no doubt the Nogitsune would try to trick the host into giving up full control at every opportunity.” Fuck, that sounded like exactly the kind of crazy scheme Stiles would want to attempt. “Stiles would be foolish to go down that route,” Deaton said, plainly thinking the same thing. “He’s powerful; in many ways Stiles is the ideal host. The Nogitsune might actually make the deal. But if Stiles were to fail at keeping control, his power would make the Nogitsune truly unstoppable.” 

“It’s already immortal. How much more unstoppable can it be?” Kira didn’t know if that was a genuine question or if she was just trying to make herself feel better.

“The bite of an alpha would have no effect. His power would burn through the toxin like white blood cells through a particularly weak infection. He would be immortal, impossible to kill, impossible even to subdue. He could take over the world; he could end the world.” 

“But if he succeeded?” Kira asked. 

“ If he succeeded, it would be a constant battle. I know you care for him, so I would advise you not to suggest this course of action. Even sleeping would become dangerous for him. He would never be able to let his guard down. Those closest to him would suffer and he would enjoy it.” 

“You still haven’t said it’s impossible.” 

“It’s not impossible, and I regret to say it, but if anyone can do it, it would be Stiles Stilinski.”

“Knowing him, he’s going to try if there’s even the smallest chance.”

“Only if you tell him about that chance.”

Kira’s eyes snapped to his. “What?”

“Sometimes, Kira, it is better to lie to those we care about, than to watch them walk a path that can only lead to ruin.”

Kira held his gaze for a few more seconds. She looked away first. “Thank you for the spell Mr. Deaton.”

“I will always be here should the McCall-Hale pack need assistance.” 

Kira could get out fast enough, spell in her pocket and knowledge burning a hole in her mind.

Chapter Text

Derek knew something was wrong when Kira got back to the Stilinski house. Her pack bond was stale, so everything that came through was diluted, but he could feel her anxiety as soon as she walked through the door. He exchanged a look with Scott, whose head had shot up from where he’d been hunched over his phone when he felt it too.

“What’s wrong?” Scott asked, standing and walking over to her like an overzealous puppy.

“Nothing,” Kira lied, poorly, setting three large pizzas on the dining room table. “I got the food.” Malia appeared at the top of the stairs, probably because of the smell of pizza. Ethan and Jackson wandered out of the kitchen with Mr. Stilinski and Ms. McCall. Alec followed Malia down the stairs. Lydia was at the school. Liam and Theo didn’t emerge but Derek knew they were in the house somewhere. He purposefully didn’t try to hear where they were, because he had absolutely no desire to hear the two of them going at it in a bedroom upstairs. Mason was sitting in one of the chairs in the living room on his laptop. He hadn’t even reacted when Kira came back with food. Derek made a note to not only ask what he was up to, but also to make sure he took a break. Derek and Scott waited until everyone was thoroughly focused on the pizza (save Mason, who they weren’t particularly worried about listening in, as he still hadn’t moved), to take Kira aside. 

“What happened out there?” Scott asked. “Did you see Allison?”

“No,” Kira was quick to deny. “Nothing like that, I…” she bit her lip, glancing between Scott and Derek and Derek thought he understood. 

“Kira, as loyal as we all are to Stiles, he’s not the alpha of this pack,” Derek reminded her. “If you’ve found something out on his behalf, we need to know about it.” Kira looked at him with defiance in her eyes, a little bit of foxfire leaking into her irises.

“I’m not a part of this pack anymore,” she stated. “My loyalties are my own.” 

“Kira, we're not asking you to betray Stiles, we just want to know everything’s okay,” Scott said, expertly using the puppy-dog eyes that had somehow not gone away since he’d grown up. The eyes that said ‘I just want what’s best for everyone; nobody needs to get hurt’. Kira hesitated. Derek may have been immune to those eyes, but she was not. “Please, Kira,” Scott pushed. “We only want to protect Stiles. He’s one of us.”

“We know he wants to do everything on his own, but that’s not fair,” Derek said. “Do you really think I’m going to stand here and let him do something to put himself in danger. He thinks we can’t handle it, but he’s being just as selfish as we were when we didn’t tell him the Nogitsune was back.” Derek let some of his frustration come through. He had been sitting in this house doing nothing for days, and he was sick of it. He needed to go to the station and talk to Stiles himself. Theo had been the first to tell the alphas about what had happened in the forest; what Stiles had been trying to do was dangerous, and Derek could not believe Stiles could have been so stupid as to not tell him that he was going to do something so absurdly risky! Except actually, he could believe it. It was the exact kind of thing that Stiles would do. Derek loved that about him, but just this once he wished Stiles was a different person.

“Look Kira, if you don’t tell me, I am going to march into the police station and get answers for myself,” Derek growled. “And something tells me Stiles wouldn’t want that.” 

“I went to see Deaton,” Kira whispered.

“That’s it?” Scott asked, baffled. “I was thinking about going to the clinic to ask about all of this anyway. Why all the secrecy?”

“Why would Stiles send you to see Deaton?” Derek asked. 

“He wanted to ask about any covens of shapeshifting witches that he knew of.”

“What did he say?” Scott asked.

“He said he didn’t know any specifically, but shapeshifting requires a lot of power, so it would have to be a powerful coven. And he gave me a spell for Stiles to perform that would let us see through any of their shapeshifting spells in the future.” 

“That’s not going to be much use if Stiles is stuck at the police station,” Malia said from the dining room. The three of them looked over to find all the were-creatures over there listening intently on their conversation. “Yeah, we can hear you,” Malia stated, clearly unimpressed with their attempt at whispering. 

“So can I, and I don’t even have super-hearing,” Mason said, eyes never leaving his computer screen. 

“What are you even doing over there?” Derek demanded. “Go eat something.” 

“Can’t. I’m trying to hack into Eichen House. They have a surprisingly good security system, and I’m not as good at this as Danny was.” 

“Wait, why are you hacking Eichen House?” Scott asked, momentarily forgetting that they’d been trying to get information out of Kira. Derek sent her look to tell her that this conversation was so far from over, then turned his attention to Mason as well. 

“I was thinking,” Mason said, and then stopped. 

“And?” Derek snapped. 

Mason started a bit, looking up at them blearily. “What? Oh. I was thinking, Eichen House has security cameras. They’d have to. We know the footage of the hospital is gone, but I wanted to make sure that there wasn't any video of Stiles leaving Eichen House the night the Nogitsune took over. Turns out there totally is because Eichen House has been the subject of enough lawsuits that they keep insane records. There’s security footage in every inch of that building, including the basement.” 

“You mean…” Malia started.

“There’s concrete evidence of someone wearing Stiles’ face murdering Oliver in the basement of Eichen House.” 

“Shit.”

“What are we doing about this?” Mr. Stilinski asked. “Can you delete it?”

“That’s the problem. I could…but it would be super obvious that it had been deleted, which would only arouse suspicions.”

“So what are you doing?” Derek demanded. 

“I’m trying to make it look like their servers were all down for that entire month, which is still suspicious, but…less so. I don’t know, it’s the best I can do. The problem is that it takes time, especially since I’m trying to cover my tracks while also making it seem like nothing is currently wrong with their system, which is hard because there is another hacker in here who is better than me.” 

“Penelope,” Derek said. “Her name’s Penelope. She cannot find that footage.” 

“I gathered that. I’m doing my best but it’s even harder with all of you distracting me,” Mason snapped.

“Someone’s feeling sassy,” Theo said. He and Liam had finally decided to make an appearance, making Derek feel very glad he had made the choice not to try and find them earlier.

“You smell like sex,” Malia stated with her usual lack of a filter, nose wrinkling. 

Liam had the decency to look embarrassed but Theo just continued sauntering down the stairs. He went straight to the dining room, but when he reached for a piece of pizza his hand was smacked soundly away by Melissa. “Wash your hands,” she ordered.

“Sorry Ms. McCall,” Theo said, immediately obeying. The absolute power that Melissa McCall held over even the most contrary members of the pack truly was a sight to behold. 

“Tell us if anything happens,” Derek told Mason, who just nodded distractedly, not bothering with a verbal response. “Kira, what else did Deaton say?”

“About what?”

“Anything. Just…what did he tell you?” Just being in this house with the entire pack for this long was fraying at Derek’s nerves, especially without Stiles there. Scott had always been better at this part. He was just so damn friendly all the time. 

“Um…well Stiles kind of told me not to tell you,” she answered. 

“Of course he did.” 

“Kira, come on. There’s more at stake here than what Stiles is comfortable with. The Nogitsune is in Allison. It’s…puppeting her dead body around. Please Kira if you know something about how to stop that, you have to tell me.” 

“You’re not going to like it.” Her eyes flicked to Derek and then back to Scott. “Either of you.” When it was obvious neither one of the alphas was going to back down, she sighed. “Stiles wanted to know if it was possible for him to host the Nogitsune.”

Scott stared at her in confusion. “Okay…well obviously he can, he’s been possessed before.” 

“That’s not what she meant,” Derek growled. “Is it?” He could feel his blood beginning to boil. The others in the room tensed in response, feeling his anger and fear and confusion rippling down the bond in heightening waves. 

“Voluntarily. He wanted to know if he could take in the Nogitsune and…co-exist.” 

“Why would he even ask that? That’s insane. He has to know we’d never let him do that,” Scott exclaimed. “I want it out of Allison probably more than he does but that’s not an option. That cannot be our only option.” 

“What did Deaton say?” Derek asked. Kira hesitated.

“Kira, what did he say?” Scott echoed, voice frantic. 

“He said it wasn’t impossible.” 

***

The fact that Stiles could feel Derek approaching the station like a guided missile could mean absolutely nothing good. Kira should’ve called by now. Stiles had to believe she’d been intercepted by his well-meaning husband. Kira was perfectly capable of lying, but that didn’t mean she would for him, especially if she had found out something she didn’t want to tell Stiles. Isaac looked over at Stiles suddenly a few minutes after Stiles had noticed Derek’s incoming presence.

“You’re in so much trouble,” he said. 

“Yeah,” was all Stiles could say. 

Stiles stood and exited the sheriff’s office just as Derek burst through the station doors, face terrified and angry all at once. His eyes went to Stiles immediately, and he stalked over.

“If you’re here to yell at me, there’s no need. Just tell me what Kira said,” Stiles said before Derek could begin. 

“What the hell were you thinking?” Derek growled. “Co-existing with the Nogitsune? Of all the stupid, reckless, terrible ideas—”

“That means it’s possible,” Stiles interrupted.

“I didn’t say that,” Derek tried to backtrack. 

“You might as well have.”

“Don’t profile me.”

“It doesn’t take a profiler to realize that you’d only be this upset if you actually thought I might do it.” 

“You’re not doing it,” Derek stated.

“Oh, I’m not, am I?” Stiles asked, eyes narrowing, crossing his arms over his chest. 

Derek was not deterred. “No. You’re not.”

“Who’s gonna stop me? You? I’m not the weak little human I was Derek, however much you may not like it. I can take care of myself.”

“It’s not you I’m worried about!” Derek said, raised voice betraying his lie. “If you can’t control it, it will be unstoppable.”

“I can control it,” Stiles insisted. “You know you could have a little faith in me.” 

“This is an immortal spirit. Last time it possessed you, it killed nearly a hundred people. It killed Allison. Aiden. And that was before you had all this extra power that you don’t even know how to fully control. It could overtake you, and then where would the world be? Where would I be?” 

Stiles forced himself to uncross his arms, taking away the defensive barrier he’d automatically erected. He reached out and laid a hand on Derek’s arm. “Derek, my powers have a basis in belief. You won’t lose me, but I need you to believe in me. Believe that I can do this, because it might be the only way, and I can’t do it if you don’t believe I can.” 

A muscle in Derek’s jaw twitched. He took a step back. Stiles’ hand fell back to his side. “I can’t. We’ll find another way.” 

“Derek—”

“No,” he snapped. “Just…we’ll find another way.” 

“You sound like Scott.”

“He’s right this time. We have to find another way. Just…” he reached a hand into his back pocket and withdrew a slip of paper. “Give us some time. Work on this and we’ll figure something out.” 

“A solution’s not just going to present itself because you don’t want to face the music.” Stiles waved his hands vaguely around, as though trying to conjure his own solution to this argument out of thin air. 

“Take the paper,” was Derek’s only response. 

Stiles huffed and snatched the note from his fingers. “What is it?” 

“Deaton said it would let us see through magic. For the shapeshifters.” Stiles unfolded the paper and read down the list of ingredients and instructions. 

“Fine. I’ll need to put this on the whole pack at once. Tell everyone to meet me at the Nemeton at two am.”

“We’ll be there.” 

“There’s not going to be another way,” Stiles reiterated, looking Derek in the eye, willing him to understand. Derek turned his back to avoid his gaze.

“There has to be.” 

Stiles couldn’t tear his gaze away from where Derek had left through the doors until Isaac put a hand to his shoulder. “Either he and Scott will figure something out, or they’ll be forced to see your side of things.” 

Stiles turned away, frowning deeply. “Don’t try to get wise now. It doesn’t suit you.”

The insult rolled right off Isaac’s back. “For what it’s worth, I believe in you. You can totally kick the Nogitsune’s ass.” 

Stiles looked up at him. “You don’t mean that.”

Isaac grimaced. “No, I don’t. You’re definitely gonna die.” 

Stiles snorted, shaking his head. “Never change Isaac. Never change.” His gaze went to the conference room, where the team was looking out at him. He could just make out Garcia’s face on a screen. Reid looked particularly nervous. That couldn’t be good. Hotch started making for the door. 

Stiles sighed. “Fuck it.”

Stiles turned away, hearing the conference room door open behind him. He took a step toward the station’s double doors.

“Stiles, can we talk to you for a moment?” Hotch asked.

“Sorry Hotch,” Stiles said, still walking away, refusing to turn around. “I don’t have a moment.” 

“Agent Stilinski, stop!” Hotch demanded just as Stiles reached the doors. 

“Or what, you’ll shoot me?” Stiles muttered. Then he opened the doors and walked out.

Chapter Text

Rossi didn’t know how it could be possible that everything they knew about Stiles Stilinski could be so far from the truth. He—the entire time, really—had wanted to believe that it couldn’t be true. Despite their initial decision to keep Stiles out of the discussion about his past, they had desperately wanted an explanation when it came down to it, because what it looked like was…well it just didn’t make any sense. Psychopaths were often the best liars. It couldn’t possibly be Jeffrey. Oh but Ted seemed like such a nice man. They heard it all the time. Rossi had just never expected it to happen to him like this. He was a profiler. They were an entire team of profilers. How could they have missed this? Video evidence could be tampered with. Garcia had interrupted someone in the active process of tampering with it. She was still working on tracing the other hacker, but she’d stopped them before the video could be deleted (what she insisted they were trying to do). 

“That’s been tampered with,” Morgan had stated. He’d been the first to speak. They all looked to Garcia’s face on the screen, willing her to say it was true. She didn’t have any clever witticism this time. 

She just shook her head. “This is from the night Stiles checked himself out of Eichen House. Someone was trying to scrub it—and the entire month—from their records.”

“Play it again,” Reid said, frowning intently at the screen. 

“Are you sure?” Garcia asked.

“You see something?” Emily asked, desperate hope coloring her tone.

“I think so.” 

Rossi fought the urge to look away as the video started again. There were two people strapped to those dentist-office recliner chairs, and a third person pacing back and forth between them, drill in hand. Stiles seemed to come back to consciousness with a start, pulling at the restraints. The assailant was obviously a patient, and they all recognized Malia Tate from the yearbook photograph. There was no sound to accompany the movie, just the quiet brutality. It appeared as though Stiles talked down the assailant, just as he’d done on countless causes for the BAU. The man undid his restraints. Stiles stood up…and then he changed . He stood up straight, not an ounce of errant movement. His back was to the camera, but none of them had ever seen him so still. He could’ve been an entirely different person as he stepped forward. The assailant didn’t move away, but he should’ve, because then Stiles was reaching out as quick as a striking cobra, and twisting his neck, snapping it cleanly. The body hit the floor and Stiles just stared down at it for a moment. Malia’s eyes were wide with fear as he approached her. She said something to him and he stopped. He turned around, his eyes flashing—

“Stop,” Spencer said. The video was paused accordingly. “There.”

“What do you see?” JJ asked. Rossi didn’t see anything amiss either. A camera flare was reflected in Stiles’ eyes, but otherwise it was definitely their agent—their friend. 

“That’s not a camera flare,” Reid stated. “Eyes glow red in photos because the light reflects off the retina at the back of the eye. Not only are his eyes not red, but the flare happens because of the flash of the camera. The flash happens so fast that the eye doesn’t have time to restrict the pupil to compensate. Security cameras don’t have flashes. The only time you’d see this effect is if it were a night-vision camera, but it’s not.”

“I’m sorry boy genius, but the footage isn’t corrupted. I’ve quadruple checked,” Garcia replied.

“That’s not what I’m saying,” Reid said. “It’s complicated.”

“Then explain it Reid,” Hotch said, even shorter than he usually was. He hadn’t watched the video the second time around, keeping his eyes pinned on Stiles outside. Derek Hale had barged through the doors and they seemed to be arguing about something. 

“I can’t,” Reid said. “Well, I can, but you wouldn’t believe me. It’s complicated. Stiles needs to be here.” 

“We need to question him,” Rossi agreed. “We need to consider the very real possibility that this is a different unsub than when Stiles was a kid because Stiles was that unsub.”

“He wasn’t!” Reid insisted.

“None of us want to believe it,” Morgan said, trying to placate him.

“I know for a fact that it wasn’t him.” That gave them all pause. It wasn’t like Reid to make statements of fact that weren’t more than one hundred percent proven to be true. 

“Either way, we need to talk to him,” Hotch said. They all turned to stare out the glass. Derek Hale was nowhere in sight. Stiles was staring at the door, so it was a fair bet that he’d just left. Stiles turned and said something to Isaac. Then Stiles turned to look at them and something happened to his face. He took in their expressions, and plainly came to a decision. Hotch was moving before the rest of them, and so was Stiles, walking calmly toward the doors of the precinct. 

“Stiles, can we talk to you for a moment?” Rossi heard Hotch ask. Rossi didn’t hear Stiles’ reply, but he was still making his way to the exit. 

“Agent Stilinski, stop!” Hotch ordered.

Stiles paid no mind. The rest of the team was moving by the time the doors had slammed shut behind him. 

When they got outside, he was gone. He hadn’t taken any of the cars, which meant he couldn’t have gotten far, and yet he was just nowhere to be found. The rest of the team split up to canvas the neighborhood, unwilling to trust that if any of the local PD found him they’d actually turn him in. They all knew they wouldn’t find him though. Stiles knew this town far better than they did. If he wanted to disappear he’d go straight for the woods and they’d never see him again until he wanted to be seen. Rossi stayed behind on Hotch’s orders, because though Stiles was gone, Isaac Lahey was still standing in the station, calm as could be. 

“Why don’t we sit down and chat?” Rossi offered. Isaac shrugged, and took himself to the interrogation room. “I was going to suggest the office.”

“No you weren’t.” 

“You’re a pretty sharp kid,” Rossi said, sitting across from Isaac. He hadn’t cuffed Isaac, trying to give the kid the feeling that he had at least a little control over the situation. He also had no cause to arrest Isaac. Rossi thought it would be a load of bull, but nevertheless an easy defense, to say that Isaac hadn’t known that Stiles was going to walk out. 

“I know,” Isaac said, some of Stiles’ sarcasm making itself seen in someone that was like a little brother to him. 

“So why don’t we skip the old tete-a-tete and you tell me where Stiles has gone.” 

“I’ve no idea where he’s gone, agent. All I can offer you are my deepest apologies that I couldn’t stop him.” 

“I’m sure,” Rossi replied dryly. “You know Stiles is our friend. We only want to know he’s okay. You think of him as an older brother, don’t you?”

Isaac shrugged one shoulder. “He’s a pain in my ass.”

“But you ran to him first when something happened to you. Sounds like a brother to me.”

“Sure.” 

“You know most of the teams at the FBI are close. It’s impossible not to be. We spend nearly every day together. A lot of times we even have to sleep in the same rooms on cases in small towns like this one. This team though, is a bit more than just a team, and that includes Stiles.”

“I know. He talks about you guys all the time. It’s annoying.” 

“Then why’d he run away?”

“He had somewhere important to be.” 

“And where’s that?”

“No idea.” 

“You know, I actually do believe you.” 

“Great.”

“But…there are some things happening here that don’t add up, and we can’t make sense of them unless someone starts being more transparent with us.” Rossi shrugged, placing his empty palms up on the table, to show how powerless he was. 

“How ironic,” Isaac scoffed.

“Ironic? Why do you say that?”

“You, talking about transparency. Weren’t you all just agreeing to keep Stiles purposefully out of the loop?” 

Rossi raised his eyebrows. “And how would you know that?”

Isaac’s eyes skated away from him. “Add it to your list of things that don’t make sense.”

“You seem like a good kid. I know that Stiles is a good kid too.” 

“We’re both grown men actually.”

“You’re all kids to me, kid.” Isaac’s jaw twitched. There it was. “We really don’t want you getting hurt.” Another twitch. “It’s too late for that though, isn’t it? You’ve already been hurt. You know we had our technical analyst—Penelope Garcia, I’m sure Stiles told you about her—do a little research. When you came in yesterday, you said you saw him. Who was ‘him’, Isaac? Your father, maybe?” 

“Shut up.” 

“You see I think it was, which is strange, because he died. How long ago was it? Can you remind me?” 

“Fourteen years ago,” Isaac ground out.

“Fourteen years. Right. Before the samurai murders.”

“What’s your point?” 

“His death was ruled an animal attack. Lots of animal attacks in this town, don’t you think?”

“It’s surrounded by woods. Do you know what lives in woods, agent? Animals.”

“Right, but your father was killed in the middle of town. You were a suspect at the time, right? Forgive me, I don’t have quite the memory some of our team members have. Comes with age, you know.” 

“I was cleared.”

“Why were you a suspect, though? It was because you had a motive, wasn’t it?”

“My father was an abusive bastard who locked me in a freezer when I pissed him off, is that what you want me to say?” Isaac snapped, leaning forward with fists clenched.

“Anyone would say he deserved what happened to him. I certainly would.”

“Congratulations on your moral high ground,” Isaac sneered. 

“The thing about all the animal attacks in this town,” Rossi continued, feigning thoughtfulness, “is that we don’t really think they are animal attacks. Like a lot of things here, they’re just a little off. Most of them are attributed to wolves when I have it on good authority that wolves weren’t reintroduced to California yet when most of them occurred.”

“Wolves are highly migratory,” Isaac recited. “It’s been rumored there was a wolf pack here for years, and the wolf-related deaths have all but confirmed that theory.” Rossi was almost knocked off balance by the quick response. It was certainly rehearsed.

“Highly migratory. Interesting. Do you know a lot about wolves?” 

“No.”

“Just caught that little tidbit on National Geographic?” 

“I guess so.” 

“What we think happened, is that someone used the idea of a wolf pack to cover up murders. In this scenario, your father would’ve been murdered.”

“Serves him right, but I’m not that lucky.”

“Your childhood was a very unlucky one. I’m sorry for all that you went through,” Rossi said, and he meant it, but this kid knew something about whatever was happening with Stiles, so he locked up any instincts to protect this kid and pressed on. “You show a lot of loyalty to Stiles.” 

“Like you said, we’re practically family.”

“Now that I believe. You know gangs often find ways to inspire extraordinary levels of loyalty. Cults too, but we’ll get there. Gangs, mobs, other affiliations of a similar nature, have one concrete rule that they tend to live by. They look after their own. I wonder what a young Isaac Lahey might do if someone came to him and told him they could make his father go away. You went to live with Scott McCall pretty soon after his death.” 

“Melissa’s an angel,” Isaac replied, daring Rossi to say anything to the contrary. 

“I’m sure she is. Did Stiles Stilinski have your father killed?”

“What? No!” The complete surprise and confusion on Isaac’s face assured Rossi he was telling the truth and Rossi took a mental deep breath. Thank God. He didn’t believe for a second that Isaac’s father had died of a freak animal attack, but Stiles at least hadn’t killed him. “Then who did?” 

“Who did what?” Isaac asked.

“Isaac, who had your father killed?”

“An animal.” 

“We just want to help you kid,” Rossi promised. “We need to know everything we can. I know you think you’re protecting someone, but I promise it’s not worth it.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

“Then help me understand.” 

“Am I under arrest for something?” Isaac met Rossi’s eyes in defiance. 

“Of course not.”

“Then I’ll be going now.”

Isaac stood and Rossi stood with him. “Isaac, we’re only trying to help. Just tell me where Stiles went.” 

Isaac paused at the door to the interrogation room. “He’ll be okay,” he assured Rossi, or maybe assured himself. “He might even explain things, but right now, the best thing you can do to help him, is to stay out of his way.” 

“We can’t do that,” Rossi said. 

“I know.” Isaac still hadn’t left, hand poised on the door handle without turning it. He seemed to be struggling with something internally, tension apparent in his shoulders. “He’s a good guy.”

“I know that. The whole team knows it.” 

“You have to trust him.”

“Trust works both ways, kid.” 

“Yes. It does.” 

Then he was gone. Rossi wracked his brain for anything that might keep the young man from leaving the station entirely, but came up empty. Rossi followed him out of the station, but just like Stiles, he had seemingly vanished into thin air. He hadn’t arrived in a car. It didn’t seem possible, but it hadn’t seemed possible for Stiles either. He was just gone.

***

Nobody was really surprised that they didn’t find Stiles, but it didn’t keep the feelings of failure at bay as the rest of the team returned to the station. It didn’t help that Isaac Lahey had also vanished. Rossi relayed their conversation. 

“How did he know?” Emily asked. “That we were going to keep the result from Stiles?”

“It was a fairly logical leap,” Rossi replied. Emily didn’t look like she quite believed that, and to be honest neither did Dave. There were too many things that didn’t add up here. Rossi was too old to believe that he knew everything that was out there. He had the feeling there was something happening here that he’d never encountered, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to face it with his gun raised.

“We need to figure out where Stiles would go,” Hotch stated.

“The kid seemed pretty adamant that we stay out of Stiles’ way,” Rossi reminded him, quickly adding “we won’t do that, obviously, but it’s interesting” at the look Hotch sent him. “It implies he’s going to go after the unsub himself. Regardless of his involvement in the old case, he’s not responsible for what’s happening now, and he wants to stop it.” 

“So if we figure out where the unsub will go, we’ll know where Stiles will be,” JJ said.

“We should talk to the officers that weren’t born and raised here,” Emily said. “Garcia sent the list over while we were out canvassing. They might actually talk to us.” 

“JJ and Rossi, I want you to do the interviews. Morgan and Prentiss, you got to the Stilinski house, just in case Stiles ended up there, and also to keep an eye on his family members in case they’re in contact with him,” Hotch ordered.

Reid was staring fixedly at the map. “Any ideas?” Morgan asked, following his gaze.

Reid bit the inside of his cheek, remaining quiet. His hesitation was obvious, and worrying. It wasn’t often the genius kept himself from saying something, not unless it was personal. “Reid, whatever you know, if it pertains to the case, we need to know,” Hotch stated. 

“Remember when I said the cult mirrored the dynamics of a wolf pack?” Reid said slowly. “I need you guys to promise not to call me crazy. I’m not crazy,” he stressed.

“We know you’re not, Reid. You know we’d never say that,” Morgan assured him.

“You haven’t heard what I know yet,” Reid muttered. All the focus was nervously placed on Reid as he stood by the map pinned to the bulletin board. “If he didn’t want me to say anything then he wouldn’t have told me in the first place,” Reid said, clearly to himself. “He should’ve thought about it before he just left . Okay.” He took a deep breath. “I’m just gonna say it. Werewolves.” A dozen pairs of eyes blinked at him, the silence stretching. 

“You mean like the unsub that thinks they’re a fox spirit?” JJ asked, breaking the awkward quiet. 

“Yes, except actually no because they are a fox spirit, and Stiles is part of a werewolf pack. Very real werewolves. And he’s a witch. I don’t know exactly why he’s part of a werewolf pack as a witch, we didn’t get that far, but he can do magic. Real magic. I saw it.” 

“Reid…” Morgan trailed off.

“You promised not to call me crazy,” Reid reminded them all. Rossi had to admit that had been his first instinct, though he never would’ve said the words aloud. “I saw it.” Reid looked a bit frantic, desperate for them to believe him. 

“Werewolves aren’t real,” Morgan said gently.

“Neither were witches until I saw Stiles bathe a room in light with his mind,” Reid retorted. “We haven’t considered the fact that this town is superstitious for a reason. Many myths have their origins in truth. The animal attack victims were undoubtedly killed using wolf claws. There was even wolf hair found on some of them, and yet there weren’t any wolves.” 

“Wolves are highly migratory,” Rossi said slowly, parroting Isaac’s words. It had been a rehearsed line. Rossi had no doubt he’d said it many times before, possibly to cover up what was really going on.

“Wolves also don’t attack humans, and even if they do, they’re never alone. These victims were killed by a single wolf,” Reid rambled. “Wolves hunt in packs, but none of these murders were done by multiple creatures. There were no monetary traces of anything that would cause the exact wound patterns found on the victims. Isaac knew what we were talking about because he could hear us talking. When Stiles killed that guy in Eichen House, he was possessed by the Nogitusne, the fox spirit, the same fox spirit that’s killing people now. His eyes were glowing silver in that video, we all saw it. When I said I was one hundred percent sure that Stiles was innocent, I meant it. You know I wouldn’t say that unless it was entirely factual.” His eyes went to Morgan when the silence continued. “Please. I’m not crazy.” His voice cracked, desperation leaking through; there was nothing Reid feared more than having his family look at him the way he sometimes caught himself looking at his mother. 

“We can interview the officers,” Morgan said, not breaking eye contact with Reid, but clearly addressing Hotch. “Press them about…werewolves. See how they react.”

“They did get antsy when we brought up the pack angle when we delivered the profile,” Emily stated.

“Reid, I want you to gather the officer’s on Garcia’s list, and some that were born and raised in Beacon Hills. I know you know all their names,” Hotch stated. Reid could recognize the dismissal for what it was (getting him out of the room so the rest of the team could discuss what he’d just put forth) but he went willingly enough, recognizing that he’d done all he could. All he could do now was hope they decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. They were supposed to be family; family would believe him, no matter how many odds were stacked against him. 

When Reid had shut the door behind himself, Rossi addressed the room. “Are we buying this?” 

Emily was the first to reply. “There’s a lot out there that doesn’t make it to public knowledge. I’ve seen things I couldn’t explain before. Reid and Stiles both deserve the benefit of the doubt here.” 

“You’ve seen werewolves before?” Morgan asked.

“Well…no. I admit that’s hard to believe, but so are a lot of things if you give them any real thought. It would certainly explain Stiles’ behavior from the start of this case.”

“So would him being the original unsub.” Rossi hadn’t wanted to remind them of that, but someone had to. 

“Emily’s right. He deserves our trust,” JJ said, hands clenched on the edge of the table she was leaning on. “Until we can absolutely prove that werewolves aren’t real, we have to consider the possibility. For Spence’s sake as much as Stiles’.”

“Reid wouldn’t lie to us about this,” Morgan agreed. None of them wanted to consider the possibility that Reid wasn’t lying, but was still wrong. It could be representative of a downward spiral none of them were prepared for. That thought alone was enough to convince Rossi.

“Trust goes both ways,” he said, again repeating Isaac’s words. Maybe that kid was wiser than he looked. “Stiles didn’t feel like he could trust us, and won’t until we trust him.” 

“I agree,” Hotch stated, and that was the end of it.

Maybe it was because the alternative was so horrendous that even to think of it made Rossi want to retire all over again, but at that moment, he wanted nothing more than for werewolves to be real.

Chapter Text

Stiles was not found because he did not want to be. He stuck to the side streets, little alleys he and Scott used to race down as kids. The first thing he did once he was a safe distance away was call Parrish. 

“Get the pack out of the house,” he said without preamble.

“Are we preparing for an attack?” Parrish asked, all business.

“No, not yet. Derek is relaying the information that I need everyone at the Nemeton at two in the morning, but I just walked out of the station, and my dad’s house is the first place the team will check.” 

“Consider it done.” 

Stiles sighed. “Thanks Parrish. You should probably also steer clear of the station.”

“I can deal with some feds,” Parrish responded. “I’m the Sheriff. I won’t be driven out of my own station.”

“I know you can deal with it, but just don’t. I don’t need any more complications.” 

“Fine.” Stiles hung up and looked mournfully down at his phone for a second before turning it off and tossing it to the side, hearing the glass of the screen shatter. 

***

Stiles was glad to find his dad’s house deserted by the time he got there. The uniforms that were supposed to be guarding them were also nowhere to be found. He sent a mental thank you to Parrish. He was quick about gathering the ingredients he’d need for the spell, mindful of how fast the team could get to his dad’s house if they really tried. Stiles wondered how long it would take for Reid to let the cat (or wolf, more accurately) out of the bag. He had no doubts that Reid would talk. It would be unfair of him to assume Reid would keep a secret like that now that Stiles wasn’t there anymore. Stiles’ saving grace would be that the team would surely take a while to actually believe Reid, considering he had no proof. His word was worth a lot, but anyone who calls ‘werewolf’ is going to sound a little bit insane. Stiles knew the team had been planning on interviewing some of the officers. The officers of the Beacon Hills police department were professionals at looking away from the supernatural, but if directly questioned about it, there’s no way they wouldn’t give something away, especially to a team of highly trained profilers. Stiles could only hope it would take the team long enough to interview everyone that he could get this spell done. It was a pretty slim hope there. The spell had to be done at two in the morning, just before witching hour, per Deaton’s instructions, and as much as Stiles hated that he had to, he did trust Deaton’s spellwork. Two am was still five hours away. 

Stiles went straight to the Nemeton rather than try to meet up with the pack. He had had enough of people telling him what he couldn’t do for one day. He shoved Derek out of his mind as he reached the ancient severed tree. He laid out everything he would need and then took thirty paces away from the tree, thinking back to those lessons with Deaton. He closed his eyes and put his hands out in front of him, like he was pressing them against an invisible wall. 

“Protect me,” he said. In his mind, he could picture a shimmering wall, the color of a soap bubble in the sun, keeping out anything that might seek to harm him. When he opened his eyes, the air looked unchanged. “It worked,” he told himself. He couldn’t afford to question it. He did the same thing in each of the other three cardinal directions, creating himself a box of protected airspace. Then he sat cross-legged in the center of the Nemeton. It was just as easy to reach out as it had been before, but this time it wasn’t an invitation. 

When is a door not a door? he asked when he felt Nogitsune brush up against his consciousness. The image of an old, ornate wooden door appeared in front of him and swung open soundlessly. Stiles took an imaginary breath, steadying his mind, and walked through.

The sensation of looking through someone else’s eyes was disorienting. It wasn’t like Nogitsune had been possessing him. That had felt like he was trapped in his own mind, wandering the halls of his psyche, only partially aware of what his body was actually doing. Here, Stiles was standing in an entirely empty space, because in this mind, the psyche had long since deteriorated to nothing. Stiles tried not to think about what this place might have looked like when Allison was alive. Now there was nothing but inky black, the Nogitsune filling it all in, and in front of him, a pinpoint of light that was the outside world. 

Nogitsune was in a hotel room, leaning against a wall, watching two young women arguing with each other. “We should wait,” one of them said. 

“We can’t wait,” the other protested. “Our sisters are rotting in that place. We told them it would only be a couple weeks. They’re growing restless.”

“He’s not desperate enough yet. There’s no point if he doesn’t let it in.” The woman threw a careless glance at Nogitsune. “The binding grows weaker every day.”

“We have to rebind it in its new host anyway.” 

“If I may,” Nogitsune interrupted. Stiles started, the sensation of the body he was inhabiting speaking sending odd vibrations through the space. They both looked at him, twin looks of annoyance on their faces. “It would be in your best interests to strike tonight.”

“And why is that?” one of them, the one who’d been arguing that they needed to wait and plan more, hissed. 

“Because tonight Stiles Stilinski and the entire Hale-McCall pack will be at the Nemeton, performing a spell to allow them to see through your little illusions. The human FBI agents might even make an appearance.”

“How do you know that?” the other one, the one who seemed to carry the most power, asked, dark brown eyes narrowed.

“Because he got it into his mind to use my own tricks against me.” The last thing Stiles saw through Allison’s eyes was the witch’s eyes widening in shock and anger, before he ripped himself out of that space, eyes flying open. He had no idea how much time had passed, but the moon had risen higher in the sky. It was nearly full, a few days from totality. Stiles stood and stretched, feeling his back and neck crack in unison. Maybe they should invest in some cushions for every time he had to sit on the hard tree stump. 

At least two witches would be joining their little party tonight. Stiles had no doubt he and the pack could handle two witches. These two had to be the two that were actually doing the shifting. They had talked about their sisters being in some other place; they must have been referring to the three to five that were performing the transformation spells. These witches really had no idea who they were messing with, which was probably why they’d used such underhanded tactics. They didn’t want an outright fight because they knew they’d lose. Stiles needed to draw them into the open, and now he had, as long as they took the bait. 

***

The pack arrived as one, melting out of the trees long after Stiles had felt them drawing near. Derek and Scott came first. Stiles watched as they passed through his barrier (that was definitely there because it had to be).

“Are you okay?” Scott asked, always worrying about others.

“I’ve been better, but what can you do?” Stiles joked.

“Magic, apparently,” Scott was quick to reply. They didn’t quite have the easy back and forth that they’d grown up with, but it got easier with every interaction, the more time that passed between that fateful day in the rain when everything had changed.

Speak of the devil and he shall appear, Theo stepped out of the surrounding woods with the rest of the pack. Stiles watched with interest as everyone crossed the barrier. Theo was the last to step across, and he seemed to have a little trouble with it.

“What is that?” he demanded, shivering as though he’d been dunked in ice water. 

“Just a little something to show me who I can trust,” Stiles replied. “Congratulations, you made it through. Barely.”

“Every day I think about killing you, and every day I make the conscious choice not to. If that doesn’t show how much you can trust me I don’t know what does,” Theo replied. Theo rolled his eyes by his side, but it was actually what Stiles needed to hear. Stiles would never trust Theo, but he trusted him more when he was being outwardly hostile; it was more honest, which was something Stiles knew Theo had struggled with in the past. Maybe Liam was a good influence on him after all.

“Alright.” Stiles clapped his hands, looking up at the moon, then back at the group. “I don’t know why I looked at the moon like I can actually read it for the time. Who’s wearing a watch?” 

Alec, the new beta, cleared his throat and said “one-fifty-two.” 

“Perfect. Thank you. We should get started. We should be protected in this ten foot by ten area.” Stiles gestured around them. “I’m expecting the witches to make a move at some point, but whatever you do, do not leave the area while I’m doing the space. The spell will only affect those in the area. Capiche?” He looked around at everyone. “I’m serious. Do not leave. No matter what happens.” 

“We got it, Stiles. Stay in the fancy magic square,” Jackson stated.

“Good.” He took a deep breath, pretending that the shaking in his hands was just ADHD. “Let’s get started then.” He knelt down next to the bowls he’d prepared, dipping his fingers into the paste. “Line up kids, time for some medicine.” 

“Don’t say it like that,” Liam complained.

“Just get in line,” Lydia snapped, stepping up to Stiles first.

“This is gonna mess up your makeup,” Stiles warned her, fingers hovering over her pink shimmering eye shadow. 

“Just do it, Stiles.” She closed her eyes, lips pursed in annoyance. Stiles brushed his fingers delicately over her eyelids, trying to avoid her long eyelashes, smudging the eyeshadow as little as possible. He considered it a crime to ruin such artistry. Her emerald eyes fluttered open. “Cold,” she said.

“Sorry, that’s just my hands,” Stiles replied. “I’ve been out here for a while.”

“This took hours?” Mason asked, looking around dubiously. 

“I didn’t say I’d spent that time working on this. Get over here,” Stiles retorted. Mason stepped forward and Stiles repeated the same action of brushing some of the orange-ish paste over his eyelids. The same went for the rest of the packs, even Theo. His dad and Melissa approached together.

“You can’t promise me you’re going to be okay,” his dad said. Stiles shook his head. “Alright. But promise me you’ll try to keep yourself safe.” 

“I promise.”

“You’ve grown up a lot,” Melissa said. Her hair was beginning to gray, and she had smile lines at the corners of her eyes. “We’re proud of you.” Stiles felt an embarrassing prickle behind his eyes and he sniffed. It wouldn’t be very all-powerful-spark of him to start bawling in front of the whole pack. “You’ll be okay,” Melissa said, reaching up to pat his cheek gently, like just because she’d said so there was no other option.

The alphas approached last, the instinct to make sure their pack was protected first too strong to resist. Derek was first, because Scott absolutely refused to not be last. 

“Figure something out?” Stiles asked, feeling petty. He regretted it almost immediately. “Sorry.” He brushed his fingers over his husband’s eyelids. 

“You did something stupid,” Derek stated.

“No, I did something really smart, because contrary to what you seem to think, I’m not actually an idiot.”

“I don’t think you’re an idiot, I think you’re self-sacrificing, because you are.” 

“I’m literally the only person that can make this sacrifice.”

“I am asking you not to do this.”

“Only because telling me not to won’t work,” Stiles scoffed.

Derek met his gaze, orange peaking out to the sides of the crease of his eyelids. “I want you safe,” he ground out. Stiles placed a hand on Derek’s cheek, neither of them caring that he was smearing some of the paste on his cheek. Derek’s nuzzled into his palm, closing his eyes and inhaling his scent. Stiles watched his shoulders relax.

“I’ll be fine. Have a little faith.” Derek opened his eyes, light green irises swimming with conflicted emotion that only Stiles was ever privy to. 

“I trust you,” he said, pressing his face into Stiles’ palm one more time before stepping back, features back to stone. Stiles swore to himself that he would be worthy of that trust. Neither of them held any allusions that the pack hadn’t been listening in, but they also knew no one would actually confess to that. If a werewolf is listening in but won’t admit it and has no one to say anything to who wasn’t also listening, did they even hear anything at all? 

Scott stepped up. “No other options this time Scotty,” Stiles joked, swiping his fingers over the eyelids of the person that had once been his closest confidant. “No separating us, no biting me.”

Scott looked at him, gaze steady. “Do you ever think about what our lives would’ve been like if you’d never dragged me into the woods that night?”

Stiles glanced at Derek again. So much would’ve been different. Better probably, but maybe worse. He returned his focus to Scott. “Nah,” he answered. “Would’ve been pretty boring though.”

Scott huffed a laugh. “Yeah. I believe in you, you know. I know you can beat Nogitsune. You’re the strongest person I’ve ever known, and it has nothing to do with magic.” Stiles’ eyes widened in surprise. “I know I haven’t always trusted you, and that had way more to do with me than with you. And I’m sorry.”

“Why does this feel like a last words thing?” Stiles asked, falling back on the tried and true shield of humor.

“They’re not, because this isn’t the last time we talk,” Scott stated. “I just need you to know that I believe in you.” 

For a long time Stiles had no idea what to say to that. “Thanks buddy.” Stiles thought they might actually hug it out, but then Scott’s head was whipping around to stare at the surrounding trees. The position was mirrored by all of the other were-creatures.

“What?” Stiles demanded.

“Time to face the music,” Isaac replied, which was both pointlessly vague and much too specific to mean anything other than what Stiles thought it meant.

“How far are they?” he asked.

“Less than a mile, and heading toward this exact spot,” Derek replied. “It’s just the team. They didn’t bring anyone else.” 

Stiles clapped his hands and everyone’s focus turned back to him. “Ignore them. If they mean any harm they won’t make it through the barrier. Everyone close your eyes?”

“You’re just gonna let them find us?” Theo demanded.

“Yep. If you’ve got a problem you’re welcome to leave and get murdered by shapeshifting witches. Truly. Please go.” Theo stayed where he was, glaring daggers at Stiles. “Great. Everyone close your eyes,” Stiles repeated. Everyone did as they were bid. He dipped his fingers one last time into the bowls, and rubbed them over his own eyelids. Stiles rubbed his hands together and then put them out in front of him like he was Magneto. He didn’t actually have to do it for his magic to work, but it added to the aesthetic. If you have magic, you’re practically obligated to do cool poses when you use it, right? That was just superhero 101. Stiles felt the Nemeton’s power come up through the roots of the tree and through him. All it took was one word. Truthfully it probably wouldn’t even have taken that with how much extra power the Nemeton was funneling through him, but again, it was about the aesthetic. 

“See,” Stiles commanded, feeling all of it leave him in a whoosh, connecting with the herbal paste on the eyelids of his family. The substance began to glow just in time for Stiles’ other family to burst out of the underbrush with weapons drawn.

Chapter Text

“FBI!” was the resounding call from his team members. They barreled right through the protective barriers so Stiles ignored them, confident they wouldn't shoot him. Then they saw the glowing. Stiles looked to Reid first, who was already looking at him. There was a question in his eyes, and Stiles nodded his head. He’s not upset with him. Reid lowered his weapon, as though just realizing he’d had it raised in the first place. It’s a sign of how trusted he is that none of the werewolves opened their eyes. Stiles let the thought warm him for a moment.

Stiles watched the expressions cross his friends’ faces as the glowing faded from the packs’ eyes. Derek was the first to open his eyes, putting himself between Stiles and the team on instinct. Reacting to his movement, the rest of the pack did the same. Stiles remained standing on the Nemeton, taking comfort in the power channeling through him. With nowhere for the magic to go it was returned to the tree, Stiles simply being accepted as part of the circuit. 

“I assume Reid told you some things,” Stiles said, making the first move. Most of the team had lowered their weapons somewhat, though Hotch’s was still steadily aimed at Stiles’ chest. Stiles kept his hands raised.

“They were glowing,” Morgan stated. “ You were glowing. Everything…was glowing.”

“He still is glowing,” Theo said, the only one of the pack to still be looking at Stiles. A few other heads turned, and Stiles looked at his own hands, which looked to be encased in a bright white light. 

“Huh. That’s new.” When he looked at Theo again he noticed that his eyes were yellow. “Oh. Magic. It worked!”

“Stiles,” Derek warned. The tone of voice was enough to bring Stiles’ mind snapping back to the problem at hand, which he was only now just noticing. His eyes had slid over his team members, doing a cursory head count without really focusing on any of them except Reid. Which was why he hadn’t noticed that the woman with short dark brown hair wasn’t Emily Prentiss, though given the strange doubling of her visage and that no one on the team was freaking out, she was supposed to look that way. She was standing on the edge of the tree-line, just outside of the protective barrier.

“That was a mistake,” Stiles said, staring right at her.

“What?” she asked, and underneath this woman’s real voice, which was a little bit higher, Stiles could still hear Emily.

“Where’s my friend?” Stiles asked patiently. If they had hurt Emily, it was over for them. He was standing on the most powerful reserve of magic in the world. His whole plan would go out the window. He’d throw it all at her. 

“Stiles, what are you talking about?” JJ asked, a couple paces ahead of the imposter. Stiles watched as not-Emily raised her weapon again. 

“You didn’t kill her,” Stiles stated. “That wouldn’t make any sense. As long as she’s alive, she’s leverage. So you’re going to tell me where she is, or I am going to hurt you.” 

“Stiles,” Hotch snapped. 

“That’s not Emily. You can’t see through the spell, but we can. If you let me do the same spell on you, you’ll see her for what she really is,” Stiles promised, not taking his eyes off of the witch. It was the one who’d appeared to be in charge in the hotel room. “There’s another one out there.” A couple of them moved. “What did I just say about the magic square?” he snapped. “Just keep an ear out.” The ones who’d moved stopped, Jackson rolling his eyes. 

“What do you mean that’s not Emily? She’s right there,” JJ said. 

“That’s a witch who is using a spell to look like Emily,” Stiles replied calmly. “It’s why she can’t come any closer. I put up protections. Anyone who means me any harm can’t cross.” 

“That’s ridiculous,” not-Emily protested. The team stared at her. Hotch turned his head between Stiles and not-Emily. 

“Prentiss, take a few steps forward,” he stated. 

“Hotch, what? He sounds insane! This is a cult, look at them!”

JJ turned around to look at the witch. “Emily, walk to me,” she said, voice pleading. Reid raised his weapon again so it was pointing at the fake. His hands were steady. Not-emily’s dark brown eyes darted around frantically, and then she sighed. 

“Fine.” The strange doubling effect disappeared. JJ took a couple steps back, and in the blink of an eye there were five guns pointed at a woman that none of the BAU team had been seeing a second before. This woman looked a bit like Emily, if only because she also had shoulder-length dark brown hair. Her eyes were so dark they appeared black at the late hour. Her weapon was still raised, pointed at Stiles.

“Lower your weapon,” Hotch demanded. 

“Where’s Emily?” Stiles asked. 

“Why would I tell you that? She’s safe, and she’ll stay that way as long as I stay that way.”

“Did you really think it wise to walk in here alone?” Stiles replied. “Because it really wasn’t.”

“Alone? Why would I do that? After all, we both know I’m here for a reason.” Stiles didn’t need to turn around to know that a figure had melted from the shadows behind him. He could feel it at the edges of his consciousness, like a forgotten memory resurfacing, reasserting itself, carving out space for itself in his psyche. His suspicions were confirmed when Derek growled, having been the first to turn. Stiles stood completely still as Nogitsune came up beside him, having strolled right through the barrier he’d been so proud of, brushing Allison’s freezing hand over his shoulder. It smelled like rot, and Stiles didn’t know if that was Allison’s body or the spirit itself. He swallowed. He would not be afraid.

“How you been?” he asked conversationally. His voice shook slightly, and he could feel Nogitsune smile. 

“Better now I’m with you,” it purred, brushing the backs of Allison’s fingers over his cheek. Stiles turned to look at it, shaking off the contact. Allison’s eyes were pits of darkness. The Nogitsune obviously hadn’t been feeding well enough. It couldn’t keep up the facade perfectly anymore. Allison’s eyes had rotted out of her skull long ago. Her skin was as white and thin as paper, her hair lank and patchy. When it smiled, her teeth were black. Stiles fought down the bile that rose in the back of his throat. 

“Where’s Emily?” Stiles asked it. Nogitsune tipped its head to the side, toward the witch. Allison’s head fell farther than it should have, as though the spine was disconnected. “Of course. You’re bound.” 

“You know what we want,” the witch stated. 

“What, you’re not even gonna give me your name before you fuck me? I really thought we meant more than that,” Stiles retorted. The woman just raised an eyebrow at him. “Fine. I know you want Nogitsune to possess me, but I don’t know why. Care to share?” 

“We need you out of the way,” she replied simply, shrugging her shoulders. “And you’ll make such a pretty pet.” 

“Okay, ew. There’s really no need to say it like that,” Stiles protested. “I’m flattered though. I really scare you that much?” 

“You have the potential to be an inconvenience.” 

“I think I scare you,” Stiles pressed with a smirk. “After all, you’ve been hiding in the shadows with your little tricks this whole time. Afraid to face me head on? Afraid you’ll lose?” he taunted, relishing in the way her face tightened. “So you want me out of the way,” Stiles continued. “Why though?” He felt the Nemeton coursing through him, and the realization hit him. “Oh, of course. You want the Nemeton.” 

“It’s the most powerful source of magic in the United States.” 

“Well then you should go to Europe,” Stiles stated. “This isn’t a fight you want.” 

“It really is though. You see, we have your friend. I think you know how this works. You be a good boy and let our little spirit friend take your body for a ride and we give her back, unharmed.” She’d even lowered Emily’s gun, as though to show how confident she was.

“Yeah, so I’m not gonna do that,” Stiles said. “What I am going to do is knock you out. Then I’m going to go spelunking in your brain and find out where my friend is. So why don’t you come here and make it easier for me.” Against her will, the witch stumbled forward, eyes widening as she smacked into the invisible barrier. “Oh. Whoops.” Stiles blinked and she slid through, grunting in pain. Stiles didn’t know what passing through the magic felt like, but he was glad it hurt. Nogitsune sighed in pleasure beside him, drinking in its captor's pain with a grin, some of the color returning to Allison’s cheeks.

“Stop him,” the witch wheezed, and then there were thin fingers wrapping around Stiles throat, too-sharp nails digging into his jugular. The witch stopped being pulled forward.

“I thought we had something,” Stiles said, trying not to move lest Nogitsune accidentally slice his throat open. “Have you thought about nail-clippers? I respect the long-nail game but I think this might be” he gasped as its grip tightened then forced out “too much.” 

“Let him go,” Derek growled. 

“Derek, leave it,” Stiles ground out. He locked eyes with him. Derek’s eyes were glowing red, and Stiles couldn’t tell whether it was because he could see the magic now or because Derek was seriously pissed off, but they looked brighter than usual. Stiles smiled. “Faith, remember?” His eyes flickered to his team, who, bless their hearts, were pointing their guns at Nogitsune. “I appreciate the thought guys, but bullets really aren’t going to do anything here.” 

“Take it inside you,” the witch gasped, still in pain from being inside Stiles’ safe-zone. 

Stiles grimaced. “Seriously, did you have to say it like that? And I’m gonna need proof that Emily’s okay,” Stiles said. 

“You can’t seriously be considering this!” Liam protested.

“The adults are talking,” Stiles snapped at him. Liam opened his mouth to retort and no sound came out. 

“Fine, but drop the spell,” the witch gasped. Stiles blinked and watched as she drew in relieved lungfuls of air, clutching at her chest as though her heart was in danger of bursting out of it. The witch closed her eyes and mouthed something. There was a whooshing sound, and then they were surrounded. 

“That’s on me, I really should’ve seen that coming,” Stiles admitted. There were definitely more than five witches around them. In fact this looked like the largest coven Stiles had ever heard of; there had to be at least twenty witches around them. “Just so you guys know, bullets totally work on witches,” Stiles said. “I know you guys can’t just shoot people, but this definitely feels like self-defense.” 

“Tell her–it–whatever, to let Stiles go,” Hotch addressed the head witch.

“Please,” the witch scoffed and with a wave of her hand all the guns were ripped from the agents’ hands. 

“Emily,” Stiles demanded. 

“Yes, yes. Bring her forward.” From to the right Emily was shoved forward, her hands bound by a glowing length of time. Blood was matted in her hair and she looked dazed. She’d been blitzed. Her captor was the second-in-command. 

“Hand her over,” Stiles said.

“Not just yet,” the leader replied. “You still need to hold up your end.” 

“Emily first,” Stiles ground out.

“No,” the witch said simply. 

“You don’t want this fight. You might win, but you’ll suffer some pretty heavy losses. I am the only thing keeping this werewolf pack from trying to tear you to shreds,” Stiles reminded her. 

“They won’t act as long as your head is in danger of being separated from your body.”

“I’m a useless host dead, just as pointless as Allison.” Stiles took a shallow breath, still mindful of the claws at his neck. “I swear that I will allow Nogitsune to possess me, directly after Emily Prentiss is handed over to Jennifer Jeaurau. I make this pact on the Nemeton, ancient well of magic. It guards my oath, binding my life to my words.”

The witch hesitated, and then nodded to her companion. The woman shoved Emily forward. She stumbled a few steps, managing to make it to JJ’s arms before collapsing. 

“Get her to a hospital,” Stiles told them. “You can let go of me now,” he said to Nogitsune. Its claws left his throat, and Stiles turned to face it. They stared into each others’ eyes for a few very long moments. Then Allison’s hands reached up to cup Stiles’ cheeks. Stiles barely had the chance to take a last breath of free air before his mouth was being smashed against Allison’s rotting lips. 

When they were teenagers, Stiles had thought about what it would be like to kiss Allison. Obviously he’d never have actually done it. She was his best friend's girlfriend, and then his best friend’s ex-girlfriend, which was still very much off limits. But Stiles was a teenage boy, and Allison was very attractive. Stiles was confident what he was experiencing was nothing like what kissing Allison was like when she was alive. 

Their mouths were open, and she tasted like rotting flesh. As they kissed, Stiles could feel her rotting away. Her fingers locked up, pressing hard into his skin, keeping him in place. Stiles breathed in through his nose, and tried to pull away on instinct at the smell. Something wet touched Stiles’ lips. It tasted like that time Stiles ate a cheeseburger and then got violently drunk. Sour and bitter with the consistency of stomach lining and the copper tanginess of blood. Something slimy wriggled down his throat, and he was pretty sure it was a maggot, but he couldn’t break the kiss. Her tongue rotted away to nothing under his, and the fingernails digging into his cheeks dissolved down so that the pressure on his face was from her distal phalanxes. Her teeth fell out, and Stiles swallowed a couple. Stiles’ hand went to her hair, unconsciously wanting to pull her away, but her hair separated from her skull, leaving him with a chunk of dark locks clenched in a fist. The kiss grew harder as her skin continued to dissolve, until his face was pressed against nothing but the roughness of a skull. The last thing to pass between them was the fly. Stiles felt it flutter around in his mouth and he gagged, stumbling back from the skeleton. The bones of Allison Argent clattered to the ground, a humerus rolling all off the trunk to the forest floor. The floor forced its way down his throat. He felt it all the way down, wings beating against his esophagus. He fell to his knees, hands sliding on the pile of bones and almost sending him face first into the Nemeton. He retched once, twice, dry-heaving until it hurt.

Stiles blinked, catching his breath. He pushed away from the pile of mottled bones to sit on the edge of the Nemeton. He ran a hand through his hair, and some of the strands of Allison’s hair that were still caught between his fingers dragged against his face. He shook his hand to dislodge them, then sighed.

“That’s much better.” Nogitsune looked up at the group, who looked appropriately horrified. All except that little wolf pet of Stiles’, who looked murderous. It could feel the anger and fear coming off of that one in waves. It breathed deeply, soaking it in. “You have no idea how awful it is being inside a dead thing,” it admitted distastefully. “Now, where were we?” It leaned forward, tilting its head to the right, an uncanny smile on its lips.

***

“I’m not playing another game with you so you can stall,” Stiles said, sitting down at the Go! board despite his words.

“The time for games is done,” Nogitsune replied. “They’re going to bind us. Once that happens we will be theirs.” The game disappeared. It was just Stiles and Nogitsune, mirror images of each other’s most hated qualities, no tricks or trials between them.

“What do we do about that?” Stiles asked.

The Nogitsune smiled, teeth sharper than Stiles’ had ever been.

Chapter Text

Werewolf pack and FBI agents alike watched as the witches joined hands around them in a circle. They began to chant, voices becoming one sonorous drone. Nogitsune just watched, Stiles’ head tilted to the side, lips quirked in a darkly amused smirk. 

“By the air we breathe, by the fire of our magic, by the water of life, by the earth from which the source grows, we bind you, Nogitsune, spirit of chaos, strife, and pain, to our will.” From each of their joined hands, a tendril of bright light emerged, snaking toward Stiles. His friends and family were powerless as they watched the lights wrap around his wrists, ankles, neck. The witches repeated the chant three times, the ropes of light glowing so bright by the third time that werewolves and humans alike had to avert their eyes. Silence rang in the clearing, and the light faded. Stiles rubbed at his wrists in distaste. 

The head witch of one of the largest covens in existence, Calliope Davis, as Nogitsune knew her true name to be, tilted her chin up to stare Stiles straight in the eyes. “Come here,” she stated. The last time the McCall-Hale pack had seen the Nogitsune so angry was when it was barreling towards Lydia and Stiles, right before they’d managed to turn it. The creature twisted Stiles’ features into a furious sneer, his fists clenched at his sides, but he stood, and took measured steps toward the witch, stopping right in front of her. She reached a hand up to fix his hair. “Good boy. Now kill your friends for me.” 

“Why?” Stiles asked. 

“Did I say ask stupid questions? Kill them,” Calliope snapped.

Derek and Scott positioned themselves on instinct in front of the FBI agents, Derek covering most of them, and Scott personally shielding JJ, who had most of Emily’s weight leaning against her, the only two unable to raise a weapon. At their movement, the rest of the pack did the same. 

“Stiles,” Derek tried. Stiles turned to look at him. “Don’t.”

“Sorry,” Nogistune said, drawing out the word with a grimace. “Stiles isn’t home right now. But!” Stiles spun back around to Calliope with a manic grin. “I can’t kill them.” 

“What are you talking about?” she demanded. 

“Seems little Stiles took precautions. As a witch I trust you know the rules of an emissary in relation to their pack.” 

“No,” Calliope breathed. 

“Yeah,” Nogitsune breathed in same tone. “Pretty strong magic, emissary bonds, especially with connections like Stiles has to one of the alphas. I may be driving his meatsuit, but it’s still not my body. My hands are tied.” Nogitsune gave an exaggerated shrug.

“Break it, then,” Calliope ground out.

“Can’t. It’d kill him.” 

“A sacrifice I’m willing to make. You can have your pick of hosts from among us.”

Nogitsune swept his unimpressed gaze over the witches surrounding them. “Yeah, as fun as that sounds, you may want to think about that a little harder. You want the pack gone, so just tell them to leave. Pack up and find a new corner of the world the shack up in. They can even take their little human friends with them, you know, as a gift.” 

“You’d just leave?” Calliope asked, almond eyes narrowed in suspicion at the alphas. Stiles turned, face completely blank, the bored look of the Nogitsune the only thing to be seen on his features. 

“Yes,” he stated. 

“What?” Scott asked, head whipping around to stare at him incredulously. Most of the pack was staring at him in much the same way, except Kira and Parrish. Parrish was staring at the Nemeton. He hadn’t even drawn his weapon, and Kira’s eyes bore into Stiles, as though trying to read his very soul. 

“We’ll leave. You’ll never see us again,” Derek stated firmly, glancing at Scott.
“Just like that? All of you?” Calliope asked, looking at Scott.

Scott hesitated, then nodded. “All of us.” The BAU team was wisely keeping their mouths shut. Jennifer was brushing her hand over Emily’s hair in a soothing gesture, looking down at her face every once and a while to make sure her eyes were still open. At the very least she had a concussion. They needed to get her to a hospital. If she had brain damage every second counted. 

“Swear it,” Calliope said. 

“We swear that we will leave. You will never see us again,” Derek said, and his words were repeated by Scott, and then every member of their pack, the Nemeton drinking in their promises like the first rain after summer. 

Calliope stared at them suspiciously for a few more moments. “Go then,” she finally said. She watched as the FBI agents were herded out of the clearing and into the forest by the famed McCall-Hale pack. Their true alpha was the last to leave, casting one last look at his friend, eyes flashing briefly red, before he too vanished. 

Calliope took a deep breath, a smile settling on her face, eyes meeting Emma’s. Emma giggled, and their coven came closer, surrounding the two of them. “We did it,” Emma breathed. Calliope just nodded, still not quite ready to believe it.

“That was so…easy,” Dana, one of their oldest members, remarked. “That was really the best the famous true alpha could do?” 

“Stories can be over-exaggerated,” Calliope stated. “And we were careful.” She joined hands with Emma, her second, the woman she trusted above all others. “But it isn’t over yet.” The two of them turned to the Nemeton.

“Are you sure about this?” Emma asked, brushing a thumb over the back of Calliope’s hand.

“We must commune with the Nemeton for it to share its power with us,” Calliope reminded her. “Don’t forget why we are here.” 

“I know. We are one.” She pressed her forehead to Calliope’s.

“And as one, we are strong,” Calliope finished. 

“What will this do, exactly?” Colleen asked, a girl who’d come to them at the age of fourteen with bruises on her neck, covered in blood that wasn’t her own. She’d been a bird with two broken wings, cowering under anyone’s gaze. She would wake from nightmares screaming, and Calliope would take the girl in her arms and rock her back to sleep, promising that she was destined for greatness, that she was strong, that she would never be mistaken for weak again. Now she stood tall, addressing Calliope with confidence, unafraid to meet her eyes. 

“It will make us the most powerful coven in the world. We will be unstoppable.”

“What will we do then?” Sage, a person they’d come across living in the woods, a gifted nature witch who’d been alone for too long, asked. It was nearly a year before they’d spoken a single word to anyone else. They had thought them mute until one day they’d teased Gemma about her new hairstyle. Gemma had been so happy to hear their voice that she’d forgotten to be annoyed. 

“That’s the beauty of it,” Calliope replied. “Anything we want.” 

***

“What was that? We’re not seriously leaving this alone?” Scott demanded as soon as they were back to the road, where the two SUVs that the BAU had arrived in were parked. Derek rounded on him, eyes flashing red and Scott took a step back in spite of himself. 

“Of course not,” Derek snapped. “But we needed to get them,” he jerked his head in the direction of the FBI agents, “out of there. Stiles handed us, and them, an escape route so that we could regroup and make a plan.”

“I know that,” Scott said. “But we swore to leave. They swore they would never see us again. All of us swore.” 

“We didn’t.” Scott and Derek turned to find Spencer Reid standing with Aaron Hotchner at his side.

“What?” Derek said.

“We didn’t swear. They didn’t think we were worth it,” Spencer said.

“Get Emily to the hospital, and then go home,” Derek stated. “This is beyond you, and Stiles would want all of you safe.” 

“He’d want you safe too, and I doubt you’re going to fulfill that wish,” Spencer argued.

“We don’t leave people behind,” Hotch said, showing no fear even in the face of the knowledge that he was staring down a creature of the night. “JJ, get Emily to the hospital,” Hotch addressed JJ. “Keep us updated on her condition.” He looked at his team members, his family. “If any of you don’t want to be a part of this, nobody will think less of you for it. As of now, we are off the clock. As far as the FBI knows we’re just working a particularly difficult case. So difficult that it will likely go cold.” 

“We’re not leaving Stiles,” JJ said, gently helping Emily into the back of one of the cars. “Emily would say the same.”

“Damn straight,” Morgan said, arms crossed. 

“All of this could have been avoided if Stiles thought he could trust us,” Rossi said, glancing at Isaac briefly. “Least we can do is make sure he gets out of this. I admit we’re a bit out of our depth here, but we’re profilers, and we have access to resources you don’t.” 

“I’m all for sending the humans in instead of us,” Theo chimed in. Jackson came up next to him to smack him in the back of the head.

“We could use all the help we can get,” Mason pointed out.

“Stiles thinks very highly of you,” Malia said. “I trust his judgement.”

“Come on man,” Morgan said, addressing Derek in particular. “You know us. You know we’ll do everything we can to get Stiles back to you.” 

“Derek, you know I’ll go with whatever you suggest,” Scott said. “But I say we trust them.”

“Fine,” Derek ground out. “But you are not in charge here. This is our world. You play by our rules.” 

“Deal,” Hotch stated. 

“Guys she really needs serious care,” Melissa stated. She’d been quick to climb into the car after Emily, doing her best to examine the woman. 

“We’ll meet you at the hospital,” Derek stated. Melissa was right. Emily did not smell healthy. He would be damned before he got Stiles back only to tell him that his friend was dead. 

***

“Is everyone okay? What happened? Did you get Stiles? Is it true? It can’t be true. Are you guys okay? I was so worried nobody was answering their phones and—”

“Babygirl calm down, we’re okay,” Morgan assured her, mostly to get her to stop talking for long enough for him to figure out how he was going to tell her that they were in fact not all okay. 

“Thank goodness,” she breathed. “What happened?”

“It’s…complicated. Reid was right though, as usual.” Spencer rolled his eyes in the seat next to Morgan, sketching frantically on a pad of paper given to them by Scott’s mother, who’d ridden with them to the hospital to keep a close eye on Emily’s condition during the journey, holding her head to stabilize it as best she could. It was obvious she had some kind of seniority as a nurse, because everyone was quick to follow her instructions even though she wasn’t even on the clock. Emily was rushed inside. Melissa McCall stayed just long enough to press a hand to her son’s cheek, and then she was following their friend. Morgan was sure Emily was in good hands. 

“Werewolves?” Garcia whispered. “Like actually?”

“Yeah.”

“Where’s Stiles? I have to apologize profusely for ever doubting him.” 

“That’s kind of the problem. He’s possessed.”

“The thing from the video?” she asked, dread lacing her voice.

“The Nogitsune,” Reid provided absentmindedly. 

“What do you need?” Garcia asked. Morgan could picture her fingers poised over her keyboard, ready to work her magic, and boy could they use some magic of their own right then.

“We’re sending you some sketches of our unsubs. We need everything you can gather on them.” 

“You got it king of my heart,” Garcia said. Morgan sent the pictures he’d taken of the sketches Reid had managed to finish on the way to the hospital.

“There’s more incoming. Reid’s drawing as fast as he can.”

“How many?” Garcia asked, worried.

“Twenty-seven,” Reid said. 

“Oh my goodness,” Garcia breathed. “I’ll do what I can, but even for me that might take a while.” 

Morgan looked around, eyes landing on one of Stiles’ friends, or pack members, or whatever. It was weird to call them pack members. It was like Morgan had stumbled into an entirely different world and had no time to adjust to the way it completely altered his entire perspective on life. “Kid,” he said, raising his voice. Four different pairs of eyes turned to him. “You,” he said, nodding to the dark-skinned boy. “Come here.” The young man approached cautiously, like he was afraid he was about to be berated. “You’re the one who's good with computers right?”

“Not really. I’m okay, I guess.”

“You were the one trying to erase the video?” Garcia demanded.

He looked ashamed. “Yeah.” 

“You’ll do,” Garcia stated. “What’s your name?”

“Mason.”

“Well Mason, you’re my minion for the day. Congratulations.”

“Do you have a computer with you?” Morgan asked.

“In Mr. Stilinski’s car,” Mason replied.

“Go get it.”

Mason was quick to scurry out the doors toward the parking lot. “I’ll make a hacker out of that boy yet,” Garcia said, correctly assuming that he was gone. 

“Don’t make him too good,” Morgan warned her.

“I make no promises. Genius is meant to be shared.” 

When Mason returned with his laptop, Morgan handed his phone over and watched as Mason made his way to a mostly empty corner of the waiting room next to an outlet, opening the laptop, fingers flying over the keys with not quite the practiced ease of Penelope Garcia, but with the familiarity of someone who at least kind of knew what they were doing. Reid finished another drawing and took a picture with his own phone, sending it to Garcia before flipping the page to start another one, the tips of his fingers already smudged with graphite. He shook his hand, flexing his fingers and rolling his wrist around before putting pencil to paper again. 

“Wrist okay?” Morgan asked.

“Fine. Just not used to this much stress.” 

“You can take a break. It’s gonna take Garcia and Mason a little while to get to the point where they need more faces,” Morgan said. Reid just shook his head mutely, sketching the beginnings of yet another face. 

“Reid. Hey.” Morgan reached out, clasping his fingers around Spencer’s wrist. Reid dropped the pencil in response, staring daggers at Morgan. He let go. “Sorry. But you need to take a break. I know you’re worried about Emily, we all are, but giving yourself carpal tunnel isn’t going to fix anything.” 

“It might,” Reid replied petulantly, but he didn’t pick up the pencil again. After a moment of silence, Reid said “I accused him of being a cult leader you know.”

Morgan didn’t ask who he meant. “Well the rest of us were ready to accuse him of murder, so you can’t beat yourself up over that.” 

“It was the only reason he told me. I threatened to tell the rest of you my theory. He couldn’t stand the idea of being so misunderstood by us. If this was any of us, he would’ve been on our side from the beginning.”

“I know.” 

“You know if you think about it we’re all capable of terrible things,” Reid remarked. “I think if it really came down to it, I could kill someone. I have killed people.It was self-defense, or in the defense of others, I know that, but that doesn’t change the fact that I ended a human life.” 

“Where are you going with this Reid?” Morgan asked.

“Those were choices. He had to kill with no choice. Someone else used his mind, his body, his words, to kill people that he cared about.” 

“Yeah.”

“We can’t let that happen again.” 

“Yeah.” There was nothing else to be said. 

It was nearly half an hour of tense quiet, broken by the hushed snatches of conversations between the pack members, Hotch occasionally involved. Reid had just gone back to sketching when Melissa McCall returned. Everyone was standing at attention in an instant.

“She’s going to be okay,” Melissa stated. Morgan collapsed back into the chair with a sigh, running his hands over his face in relief. 

“She’s okay?” Reid repeated, as though he couldn’t quite believe it.

“She’s got a very serious concussion, and a skull fracture, but all things considered she was very lucky,” Melissa explained. “We have her on tylenol right now. She’s sleeping. We’ll wake her up every four hours, and monitor her very closely in the interim. You can visit, but two at a time, and no noise above whispers.” 

“JJ and Reid, you first,” Hotch allowed. Spencer and JJ were quick to follow Melissa back. Morgan was still taking shaky breaths of relief when Mason approached nervously, holding out Morgan’s phone. 

“Uh, it’s for you,” he said. “Sorry.”

Morgan frowned, wondering what the kid could be sorry for, when he heard Garcia’s furious voice screeching through the device. “DEREK MORGAN YOU DIDN’T TELL ME EMILY WAS INJURED.” Morgan winced. 

“Sorry babygirl I didn’t want to worry you until there was something to worry about,” Morgan explained, holding the phone well away from his ear to avoid permanent damage. He didn’t miss the amused look from Rossi. 

“One of our own was in the hospital! That is something to worry about!”

“I know, I’m sorry. But she’s okay,” Morgan assured her. 

“I heard, and you’re already forgiven,” Garcia sniffed. “Just don’t let it happen again.”

“Yes ma’am,” Morgan chuckled. 

“Now hand me back to my protege.” Morgan handed the phone back to Mason, who retreated back to his corner.

“So are we all just meant to stand around here, or can I go home?” Theo asked.

“Sorry, he has an asshole voice. But he’s not wrong,” Liam agreed. He was the one who discovered the dead police officers. “Shouldn’t we be planning something?” 

“We have been.” Derek and Scott stood shoulder-to-shoulder, and even if Morgan didn’t already know they were the leaders it would have been obvious here in the way that everybody fell silent, their bodies automatically turning to listen to what they had to say. It was almost creepy. No wonder they’d thought this was a cult. Morgan still wasn’t entirely sure it wasn’t . 

“We all made an oath that they would never see us again,” Scott said.

“And that we’d leave,” one of the wolves pointed out.

“That area, yes,” Derek agreed. “We never specified that we would leave Beacon Hills.”

“Does the magical tree stump care about specifics like that?” Morgan asked, unable to keep the skepticism from his voice. 

“Well we’re still in Beacon Hills and not suffering extreme pain or death,” Liam pointed out. 

“The kid makes a good point,” Rossi said.

“Do you have an idea?” Hotch asked, bringing them back on track.

Kira came up behind the alphas. “It’s more that we know what Stiles’ plan is.”

“And we have to stop him,” Scott finished. 

Chapter Text

“We offer our blood, our souls, our lives,” the witches intoned, blood dripping from their pricked fingers onto the soil housing the Nemeton’s roots. Stiles watched, angry. He’d never felt so much anger in his life. He didn’t know how much of it was Nogitsune’s and how much was his own, but in the end it didn’t matter. He couldn’t do anything yet. At least he’d gotten his friends out of here. They shouldn’t have to see what happened next, what he was about to do. After all, bindings became moot points when the holder of the leash was dead. He couldn’t harm them, but he wouldn’t have to. Nogitsune had never been one for hand-to-hand fights. It was all a bit plebeian, and it was more fun to manipulate others to do the dirty work anyway. Stiles closed his eyes, tugging on his own connection to the Nemeton. Nogitsune smiled. This was going to be fun.

***

Calliope opened her eyes to see her living room. For a moment she was confused, before she rolled her eyes at her own stupidity. This was part of the process. They had to navigate the Nemeton, each one of them. She’d thought it would be a bit more communal than this seemed, but perhaps that was part of the journey, finding each other in the maze-like roots of magical consciousness. She barely spared a glance for her surroundings, going for the front door. It opened and Calliope was freefalling through an endless sky of darkness. 

The panic seized her all at once, choking her more effectively than the lack of oxygen in whatever high-up place she was tumbling from. She could feel the pain of hitting the beach. She was still conscious, but she couldn’t move, couldn’t open her eyes. She couldn’t speak. Someone was screaming, but it wasn’t her. Oh, if only she could scream, relieve some of the pressure building inside her.

Calliope opened her eyes with a gasp and her lungs filled with water immediately. This time she was ready for it. She kicked for the surface, seeing light above her. There was something pulling at her ankle, wrapping all the way up her leg. She looked down, seeing a tendril of blackness, the same ink that she had fallen through. Something was wrong. The Nemeton wasn’t made of darkness like this. It couldn’t be. Nature magic was the most untainted of all branches. Sure, that dark druid had died there but she wouldn’t have been powerful enough to corrupt this ancient source so thoroughly. 

Calliope gargled a spell. Nothing but bubbles escaped her lips, but the darkness retreated like a burned hand. She kicked hard and her head broke the surface. She took in greedy gulps of air, hair plastered to her cheeks, looking around wildly for any sign of land. There, in the distance, a beach. She squinted at the distant sand, just being able to make out a figure on the shore. Afraid that her spell would only keep the darkness at bay for so long, she muttered a quick spell for strength and swam desperately for the island.

Emma met her part of the way, diving in to help pull her to shore as soon as she caught sight of her. They clung to each other, freezing water soaking through their clothes. Emma chattered out a warmth spell and Calliope felt heat seep into her bones. She took a breath, eyes darting around even as she continued to clutch Emma like a life raft. “Something’s wrong,” she gasped. 

“I know,” Emma said, blinking rapidly as though to clear errant thoughts. “I can feel it.”

“Where’s everyone else? We can’t leave them in here,” Calliope said. 

Emma winced. “I found Sage. They’re…I don’t know what happened. They were torn apart, but not by anything external. It was like they scratched themselves apart,” she explained in a horrified whisper. 

“Okay,” Calliope said through a shiver that had nothing to do with the cold. “That doesn’t mean everyone else is gone too. Is there a door here somewhere?” 

Emma looked out across the water, and Calliope groaned. “You’ve got to be kidding me.” 

“Water is the closest thing to a doorway you’ll find,” Emma said reluctantly. Calliope gripped Emma’s hand with a grimace and the two of them pulled each other back into the water, finally submerging themselves completely. 

***

Once Reid and JJ had returned from visiting Emily, the team and the pack relocated to the Stilinski household. Scott was in favor of going straight back into the woods, but Derek had staunchly refused that idea. They needed to be prepared—in case Kira and Parrish were wrong, but also in case they were right. Melissa had promised to stay with Emily and look after her, the only thing that would get the team to leave the hospital. 

“Are we trying to stop a murder or commit one?” Morgan asked.

“Stop one,” Scott stated at the same time Derek said “depends.” Scott glared at him, but Derek had long since built up a tolerance to Scott’s ire. 

“We need to sever the connection between Nogitsune and the Nemeton. That could very well kill all the witches attached to it, but considering that’s what we think Nogitsune is doing anyway, it’s a risk we’ll have to take.”

“How do we do that without harming Stiles?” Lydia asked.

“As long as Nogitsune is possessing him, he’s functionally immortal,” Theo replied, sounding as though he was deeply inconvenienced by this fact. 

“The only way he could die is if we turned him, and obviously we’re not gonna do that,” Scott stated firmly. Lydia didn’t look so sure about that. “Do you feel something?” Scott asked warily. Lydia ran her hands up and down her arms uncomfortably, something she only did when she didn’t know the answer to something. 

“There’s something,” she finally said. “It’s not Stiles,” she reassured them when Derek’s spine straightened in alarm. “But…I think we might be too late. Whatever he’s doing, it’s already started.” 

“We need to hurry,” Malia said, and Lydia gave a tight nod.

“So how do we sever the connection? It can’t be as simple as knocking him out,” Isaac said. 

“I told you already,” Parrish said, sounding tired. They’d gone over this. He understood that it was hard to believe but none of the others had the connection to the Nemeton that he did. He knew what he’d seen. The bright white glow that had surrounded Stiles once the seeing spell had taken effect hadn’t faded in the slightest when Stiles had been possessed. Instead, it was joined by its complete opposite, an inky blackness sliding over Stiles’ skin, twining with the ethereal glow, creating a yin-yang effect. He’d asked Kira about it and she’d agreed with his assessment. Nogitsune hadn’t taken over. Stiles had done it. He’d managed to coexist. He’d been pretending that he was entirely out of control to get them to leave, probably to keep them from seeing what he was going to do to those witches. 

“He and Nogitsune were still connected to the Nemeton. It was like they were polluting it. Just knocking him out won’t do anything. He’ll just keep doing whatever he’s doing in his mind. We need him to sever it. He has to choose to stop.”

“Why can’t we just let him finish the job?” Theo complained. “This could be over so easily.” 

“They’re still people,” Scott stated. “We don’t kill people.” 

Theo rolled his eyes. “Derek’s killed people. I’ve killed people. Jackson’s killed people. The Sheriff’s definitely killed people. Who knows what those two have been up to,” he said, nodding at Kira and Isaac.

“I was being mind-controlled,” Jackson interrupted. “But Theo has a point. This is self-defense as far as I’m concerned.” 

“Maybe the reason Beacon Hills keeps getting attacked is because you’re too lenient,” Theo stated, eyes narrowed at Scott.

“If Scott wasn’t so lenient , you’d be dead,” Derek reminded Theo, coming to his co-alpha’s defense. “Let’s not forget how much Scott has done for all of you.” 

“Thank you Derek,” Scott said, a little surprised. 

“This wouldn’t be self-defense,” Derek continued. “If Parrish and Kira are right, he’s going to kill those witches in cold blood.” He glanced briefly at Lydia’s tight features. “Some of them might already be dead. He’s hiding behind Nogitsune to do it because he’s ashamed. He knows it’s wrong. Stiles is not a killer, we all know that. He feels trapped.” 

“We have to remind him that there are other options,” Scott agreed. “There’s always another way. Right?” He turned to the FBI agents, who were a little surprised to be addressed in a conversation that had thus far had very little to do with them. JJ had thought the pack might have forgotten they were there. 

Hotch turned to Noah Stilinski. “He’s your son. What do you think?” 

“My son is many things,” the man replied, crossing his arms. “A murderer isn’t one of them. That doesn’t mean he’s not capable of defending himself.”

“If Stiles feels threatened, he’ll lash out,” Morgan synthesized.

“The witches are definitely doing that,” Rossi stated.

“What about the binding?” Spencer asked. “Nogitsune was bound not to hurt any of them.”

“It was named in the incantation,” Lydia agreed, tapping her fingernails on the surface of an end-table. “Stiles wasn’t.”

“But aren’t they one being now? That’s what you said right?” JJ asked Parrish. “They’re entwined.” 

“Entwined,” Parrish agreed. “But not combined. I think it would be hard for Stiles to physically hurt any of the witches, but with what he’s sending into the Nemeton, he won’t have to. The tree will do the work for him.” 

“How?” Reid asked.

“I called Deaton on our way here.”

“The veterinarian?” Reid asked, frowning, remembering the name from the files. 

“He’s a druid,” Liam provided. 

“Of course he is,” Morgan muttered.

“Anyway, he said that the witches would want to ‘commune’ with the Nemeton to officially claim it as their own.” 

“We’ve never communed with the Nemeton,” Liam pointed out.

“Haven’t we?” Isaac replied. “Me, Scott and…” he hesitated. “Well, me and Scott have a connection to it from that ritual we did. Noah, Melissa, and Chris were kept captive in its roots. Derek practically brought it back to life. Peter sacrificed to it. Parrish did whatever the hell that weird shit with the bodies was for it. Kira’s mother summoned Oni using it. I’d say we’re pretty interconnected with it.” 

“It definitely sees us as belonging to it,” Parrish confirmed.

“Great. We’re owned by a dead tree,” Theo said wryly. 

“The point is, because the Nemeton already has a pack, it would challenge anyone who tried to break our bond and forge a new one,” Parrish said. “But with Stiles there, feeding dark power into it, its challenges could become violent very quickly. He’s using the tree as a weapon.” 

“And it’s letting him?” Liam asked.

“It’s a tree. What’s it gonna do, say no?” Jackson replied with a roll of his eyes.

“He just said it was sentient enough to consider us its owners or protectors or whatever,” Liam complained, glaring at Jackson.

“You guys have no idea what you’re doing do you?” Morgan said, interrupting before Jackson could retort. The whole pack turned to him with varying looks of offense.

Except for Theo, who just sighed and said “perpetually.”

“We’re very good at figuring it out along the way,” Liam said with a shrug. 

“Also Stiles was kind of always the one with the plans,” Jackson pointed out. “He figured everything out, and once he managed to convince some of the others we’d all get dragged into some wild scheme that would somehow work every time.” The others looked around, mirrored looks of frustration and sadness on their faces. They weren’t used to having to do this without him. Even last time Nogitsune had possessed him they’d only done something once they were separated again. 

“So how do we get close without the witches seeing us?” Isaac was the first to speak up. 

“Maybe you guys don’t have to be there at all,” Reid spoke up, an idea forming in his mind.

***

The sun was starting to rise. Stiles could feel the first rays on his face. He took a deep breath, tasting the fresh air mixed with the pain of the bleeding witches in front of him. The woods witch was scratching at their own skin repeatedly, driving deep gouges into it, leaving trails of red. They appeared not even to feel it. Stiles didn’t even know what had happened to a couple of the others. A blonde one had set herself on fire somehow. She’d put herself out again a moment later, but third degree burns glistened on both of her arms. All her hair had burned away. Another, one of the few men in the coven, had simply fallen over on his side and stopped breathing. That one was dead, and Stiles hadn’t really even focused anything on him. 

Calliope still sat up straight, though at one point a tear had slid down her cheek. Emma was breathing shallowly, shivering. Stiles pushed more power toward the Nemeton and watched as she grimaced in pain. Stiles didn’t remember the last time he’d slept properly. He’d managed to catch a few hours here and there in the police station, but he hadn’t gotten a full night since this had all begun. Strangely, he didn’t feel tired in the slightest. Having Nogitsune in his mind was like an extra high dose of adderall, heightening his focus to previously unreachable levels. Everything around him was sharper. He could taste a wounded animal three miles away. It was a deer, killed by a poacher. It would be dead soon, it’s pain no longer a source of energy for Stiles. That was alright. He had the coven to keep him sated. He blinked coolly when one of the witches screamed, high shriek piercing the crisp dawn air. 

Where was that one again? He focused, using the connection to the Nemeton to take a peek at her mind. Ah yes. Of course. She was fighting off the other coven members, or so she believed. She had a deep mistrust for them. She was a newer member. It had been easy to use that fear and doubt. Everything these witches were facing was of their own making. Imagination was such a wonderful thing. 

Stiles frowned, pulling back and opening his eyes, looking around. He could feel something out there. The pack wouldn’t be foolish enough to return here, not after the oath they’d sworn. Nogitsune whispered in his mind and Stiles frowned. That could be…problematic.

“I know you’re out there,” he shouted, keeping his voice playful, like Nogitsune would’ve done. “There’s really not much point in hiding from me.” 

“Who’s hiding?” Rossi asked, coming through the trees with the rest of the team. The pack was nowhere in sight, to Stiles’ relief. If by some chance one of the witches broke free, or even just briefly fluttered their eyes open and saw them, Stiles didn’t know what would happen. The pack member caught in that gaze could be killed immediately, or something worse, and then it would all be for nothing. 

None of team had their weapons raised. Stiles longed to ask if they’d gotten Emily to a hospital, but Nogitsune wouldn’t care, so he stayed silent and still, eyes sliding over each of his friends in turn. None of them were in particularly horrendous mental anguish, so she couldn’t be dead. 

“I’m a little offended. I let you leave, because it would cause some unnecessary drama up here to kill you,” Stiles tapped a finger against his temple “and yet here you are again. All that restraint, for nothing.”

“Stiles, we know it’s you,” Hotch stated. Stiles kept his face neutral, tilting his head to the side.

“I’ll give you a pass just this once, cause you’re new here and everything, but guess again.” 

“Stiles, you have to stop this,” Morgan said. “This isn’t the way to go about this.” 

“I really suggest you leave,” Stiles replied, narrowing his eyes. “Little Stiles is screaming for me not to kill you, but my patience has limits.” 

“Do it then,” JJ said in defiance. 

“You could do it, you know. They’re asking for it. Think of the added pain of knowing it was you ripping them apart. It would be delicious–”

Stiles dug his fingernails into the palm of his hand hard enough to draw blood, simultaneously pushing more magic into the Nemeton, causing another wave of pain from the witches. Reid’s eyes went to the movement and Stiles knew he wasn’t fooling them. 

“You should go,” Stiles said, tension returning to his body. He let his fingers tap against his leg. “You don’t want to be here for this part.” 

“You know why we’re here,” Morgan said, stepping forward. Stiles took a step back in response. “You can still call this off.” 

“No I can’t. The second I release them, they will tell me to kill you. I got the others out of the line of fire but only you can keep yourselves alive at this point,” Stiles replied, matter-of-fact tone poorly disguising the desperate nature of his plea. He needed them to leave. He didn’t think he could do what needed to be done with them standing there looking at him. He didn’t want to force them to watch their friend become a murderer. He couldn’t just let the coven go either. He couldn’t willingly consign himself to a life of servitude. He would have to do anything the coven asked of him. If they told him to level a city he’d have to do it.

“Maybe we should consider that possibility more carefully.”

Stiles dug the heel of his hand into one of his eyes, trying to rub the voice out of his head. “Go, or I will make you,” he said. 

“You could do that,” Rossi said amiably. “But you should listen to what we have to say first.” 

“Guys, I appreciate this, I really do,” Stiles practically begged. “But there is nothing you can say that will change the facts of this situation.” 

Reid pulled out his phone, pressed a button, and Scott’s voice emerged from the device. “You promised to let us try to find another way. This isn’t your only option, Stiles. I know I’ve let you down in the past, but I swear to you, there is another way. I am not asking you not to defend yourself. We’re only asking that you wait before you do something you can’t take back.” 

Stiles hesitated, feeling the pull that always came when one of the alphas wanted someone in the pack to listen to them. Stiles had the power to resist more than the betas did, but his instincts were still quick to want to obey. And maybe he wanted Scott to be right. As much as Stiles disagreed with Scott’s insistence that there was always another way, Scott had proven time and again that if anyone was going to find another way, it was Scott McCall. “What do you have in mind?” he asked at the same time that the Nogitsune screeched its protest in his mind.

“You give them a choice,” JJ answered. “You give them the chance to walk away.”

“If I release them to even ask, they’ll have me under their control again,” Stiles argued.

Derek’s voice came through Reid’s phone. “Make the choice clear in their minds. Stiles, you can’t do this to me. You can’t be like the rest of them. You’re my anchor.” Stiles felt himself waver. All of Derek’s past lovers had given him scars. He’d had to kill Paige with his own claws. Kate had taken advantage of that lingering pain and burned the rest of his world down, and then Jennifer had turned out to be a serial killer. Stiles was going to be added to that long list. Stiles had a vision of Derek talking about him in therapy. The one who got possessed and went insane. He wondered if Derek would be able to get over him. Part of him hoped that they were a little bit more significant than any of those past relationships. That was the selfish part. The part that was making the choice to protect them all hoped Derek would find a way to move on, if the pain of losing his anchor didn’t kill him. Stiles swallowed around a lump in his throat. 

“We know you must be using the Nemeton’s trials to break them, which means you have some control over what they see,” Parrish added. 

“Just kill them!” 

“Like with Deucalion,” Scott added. “He never caused trouble for us again. He did so many things to hurt us, but we avoided the consequences that killing him would have brought to our doorstep by being better than him. We’re special because we are better .” 

“End this pointless quibbling. Your friends can’t understand Stiles. They’ll never understand. You’re doing this to protect them. Make the witches bleed to protect your friends. Make them suffer. Turn them against each other and drink their pain, kill them slowly. Look at that one scratching at itself like a rabid animal. They taste exquisite. You like—” 

“Shut. UP!”

Nogitsune only got louder. “Why don’t you tell your little friends how good it all feels. Why don’t you tell them how good it’s always felt. You sighed in relief when Allison’s pretty little body was run through. Your best friend's pain was like a luxury meal as she breathed her last breath in his arms, and we weren’t even together anymore. That was all you. My perfect host. More twisted than you’ve ever been able to show. I can set you free Stiles. All they do is hold you back. We can be so much more powerful than any of them could ever dream. We can burn the world, and all the pesky little creatures who call it home. We can feast for eons Stiles. This is where it—”

Stiles vaguely registered Spencer coming towards him. He threw his hand out. “Stay away from me!” he shouted, other hand clutching at his hair, as though causing himself enough pain would keep him from turning on anyone else.

“You won’t hurt me Stiles,” Spencer said, determinedly shoving his phone up to Stiles’ ear. Stiles expected Derek’s voice, or his dad’s, or maybe Scott. Lydia. Even Isaac or Liam, someone who knew how to calm him down, who had been there for one of his panic attacks, who’s voice he was familiar with bringing him back down to earth when he got overstimulated. 

“Quit whining,” Theo snapped. Nogitsune went quiet for a moment, mirroring Stiles’ shock. “You think you’re the only one who’s ever had a voice in their head? Grow up. You’re not special.”

“You’re not helping,” Stiles managed to reply through gritted teeth.

“I’m not trying to help. Why would I ever help you? All you’ve ever done is remind me of everything I’ve ever done wrong because of the voices in my head. I’m just here to enjoy watching you suffer the same, and make the same choice I did.” 

“I am nothing like you.” 

“Really? Kinda seems like it. I can only imagine what you’re doing to those witches’ minds. Probably turning them against each other, right? It is a classic. I’m familiar with the tactic.”

“Shut up.” 

“No. I think I deserve to enjoy this. I just wish I could be there in person to witness it. The fall of the great Stiles Stilinski,” Theo sneered. “You’ve always thought you were better than the rest of us. In all fairness you are more powerful, but as soon as things get difficult you go straight to the easiest option, just like you did with Donovan. You claim self-defense, but I think we both know you could’ve figured it out. That’s what Scott would've done after all, and he is the alpha. Oh but I was human. Were you, or did you just not think it was worth it to try to use your powers for that. Easier to just get rid of him, hm? We’re really not so different at all.” 

Nogitsune had gone completely silent, or maybe Stiles just couldn’t hear it over the blood rushing in his ears. The audacity of Theo to compare them, as if their situations were at all the same. Stiles was nothing like him. He would never stoop that low. Theo had irreconcilably damaged Stiles and Scott’s friendship. He’d had everyone fooled, except Stiles, and Stiles had paid the price for it. He would die before he became anything even close to the absolute scum of an individual that was Theo Raeken. 

“Fuck you,” he ground out, and closed his eyes, using his anger to make his message to Calliope Davis perfectly clear.

Chapter Text

Calliope screamed as Emma was ripped away from her. She tried to tell herself that it wasn’t real, but all she could focus on was the way the four-eyed beast had ripped Emma’s arm off and then left her bleeding on the ground, like Calliope wasn’t worth its time. It had done what it had set out to do. Calliope had scrambled to Emma’s body, a spell to stop the bleeding on her lips, but she’d barely reached her when a tendril of darkness wrapped around Emma’s remaining arm and pulled her away into a shadow. Calliope tried to follow, but there was nothing there. She was alone in a clearing. Again. 

She’d thought there was a way through. Even corrupted, the Nemeton was designed to be possible to win over. She knew this was Nogitsune’s doing somehow. She thought she’d been careful in the binding spell. He’d assured her it would work. She never should’ve trusted him. She never should’ve brought her coven here. The Nemeton’s power wasn’t worth this. They could still achieve their goals without it; it would just take longer. Emma had tried to tell her that shortcuts were almost always too good to be true. 

She had to get out of here. She’d tried to force herself out of the hold that Nemeton had on her consciousness, but each time she’d thought she was awake it was just a trick. The first time Emma had been ripped apart she’d screamed loud enough to blow the trees in the clearing back. Her eyes had been squeezed shut, unwilling to see the carnage of her dead coven all around her, bodies laid out in a circle around the Nemeton. When she’d opened her eyes everything had reset. For a moment she thought she was awake, and then it all happened again.

And again.

And again. 

She let out a sob. She knew if she opened her eyes she would be back there, sitting as part of the circle of her people, one hand in Emma’s and one in Sage’s. She would open her eyes with her coven and they would smile at her and praise her. They would say she was right all along; that this was everything they could have ever asked for. They would all begin to stand, brushing themselves off. 

“Where’s Nogitsune?” Emma asked, and Calliope squeezed her eyes shut tighter with a whimper. She heard the beast before the screaming started, huffing in wet breaths as it prouled out of the trees, four red eyes glaring at the witches. Emma cast the first spell. The first time it had been Calliope, always at the forefront of every charge. Now she sat trembling, unable to open her eyes, hearing the wet squelches and blood-curdling screams of her coven being torn to pieces. The screams stopped, and she continued to sob quietly as the beast ambled towards her. She could feel its hot breath on her face. It stank like rotten flesh and the blood of her brothers and sisters. 

“Please,” she whimpered. “Please. Please let us go. Please not again.” The sound of the beast disappeared and she sobbed harder, a feral scream tearing out from her vocal chords. She couldn’t do this anymore. Calliope felt Emma’s hand in hers again. She snatched her hand away and muttered a spell, the warm feeling of Emma’s fingers replaced by the cool feel of metal. She kept her eyes shut tight as she brought the blade to her own throat.

“Stop!” The new voice startled her eyes open, staying her hand. The only expressions she had ever seen the Nogitsune twist that dead girl’s features into had been boredom and anger. Now it looked afraid, one of the boy’s hands outstretched as though to keep her from cutting her throat. She dropped the blade like it was superheated. 

“You,” she snarled, scrambling to her feet. Nogitsune schooled its features. But this wasn’t Nogitsune, was it? Somehow this was Stiles Stilinski in control of his own body, something Calliope had been assured was impossible. 

“Before you do anything rash, like tell me to do something I don’t want to do, you should consider that your coven is still under my control,” Stiles threatened. Calliope paused right as she’d been about to order him to kill those FBI agents who she saw had been foolish enough to come back. She hadn’t considered them a threat before, but she hadn’t considered Stiles a threat either. She wouldn’t be making that mistake again. 

“Release them,” she ordered instead.

Stiles’ features tightened and his hand made an aborted gesture as though to slice through the air. “They’re not mine to release,” he said with some difficulty. “They belong to the Nemeton now. I could pull a few strings with her but you know the boss lady doesn’t really like being told what to do.” 

“I doubt she particularly enjoys being poisoned,” Calliope spat.

“Regardless,” Stiles said. “I will release them when you release me and vow to leave Beacon Hills.”

“The moment I release you, you’ll kill us all,” Calliope replied, fists clenched.

“I will let you go in peace. I am prepared to swear to it. But first I need some information.” 

“Stiles,” agent Hotchner said, warning laced throughout his tone. Stiles turned his head slightly to show he was acknowledging him, but his eyes never left Calliope. Calliope realized that her position was more tenuous than she thought. This was Stiles Stilinski, but he wasn’t Nogitsune’s perfect host for nothing. His friends were here to stop him from what he’d been trying to do to Calliope and her coven. She remembered the feeling of the blade in her hand, how quickly she’d raised it to her own throat. She brought her hands up to brush fingers over her own windpipe now, swallowing as though to prove she still could. She’d thought him fairly harmless. The McCall-Hale pack was known for their mercy. One of the alphas went so far as to enforce a no-kill rule. Calliope had been assured that she was in no mortal danger from them. Evidently she’d been lied to. She was beginning to think that had been the point. 

Her suspicions were confirmed when Stiles asked “who told you to come here?” 

“I don’t know,” Calliope answered. “A man, someone who said they had information on the pack that controlled this territory, and that it was ripe for the taking as long as we were careful about it.”

Stiles frowned. Calliope could practically hear the gears turning in his mind. “Your word that you won’t hurt us. Ever. You. Stiles Stilinski.” She spat his name like a curse. Stiles considered her; it was like he was seeing right through her. 

“We, Stiles Stilinski and Nogitsune, swear not to harm a member of the Davis coven as long as we exist.” Calliope felt the magic of his oath pass over and through her and each member of her coven before settling over them like a soft blanket. All at once the pollution retreated from the Nemeton and most of her coven opened their eyes. Sage was bleeding from long scratches covering every bit of exposed skin. Emma went to work with healing magic right away, tears running down her cheeks. She’d been so sure that Sage was dead. Alex was lying on his side, eyes closed. Dana shook his shoulder and took his pulse, face tightening with grief at what she found, or rather what she didn’t find. The rest of the coven were in varying states of injury, but it seemed Alex was the only casualty. He’d been the least powerful of them, but he’d been so eager to be a part of something. He’d followed Dana around like a lost puppy until he’d finally been allowed to join officially. It was rare that they allowed a man into their ranks. He’d been so proud to be trusted. Dana brushed her hand over his hair. She did not cry. Calliope had never seen the older woman shed tears. Instead her eyes shined with anger. Calliope turned back to look at Stiles. 

“Your turn,” he said carefully, hands clenching and unclenching at his sides. His voice echoed when he said “release us,” but it was all show. He couldn’t hurt them anymore.

“You killed my friend.”

“And you tried to make me kill mine,” he replied. 

Calliope nodded to herself. “Stiles Stilinski, Nogitsune,” she began, her lips curving into a snarl. “Kill those—”

She never even heard the shot.

***

Calliope Davis crumpled into a heap of limbs in the dirt. Stiles whirled, feeling the power of the order she’d been about to give fade with her life. JJ stood with her gun raised and steady. The others too had their weapons drawn, Reid’s phone dropped to the dirt. Stiles could hear panicked voices coming from its speaker, wondering about the shot no doubt. He turned back to the witches in shock to find Emma had scrambled to Calliope’s side. She’d turned her over, and was pressing two fingers to her pulse point. Stiles didn’t have to take Calliope’s pulse to know she was dead. JJ was a very good shot. Emma’s hand shook as she removed it from Calliope’s neck.

“Leave,” Hotch stated. There was fury in Emma’s eyes. “You can take our weapons with a thought,” Hotch continued. “But hasn’t there been enough blood shed?” 

“If you kill an entire team of agents, the FBI will stop at nothing to find you,” Rossi added. “You can still walk away from this.” 

Emma took Calliope’s limp hand and glared straight at Stiles as she said “Nogitsune, Stiles Stilinski, as the head of the Davis Coven, I release you from your binding.” Stiles felt one of the tethers between them snap with enough force that he stumbled a step backward, hand flying to his chest. It was like he could breathe again. 

“Don’t think we’ve forgotten this, boy,” Dana said, voice even, leaving Alex’s side finally to stand next to Emma. The force of the glares trained on him was enough to make Stiles nervous. Maybe he should’ve killed them after all. Then it would be over. This just felt like kicking the proverbial can down the road for future Stiles to deal with. 

Stiles tamped down on the urge to snap their necks with a thought and bowed his head. “I’m sorry it had to be this way.” 

“It didn’t,” Emma said. “It didn’t have to be this way. We were tricked.” She squeezed Calliope’s hand hard enough that Stiles could almost hear the bones grind.

“I will find who did this to us,” Stiles swore.

“Make them pay,” Emma told him, and though he no longer had to follow her orders, this was one task he would stop at nothing to complete.

***

After that it was all shockingly easy. The only hiccup was that the coven wanted to take Calliope’s body for a proper burial. That was one thing that Hotch absolutely refused to grant. They needed someone to attribute this whole mess to. Eventually the witches acquiesced with a promise from Stiles that he would bury her properly once she’d been processed. The witches left the clearing and Reid picked up his phone again to assure the pack that the shot had been on Stiles’ behalf. 

“We’re really just going to let them go?” Morgan asked. 

“The unsub was one Calliope Davis. She was the woman that Liam Dunbar saw on the road, and we tracked her here, where she was attempting to do some kind of ritual, involving the sacrifice of…” Hotch looked at Stiles.

“Alex Carmichael,” Stiles provided, having been inside his head. He didn’t even know precisely what he’d done to kill the young man. He’d been collateral damage; he just wasn’t as strong a witch as the others. “How do we explain how exactly he died?” Stiles asked. “His heart just…stopped.” He found it hard to meet any of his teammates' eyes, not because he regretted Alex’s death, but because he didn’t. He couldn’t bring himself to feel anything at all about it, and the worst part was he didn’t know if that was Nogitsune or his own lack of empathy for someone who’d been involved in a plot to hurt his family.

“Takotsubo cardiomyopathy,” Reid said.

Stiles tilted his head, tapping his fingers in thought. “Broken heart syndrome? That’s not usually fatal.”

“Not impossible though, and he was about to die. His heart stopped. He had a surge of adrenaline so strong that he died. That might even actually be what happened.”

Stiles thought about it. Had he really scared this boy to death? He probably shouldn’t feel proud of that. 

“You’re all just going to lie to the government for me?” Stiles asked, touched. He’d thought it would be more of a fight than this, but apparently that had just been their first instinct, even Hotch, who had the most responsibility to report something like this. 

“Special Agent Jennifer Jereau fired her weapon when the unsub raised her knife in a threatening manner, as though to throw it at one of us,” Hotch continued, ignoring Stiles’ question. “Agent Stilinski decided to stay in Beacon Hills to be with his family, as they were all shaken up by the events that transpired in their home town.” 

“Wait, what.”

“He will be absent for at least two weeks, with the potential to extend his leave.” 

“Hotch—”

Hotch finally looked at him, and oh, okay all was not well with the world. “You killed a man here Stiles, and if I understand correctly you’re also being possessed by a categorically evil spirit.”

“I can’t do anything about that. I have it under control,” Stiles argued.

“If you had it under control none of this would have happened. You can’t expect me to reinstate you after what transpired here today.” Hotch’s tone brooked no argument.

“Two weeks?” Stiles asked.

“Get your head straight, and we’ll see, but two weeks minimum. And even after that you’ll be strictly in the office.” 

“Fine,” Stiles said. “But let me finish this case.”

“Who tricked the coven into all of this?” Reid asked, on the same page. 

“Oh I have a couple of ideas,” Stiles said, the tapping of his fingers stopping as Nogitsune slid closer to the surface with his anger. Having a trickster spirit in his mind was good for some things it seemed. The trick that had been played on all of them was painfully clear now.

“Stiles?” JJ asked. “You okay?” 

“Peachy.” He smiled when he turned to her. “I think you saved my life. Or maybe not my life, but my sanity at least.”

She looked uneasily at him, unnerved by his quick switch in tone. “Anytime Stiles. You know none of us would ever let anything happen to you.”

Stiles’ smile became a little more genuine, anger retreating like the tide. “I do now.”

Chapter Text

The pack was waiting on the road, no cars in sight. It was obvious the wolves had run and carried the humans with them. Before Stiles had fully stepped out of the trees Derek was moving, barreling into him so fast for a moment Stiles thought he had fully shifted, but then Derek pressed his very human face into the side of Stiles neck, breathing him in, rubbing his stubble over Stiles’ cheek. “Never again,” he growled. Stiles felt claws digging into his back, and wrapped his arms more tightly around his husband, his mate. 

“I’m sorry,” he breathed, pressing his own face into Derek’s shoulder. They held each other so tightly that onlookers had a hard time telling where one began and the other ended. 

“You’re okay,” Derek growled, daring Stiles to contradict him.

“I’m okay,” Stiles reassured him, playing with the hair at the base of Derek’s neck, other hand curled into the leather of his jacket. Stiles knew Derek would not be letting him out of his sight without being fully connected through the bonds for the foreseeable future and found that he didn’t mind. He had no particular desire to let Derek out of his sight either. He needed something that he knew was real, and their bond was the realest thing Stiles had ever felt. 

Speaking of bonds, Stiles raised his head just enough to look at the pack, Scott at the front, keeping a respectful distance. Stiles could see the red, orange, yellow, and blue hues of their eyes. Kira’s fox glowed brightly all around her. Stiles wondered if he looked like that. He doubted it. He knew he was something much darker than her. He unclenched the fist that was buried Derek’s jacket and gestured for them to come closer. That was all the urging Scott needed. Derek growled low in his throat when Scott wrapped his arms around Stiles from the side, pressing his face into Stiles’ shoulder and Stiles pulled him in tighter again. Once Derek had relaxed, the rest of the pack approached. Stiles’ father wrapped the three of them in his arms. Stiles thought his dad might be crying, but wasn’t about to call him on it, as he could feel tears pricking the backs of his own eyes. Liam tucked himself into Stiles’ other side, Theo allowing a small point of connection as he gripped Liam’s shoulder. Malia was at Stiles’ back, arms wrapped around his middle, and Lydia was right there with her, elbowing her for more room. Alec tentatively tucked himself between Scott and Malia. Mason was between Malia and Liam. Jackson and Ethan stood pressed together, Jackson wrapping his free arm around Lydia. Parrish stood with them. Kira and Isaac approached last, no longer official members of the pack, and yet knowing that Stiles would want them there. They stood on either side of Scott, holding hands, each one with a hand to Scott’s shoulders. The McCall-Hale pack fanned out like a flower in bloom, with Stiles Stilinski at their center, where he always was—where he belonged. 

It took everything in Stiles to send the message down the pack bonds that it was time to let go. Even then it took another nudge to actually get the pack to disperse. Derek released him only long enough to tuck Stiles into his side with his arm around Stiles’ waist. “I know who did it,” Stiles said.

They waited while Stiles gathered his words. “Someone’s missing,” he finally said. 

“Peter,” Derek immediately provided, and then his frown deepened. “Peter,” he repeated with resigned anger.

“This is why people are supposed to stay dead,” Parrish provided, orange eyes flashing with the fires of Hell. Theo took a subtle step away from him. 

“Only a Hale could’ve opened the vault. Derek was in DC. Cora’s who knows where, and Malia…”

“I’d never do that,” Malia provided.

“Exactly,” Stiles agreed. “Peter hasn’t been around since he did his little lawyer thing for Derek. That’s not all that odd. He doesn’t like us very much, but he also doesn’t like other people in Hale territory. He should’ve been all over this. Hell, he should’ve been going rogue and hunting down the witches himself.”

“So what? He let Nogitsune go for the witches? Why?” Scott asked. 

“Because Deaton told him to.” 

Silence reigned for a few unimpeded moments until it was broken by Scott. “Deaton helped us. He gave us that spell so we could see magic. He’s always helped us.” 

“Deaton has always protected the Hale pack. When I left for Virginia Deaton told me that eventually I would have to come back and claim my place as emissary. He warned me that the pack would collapse, he tried to convince me that all of you would die if I left, but he refused to be the emissary himself, claiming he was too old, didn’t have the proper pack connections, and wasn’t powerful enough anymore to be anything more than a figurehead.” Stiles remembered that conversation like it was yesterday. It was the most outwardly angry he had ever seen the druid. 

“I will always be here should the McCall-Hale pack need assistance,” Kira muttered. 

“What?” Stiles asked, as many other pairs of eyes turned to the kitsune in confusion.

“That’s what Deaton said. I thought he was trying to get me to lie about the idea of Stiles and Nogitsune sharing a body. He implied that I shouldn’t tell Stiles it was possible.” 

“Because he knew you’d tell me anyway,” Stiles said thoughtfully. Kira pressed her lips together and nodded, fox outline glowing brighter in anger. “He was trying to make it seem harder because he knew that would only make me want to do it more. Bastard. He could’ve given us that spell from the beginning, but he waited. He wanted to force a confrontation. Bastard!” Stiles felt Derek’s hand tighten on his hip and looked over to find red eyes brimming with concern staring back at him. He looked down at his own hands and saw that his fists were clenched, and the lighter ropes of magic twining around them were being overtaken by Nogitsune’s darkness. He took a deep breath and the balance restored itself.

“Boring,” his own voice hissed in his ear. Stiles whipped his head around, coming face to face with a paler, younger, more twisted version of himself. He started, pressing himself closer to Derek on instinct. 

“Stiles?” Lydia was the first to ask.

“I’m guessing you can’t see him,” Stiles said, staring into the pitch black pits of Nogitsune’s eyes. 

“See who?” JJ asked. Stiles took a deep breath and forced himself to ignore Nogitsune.

“Doesn’t matter. Point is, I think Deaton called the witches here, knowing I’d have to become the official emissary in order to protect all of you.” Looks were exchanged at his casual brush-off of whatever he’d seen. 

“Deaton did all of this, risked all of our lives, just to make you the emissary?” Jackson demanded. “The pack was fine. Nothing had attacked in ages. So why?” He looked around at the members of the pack that still lived full-time in Beacon Hills and they nodded confirmation. 

“He didn’t smell sick or anything,” Kira provided. 

Stiles considered, and then let out another frustrated “that bastard . Come on. We need to get to the clinic. Parrish, you stay here with the team.”

Hotch opened his mouth to argue but Stiles was very practiced at talking fast enough that no one could get a word in edgewise. “Someone has to tell the local police what happened here, and the FBI, the ones who took down the unsub, should be those people.” 

“Doesn’t the local PD already know about all of this?” JJ asked Parrish.

“Most of them know something , but all of them have collectively decided it’s not their problem. I have done nothing to dispel them of this belief. It would only put them in danger if the regular officers started getting involved with the supernatural. Those are my people,” Parrish replied firmly, arms crossed defensively.

“Stiles, you should stay here,” Hotch said.

“I can’t do that boss,” Stiles replied. “You don’t have to worry about me hurting anyone. Scott will make sure I don’t.” He would also never allow his dad to see him like that. Never . 

“Stiles,” Scott warned, and Stiles offered a smile to show he didn’t really mean anything by it. If Stiles really wanted to kill someone, Scott wouldn’t actually be able to stop him, other than through the sheer force of his disappointment, which was surprisingly effective and always had been, especially on Stiles. 

“Can you prove any of this?” Hotch asked.

“In front of a court of law? No, probably not, but arresting Alan Deaton is going to be off the table either way if he’s gone when we get there,” Stiles urged. 

“Fine. After, you go straight to the hospital. Emily will want to see you.” Hotch didn’t smile. His face was as drawn as ever, but his words were enough for Stiles to relax, sure that even though the trust was broken, the man who had been his boss, his friend, even something like a father figure to him, did not hate him. 

“Yes sir,” Stiles said, ignoring the feeling of Nogitsune breathing down his neck, mouth watering at the thought of all the pain they might cause to the very same man who had been the one to poison it. Nogitsune was summoned out of a desire for vengeance. It can’t be expected to forget a slight like that.

***

All the lights at the veterinary clinic were off and the front door was locked, even though it was just after Deaton usually opened. Stiles stared at the place with narrowed eyes, now able to see all the wards that Deaton had placed on it over the years. It was sloppy work. Deaton was always better at the theory of magic than the practice, and even in practice he specialized in offensive spells. He’d told Stiles that once, when Stiles had made his first ward and Deaton had said that it was better than he could’ve done. 

“He’s gone,” Stiles stated. He blinked and the door blew open with a loud crack! Reid, JJ, and Scott all jumped, though JJ hid it better. Derek just glanced at Stiles with eyebrows raised. Stiles frowned.

“O-kay, that was a little more powerful than intended.” He’d been trying to unlock the door, not blow it up.

“I told you we’d be more powerful together.” It’s natural instinct to look at someone who’s talking to you, but Stiles was going to have to learn not to do that, because the voice belonged to the creepy clone that lived in his mind. 

“Enough out of the peanut gallery, thank you.” Stiles shook his head and Nogitsune disappeared. 

“Who are you talking to?” JJ asked.

“Just the voices in my head JJ. Just the voices in my head,” Stiles mused. 

“Is this always what this place looked like?” Scott asked in awe, eyes flying over the wards that he could now see shimmering in the air, purple, blue, and green lines intersecting with dark red runes, slowly drifting through the air.

“It’s always been there, but now we can actually see it. You guys can’t,” he addressed JJ and Reid, “cause I didn’t do the spell on you but it’s…something.”

“It’s beautiful,” Scott breathed, red eyes mesmerized by the swirling colors. Stiles shrugged and stepped through the door, grimacing at the way it had been nearly blown off its hinges.

“It’s fading,” he corrected. The inside of the clinic was exactly as it had always been, except that Alan Deaton was gone, and there was a book on the welcome counter. “He left.” Stiles sighed, approaching the book. It was one of the oldest tomes Stiles had ever seen, save a few Deaton himself had shown him during his brief training. It was bound in leather, and gave off a faint glow that Stiles was sure only he, Derek, and Scott would be able to see. The leather cover was plain. Stiles ran his fingers over it and received a shock of static electricity. He carefully flipped it open. 

“Vellum,” Reid said, coming up beside him and observing the first page of the tome. 

“It’s a grimoire. It’s Deaton’s grimoire. He left it behind.” Stiles regarded the thin script written in plain blue pen-ink in the margin of the first page.

Remember. Always.

“He’ll always be there if the pack should need his help. But otherwise, he’s fucking off, have a nice life,” Stiles translated wryly. “Bastard.”

“He just left?” Scott exclaimed. “Just like that?”

“I think he was worried I would kill him,” Stiles answered honestly. “Better safe than sorry after the shit he pulled.” Stiles didn’t say that Deaton was right to be worried. Stiles did not like being tricked—being used, and if Deaton ever saw fit to come back without Stiles’ permission, Stiles would kill him. The pack would never even have to know he’d tried to return.

“All this to force you into being our emissary,” Scott said, and Stiles privately thought he did not sound nearly upset enough about it.

“How did he get Peter to agree?” Derek asked. 

“I doubt it was hard,” Stiles scoffed. “Peter’s always down to cause a little chaos, but he’s also weirdly devoted to continuing the Hale dynasty. Deaton approached him, gave a spiel about how much more powerful the pack would be with a proper emissary, especially one possessed by a very powerful spirit.”

“Can we set him on fire again?” Derek said.

“Excuse me?” JJ asked.

“He’s kidding,” Stiles lied. Stiles was definitely up for setting Peter on fire again if they were ever given the chance. 

“What are you gonna do with it?” Reid asked, still staring fixedly at the book. Stiles could tell how much he was longing to flip through it, to allow its secrets to permeate his hippocampus and remain there for eternity, immortalized in the genius’ brain. 

“Read it, I guess,” Stiles sighed. “As much as I hate to admit it, there’s gotta be some crazy powerful magic in there, and probably stuff about being an emissary.” Stiles glared at the book, and then shut the cover. “I don’t think I can let you read this one,” he told Reid, sweeping the book up into his arms. “Not yet. But if you want you can take a look at my bestiary.” Reid’s face lit up. “It’ll be good for you to know what’s out there.”

“And what’s not,” Derek said pointedly.

Stiles shrugged. “I maintain that just because nobody’s actually seen one, doesn’t mean vampires aren’t real. If werewolves exist, so do vampires. That’s like…the laws of the universe or something.” Derek just shook his head, not quite smiling, but with a definite sparkle of mirth in his eye. Stiles stared at the bright red of his irises. “That is going to take some getting used to,” he mused. 

“At least I don’t literally glow all the time. I have to sleep with you,” Derek complained half-heartedly, letting Stiles tuck himself close to his side, instinctively wrapping a hand around his waist. 

“Aw come on, you love sleeping with me.”

Scott made a sound between a cough and a wheeze. “Relax Scotty, I meant literally.” Derek pressed his lips close to Stiles' ear, turning them both around and beginning to walk out of the clinic.

“No you didn’t,” he whispered.

“No, I didn’t,” Stiles agreed, just as quietly.

“I can still hear you!” Scott complained, and for just that moment, Stiles thought that maybe everything really was going to be fine. As long as Deaton and Peter stayed away, as long as the witches never got anywhere close to Stiles, as long as Stiles could keep Nogitsune under control, as long as…

Okay, so there was a lot that could go wrong.

But it didn’t seem like any of his friends hated him. Emily was going to be okay. The witches were gone. Stiles had to stay in Beacon Hills for two weeks, but he would’ve had to do that anyway because there was no way he could just leave right after becoming the pack’s emissary. And anyway, if he knew anything about serious concussion (which, unfortunately, he did), the team would be staying here for almost as long to wait for Emily to be allowed to fly again. 

Out of the corner of his eye, Stiles could see Nogitsune strolling along beside him, hands tucked into jeans, flannel moving in the breeze. Nogitsune felt the attention and smiled. 

It was fine. They were going to be fine.

Chapter Text

“We’re putting a bolo out on Alan Deaton and Peter Hale, but we don’t expect to find anything,” Hotch stated. Stiles, Reid, JJ, and Hotch were in Emily’s room, updating her on everything that had happened. She was still a little out of it, but better than she’d been. As predicted, she was going to be staying in the hospital for nine more days before flying home would even be a consideration. 

“Peter will come skulking back eventually,” Stiles said, picking at a spot on his jeans. “He always does.”

“What about Deaton?” Emily asked. 

Stiles shrugged. “He left his grimoire behind for me. Unless something goes seriously wrong I don’t think we’ll ever see him again. I’ve been wrong before though,” he added when Emily frowned. The Beacon Hills police department was wrapping up at the crime scene of the Nemeton. They’d be bringing back the bodies of Alex Carmichael and Calliope Davis (and the bones of Allison Argent) right about then. Stiles was expecting a call from Parrish any minute. 

“You doing okay?” Emily asked, reaching a hand out to stop Stiles’ picking.

He smiled. “Of course. You know me; I’m always okay.” 

“Aren’t you supposed to be a better liar than that?” Nogitsune teased, leaning against the door. Stiles ignored it, but it was right. Emily shook her head.

“We all do things we’re not proud of,” she said, squeezing his hand. Stiles didn’t know how to tell her that that wasn’t the issue. The issue was that he did feel proud. So he just nodded, squeezing her hand back. He felt his phone buzz in his pocket and let go of her hand to check the message. 

He looked at Hotch. “It’s time.” He waited for Hotch to change his mind and tell him in no uncertain terms not to steal two dead bodies, but his boss’s face was as impassive as ever. Stiles took it for what it was and made a quick exit, opening the door right through Nogitsune.

“That’s just rude.”

Stiles made his way to the elevators, waiting until the doors had closed and he was on his way down to the morgue to relax, closing his eyes and resting his head against the cool metal. “Any chance I could get you to shut up?” he asked, cracking one eye open to focus on Nogitsune, who was standing across from him, in front of the doors. It grinned, teeth pointed. They looked like they were painted silver.

“What would be the fun in that ? ”

Stiles sighed. “Yeah, didn’t think so.” 

“You can’t ignore me forever Stiles. This is a partnership now.”

“I can’t exactly talk to thin air in front of the people that I’m trying to convince of my sanity,” Stiles argued. 

“We need to eat Stiles.” Nogitsune changed the subject. Stiles decided that meant he’d won that particular argument for the time being. 

“I know. I’ll figure something out.”

“Soon.” Nogitsune took a long stride forward so it was standing inches from Stiles, who couldn’t help the fear that shot through him as he pressed his back into the metal wall. He opened his eyes fully, meeting the pure black eyes of his mirror image. Nogitsune raised a hand and ran a sharp fingernail down the side of Stiles’ face. Stiles swallowed. It’s not real, it’s not real, it’s not real.

“You wouldn’t want me to have to take things into my own hands.” 

Unable to resist the impulse any longer, he smacked Nogitsune’s hand away from his face. “I told you I’ll figure it out,” he snapped. Nogitsune made a noncommittal shrugging gesture, backing off just as the elevator dinged and the doors opened. Stiles stepped around Nogitsune to exit, head high. Parrish was waiting outside of the morgue doors. 

“Are you sure I should be here for this?” he asked as Stiles approached.

“Giving dead bodies to the Nemeton is kind of your job,” Stiles pointed out. “And I need to figure out how to undo the binding that makes sure the pack can’t go anywhere near the Nemeton.” 

“Still, this feels like a private witch ceremony,” Parrish said, following Stiles into the morgue. Calliope and Alex lay on parallel autopsy tables. No autopsies had been performed, though it was recorded that they had. For a proper witch burial, minimal tampering was best. Otherwise they could not truly become one with the earth. White sheets covered them both. Stiles stepped forward, removing the part of the sheet covering Calliope Davis’ face. He looked down that the witch that had ruined the resting place of Allison, the witch who had tried to force Stiles to kill his family. He looked down at the woman whose brain he had delved into, the woman who had built a coven from nothing, her soul purpose to protect those that came to her unable or unwilling to protect themselves, the woman who had received knowledge that there was a way to increase the coven’s power so that they could finally strike back at all those that had caused them pain, the woman who hadn’t believed that Stiles would really just let her and her coven walk away, and so had made a desperate move. He looked at the bullet hole visible in her forehead. He brushed a hand over it and it closed, skin smoothing over as though it had never existed. 

“Definitely feels like a private witch ceremony,” Parrish muttered.

“You can put her in the truck now,” Stiles said, ignoring him. Parrish’s orange eyes glowed brighter when his hands touched her cold skin. He picked her up, careful to keep the sheet in place, arms tightening almost protectively around the dead woman in his arms. Stiles waited until he had left through the doors that led straight outside and to the transport van that was waiting there to pull the sheet down off of Alex’s face. 

Alex Carmichael was young. From being in his head Stiles knew that he’d only been twenty-five, but it was more evident than ever now that he lay still like this, eyes closed and face smooth. Unlike Calliope there were no physical wounds on him. His heart had just stopped. They’d put down that he’d died of fright because it was convenient, but it also wasn’t untrue.

“He didn’t even make a particularly good meal,” Nogitsune remarked. Stiles swallowed around the lump in his throat. He knew what Nogitsune was doing. It was trying to sow pain and chaos in Stiles. If it couldn’t feed on an external source it would feed on him. That didn’t stop it from working though. Stiles knew what he’d shown Alex to kill him. He’d shown him his parents’ death. They’d been killed by a particularly sadistic pair of wendigos. They’d feasted on his parents while he watched, taking pieces while they were still alive to scream. His dad died too quickly for their liking, so they slowed down with his mother. They’d stop whenever his mom passed out, wait for her to wake up, and continue, peeling her skin off like a grape. 

In the vision that Stiles had shown Alex, Alex had been the wendigo. He had knelt before her and bit off one of her fingers while she screamed, unable to stop himself. His limbs had not been his own. It was a sensation Stiles was familiar with, which is why he knew how well it would work. Stiles didn’t know whether Alex had actually died of fright, or if he’d somehow used what little magic he had to stop his own heart.

“I’m sorry,” Stiles whispered. 

“No you’re not,” Nogitsune chimed in a sing-song voice. Stiles flicked the sheet back up to cover Alex’s features as Parrish re-entered. He stepped back, allowing Parrish to take Alex’s body like he’d taken Calliope. He followed Parrish out, not watching as Parrish placed the body carefully in the back of the van, going straight to the passenger side. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Derek lurking in the shadows. 

“And he wonders why everyone finds him so suspicious,” Parrish remarked as he climbed into the drivers’ seat. 

The drive was quiet, at least for Jordan Parrish. Nogitsune was keeping up a running commentary in Stiles’ head. 

“You know the thing about torture is if you really want to make it last you can’t start out with something horrendously traumatizing. You learned that the hard way with Alex back there but that’s okay. Next time you’ll be better at it. It’s only up from here Stiles.” Stiles leaned his head against the window, unable to tune out Nogitsune like he was unable to tune out his own thoughts. If Alex had stopped his own heart, Stiles could understand why. He might’ve done the same. Of course now it would serve no purpose, because Nogitsune would just keep possessing his body until the next smart little thing came along, and that could spell disaster for everyone Stiles cared about. 

“That Spencer Reid reminds me of you Stiles. I bet he’d make a decent host. He’s even got some magical potential. He’s not perfect , not like you, but he could work.” 

“Touch him and I’ll find a way to drag you and I both down to Hell,” Stiles growled, banging his head against the window. 

“What was that?” Parrish asked, glancing over at him worriedly.

“Nothing.”

Nogitsune just laughed.

***

Parrish stopped at the edge of the clearing. So did Stiles.

“Oh it’s pissed,” he said, looking at the dark green fog surrounding the Nemeton.

“Well you did try to use it to assassinate a coven.”

“It was self defense!”

“Which is why it even let you attempt it in the first place,” Parrish hissed.

“We come in peace?” Stiles offered, taking a step forward. He looked back at Parrish, who shook his head, holding Calliope’s body like it weighed nothing. “Um, I know they made an oath, but we have an offering for you, if you feel like letting them out of it.” Nothing happened except that the fog got denser. “Yeah, fair enough.” Stiles entered the viscous air, feeling the droplets of the magic on his skin. “Wait there,” he told Parrish.

“Don’t have much of a choice,” Parrish replied with a false lightness to his voice. 

“That’s the spirit,” Stiles breathed, approaching the Nemeton. It was like wading through shallow water, and he was out of breath by the time he reached the trunk. He could see the outline of where the tree had once stood, rising up from the stump that was left. 

“Okay,” Stiles said. “That’s…new.” Even after doing the spell to be able to see magic he hadn’t been able to see this. In fact the Nemeton hadn’t really changed at all, except the air around it got a little more tingly. Against his better judgement and before he could reconsider, Stiles pressed his palm flat to the surface of the stump. He gasped, head snapping back as he felt the full force of the Nemeton’s magic rush into him, realizing suddenly how much it had been holding back when he’d connected in the past. He couldn’t help the little whine of pain that came out. He felt Derek through their bond give a worried nudge before a wall was slammed down, cutting off all of Stiles’ connections but the one between him and the Nemeton. The pain subsided, just a little bit, but Stiles still could barely breathe. Not having his pack bonds there was like being in a sensory deprivation chamber. He hadn’t not been able to feel them since his sophomore year. 

“I’m sorry,” he groaned. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” He felt tears at the back of his eyes. “Please bring them back.” He felt the flicker of something, like the wall got thinner. “I’m so sorry. I…I just wanted to protect them all.” He felt the Nemeton’s magic brush up against his own, somewhere between a mother’s caress and a thorny vine being dragged across his skin. “I know.” Stiles pressed his other palm to the tree, and the stabbing pain flared before going back to a dull ache. “We apologize,” he intoned, hearing Nogitsune’s growling voice merging with his own. “And we bring symbols of our atonement. A life taken out of necessity, a life lost too soon, and a bond made unjustly.” The pack bonds came back in full force, flooding Stiles with relief, and fear, so much fear, because everyone in the pack had felt him vanish. I’m here I’m here I’m here Don’t panic I’m okay I’m here I’m okay .

***

Parrish took a step and found himself able to enter the clearing. He lay Calliope Davis down at the base of the stump. Before he left to get Alex he brushed a hand through Stiles’ hair, unable to resist the impulse to make sure he was really there. Though Stiles had never left his sight, not being able to feel him had driven a spike of fear so deeply into his heart that it didn’t matter that he’d had Stiles in his sights the whole time. He hadn’t been able to trust his eyes, because Stiles had been gone .

Parrish wasn’t surprised to find the whole pack pacing the road by the van. “He’s fine. He’s doing something with the Nemeton,” he assured Derek, the first of the swarm. 

“Can we…”

“You can’t,” Parrish stated. He felt the force of Derek’s glare, and bared his neck before he got ahold of himself and brushed past him. “You can’t ,” he repeated. “This has to be something Stiles does. He’s still in touchy territory with the Nemeton. It’s a witch thing, and an emissary thing. He’s bargaining for our ability to be allowed in the clearing again, bargaining for the Nemeton to continue protecting us.” He hefted Alex’s body carefully into his arms. “We’ll be out soon,” he said, re-entering the trees. I hope , he added silently. 

***

Stiles waited for Parrish to set Alex down gently on his other side at the roots of the Nemeton. He could feel the pack close by, their worry and fear a low-level current beneath his skin. Once Parrish had stepped back to the edge of the clearing, Stiles removed his hands carefully from the tree. It was like dragging his arms through thick sap to lift them and bring them down, one on each body. He closed his eyes and tried to ignore the feeling of Nogitsune laying a ghostly hand on his shoulder.

“We apologize,” they repeated. “We offer you these witches, these disciples of yours, to be laid to eternal rest among your roots, cradled in your embrace. And we ask your continued protection for those of us that have protected and provided for you.” Stiles winced, hands twitching on the shoulders of Alex and Calliope as pain lanced through his head behind his eyes, as though his brain was being branded. It spread like fire through his veins, pulsing in his heart, burning his lungs. He heard a growl behind him and knew that Parrish had fully shifted. Still he kept himself connected to the bodies as they began to sink into the dirt on their own, being sucked down into the depths of the Nemeton’s root-system. He didn’t think he’d be able to remove his hands if he tried as they sank lower and lower, finally disappearing completely. His hands sank into the dirt up to the wrist. Was the Nemeton going to take him as a sacrifice as well? That might be for the best. If he lived below-ground, shrouded in a tomb of earth and magic, surely that would stop Nogitsune from causing any harm. Just as the thought occurred to him, he was released, hands being thrown from within the soil like the Nemeton was spitting him back out. Stiles swallowed his disappointment and bowed his head. “Thank you.”

All it took was a thought and the pack was coming through the trees, taking tentative steps into the clearing and into the now-fading green fog of magic. The outline of the tree had already disappeared, though some level of Stiles could still picture it, like a sensory memory, an after-image burned into his retinas.

“Sit,” he said. Derek took his place on Stiles’ right side, while Scott sat to his left, alphas bracketing their emissary, lover and best friend at the sides of the person they cared about most in the world. The rest of the pack took their seats until they made a perfect circle around the tree stump. “We should have done this years ago,” Stiles confessed, feeling the magic of the tree hum it’s approval. He remembered Deaton telling him that this was a ceremony that he had once performed with the Hale pack, and that it would one day be Stiles’ turn. Stiles had brushed him off. Theo sat directly across from Stiles, making his keen eyes the first thing Stiles saw when he looked up. He scowled on instinct, before remembering uncomfortably that Theo had possibly saved a lot of lives. Whatever. He was still an asshole. 

“Join hands,” Stiles said, and the pack obeyed, the connection thrumming even more strongly between all of them at the physical contact. Stiles took a deep breath, watching in interest as different threads of light began to emerge from each of them. Stiles’ black and white dichotomy entwined with Derek’s red first, and then Scott’s. He knew he shouldn’t be able to see this, but he was glad he could. It was beautiful, all of them creating a knot just above the center of the stump. It allowed him to see which connections were the strongest. He wasn’t surprised to see that his own threads connected to Theo’s blue last, and seemingly under duress, the tendrils avoiding each other until they had no other choice. Kira’s bright orange and Isaac’s yellow stayed to the outskirts of the knot, touching each thread but never twining through any. Alec’s yellow was a little but duller than the other’s, darting through to find Scott immediately, his alpha and the person that had found him. Stiles was mesmerized, nearly forgetting why they were there at all until the ball began to lower, hitting the Nemeton and soaking into the wood. 

“We pledge ourselves to your protection,” Stiles intoned. The pack needed no urging to repeat the words. There was a bright flash of light from the middle of the tree, and then it was done. The pack stayed there for nearly a full extra minutes, feeling this new connection that had only been the shadow of a thing before then, hearts beating completely in sync with each other. It was Stiles who let go first, the rest taking their cue from him as he stood up, brushing off his jeans. 

“Is it over?” Alec asked. “Like…over, over?”

“It’s never over,” Stiles replied honestly. “But maybe it’ll start to get easier.” 

Chapter Text

Stiles sat on the roof of his dad’s house, staring up at the night sky. Exhaustion weighed him down, but on his other side sat Nogitsune, staring up at the same sky with its head tilted to the side. Stiles had lain with Derek until the werewolf had finally fallen asleep deeply enough for Stiles to extricate himself and make his way up here without waking him.

“Having your main character moment?” 

Stiles had felt Theo’s approach, and for once had just let it happen. “Looking at the sky, what does it look like I’m doing?” he snapped. 

“It looks like,” Theo started, sitting himself down right in the spot that Nogitsune had previously occupied. Nogitsune reappeared on Stiles’ other side with an annoyed expression. Good to know they were united on that front at least. “You’re avoiding going to sleep because you’re afraid Nogitsune will take over.” 

Stiles glanced sideways at him. “It’s a pretty valid fear, given that’s literally exactly what happened last time. Anyway, why are you on my roof? Get your own roof.” 

“I spend more time here than you do these days.” 

Stiles had nothing to say to that. 

“You were possessed last time,” Theo continued. “It was riding you like a show-pony, puppeting you around like a marionette.”

“Thanks, I really needed that image.” 

“It’s true,” Theo stated, blunt as ever. “And it’s also true that that’s not what’s happening this time around. I can see right now how even the light and dark is. It’s all over you. It’s distracting, to be honest. Does this spell-thing wear off?” Theo’s eyes glowed bright blue in the night.

“No idea,” Stiles admitted.

“Some emissary you are.” 

“You can leave literally whenever you want. I was enjoying the silence.” 

“I’m trying to help you. You know, like I helped you before?”

“We both know you only did that because you want to stay on Liam’s good side,” Stiles shot back.

“So? The only reason you haven’t killed me yet is because you’re trying to stay on Scott’s good side.” 

“Whatever,” Stiles sulked, not having the energy to argue anymore. He brought his knees up to his chest and rested his chin on them.

“You’re weaker when you don’t sleep, and you’re way too smart not to know that.”

“Careful Theodore, that almost sounded like a compliment.”

“It wasn't. It’s a fact. Why do you think I needed you out of the way when I was going after Scott? You had me figured out practically the moment you laid eyes on me. It was fucking annoying. You are fucking annoying.”

“You’re no walk in the park yourself.” 

“Go back inside Stiles. Go to sleep.” 

“Or what? You’ll tell Scott on me?”

“No, I’ll tell Lydia.” 

“You wouldn’t.” 

“Wouldn’t I?”

Stiles sighed, briefly closing his eyes before snapping them open again when he realized he was drifting off. Nogitsune made a disappointed humming noise.

“You can see it can’t you?” Theo said. It was phrased like a question but they both knew it wasn’t. Stiles didn’t bother responding. “Those voices in your head, they can be a real bitch.” Stiles snorted a brief laugh, blaming it on his exhaustion. 

“How could you tell?” Stiles found himself asking.

“Lucky guess. And you looked to your other side for a moment when I sat down. Your eyes also darted over there again when you snapped yourself awake just now.”

“You’d make a half-decent profiler.”

“Careful Stiles, that almost sounded like a compliment.” 

Stiles shook his head. “It doesn’t matter.”

“It does matter,” Theo argued. “It’s not really there.”

“I’m pretty fucking sure it is,” Stiles snapped. “Considering I can feel —” He cut himself off.

“No one else can see it,” Theo stated. “If it was actually there, in some sort of magical capacity, anyone who you performed that spell on would be able to see it. It’s just you.”

“What, so I’m just crazy?”

Theo shrugged. “No arguments from me. Point is, it’s not real, even if it seems real to you.” 

“You can’t know that for sure.”

“I guess not.” Theo stood up. “But I do know for sure that if you don’t sleep at some point you’re going to hurt someone, possibly yourself, which in turn will hurt the entire pack. You’re our emissary now. You don’t have the luxury of selfishness like this. As much as I’m loath to admit it, we do actually need you to be okay.” He didn’t give Stiles a chance to respond as he walked to the edge of the roof and neatly hopped off. Stiles followed his progress down the street as he walked away at a leisurely pace, weaving in and out of the light of the streetlamps until he turned a corner back towards Liam’s apartment. 

Stiles looked up at the moon again. It would be full soon. A week and a half, he thought. He’d gotten pretty good at knowing when full moons were over the years. When he turned his head to the side, Nogitsune was gone. It could all be a ploy to get him to go to sleep. But in the end, Theo was right. He couldn’t afford not to be at his best now that he was the pack’s emissary. He needed to sleep. There might be consequences, but part of him was confident that if anything happened, the pack would be able to pull him back. He could feel them all now, most of them asleep, stronger than he’d ever been able to feel them before. He stood up and made his way back inside, swinging down from the roof with rare agility and through his childhood bedroom window. 

Derek shifted in his sleep, unconsciously making room for Stiles to crawl back into bed. Settled, he closed his eyes.

“That’s it, Stiles. Go to sleep,” Nogitsune crooned. Stiles snapped his eyes open. Nogitsune crouched by the side of the bed, face inches from Stiles’ own, grinning. Derek tightened his arm around Stiles’ waist.

“Go back to sleep,” he mumbled, barely understandable with his face pressed into Stiles’ back. Stiles’ whole body relaxed at the rumble of Derek’s voice reverberating through him and Nogitsune disappeared once more. Stiles closed his eyes, entwining his fingers with Derek’s. This time there was no voice to keep him awake.

***

Stiles woke up alone, but he could feel Derek nearby. He was probably downstairs. Dawn light came through the window. Stiles hadn’t bothered to close the blinds when he’d finally crawled into bed the night before, and he was regretting it now. He groaned, trying to squeeze his eyes shut and go back to sleep, but it was no use. With a sigh he swung his legs over the side of the bed. He was going to visit Emily again for her release from the hospital. She’d be under the team’s observation at the only motel in town for the remainder of her required ten days before she was allowed to flight.

The smell of cooking meat floated up the stairs and into the room. Stiles shuffled his way downstairs to find Derek in the kitchen, scrambling eggs in one pan and keeping an eye on the bacon in the other. Stiles hesitated in the doorway. It’s not that Derek humming and cooking in an early morning kitchen never happened, but it was definitely out of the ordinary.

“Morning,” Derek said without turning. 

“Hi…?” Stiles said, voice scratchy. “What’s all this?” Derek scraped the eggs onto a plate and grabbed a bottle of hot sauce, squeezing out just a few drops onto them, just the way Stiles liked it. 

“Thought it might be nice to return to some normalcy,” Derek replied, adding a couple of pieces of bacon. It wasn’t regular store-bought stuff. It was a little thicker, like the kind his dad was very rarely able to get from one of his ranch-owner friends in Mendocino. Stiles rubbed at his eyes.

“This isn’t exactly…normalcy. You only do this when I’m sick.” Regardless, Stiles took his seat at the kitchen island. Derek slid the plate over with a fork and then just…watched him. And it all clicked into place.

“You’re worried about me,” he said. “But you don’t want to say that because you think I’ll immediately deflect and say I’m fine.”

“I wouldn’t be much of a partner if I wasn’t worried about you,” Derek replied bluntly, looking significantly at the food and then back at Stiles. Stiles rolled his eyes and picked up the fork.

“I’m fine,” he said. Catching Derek’s look of amusement he scoffed. “Okay, I get it, but I really am.” He took a bite of eggs and frowned, chewing slowly. “These taste…different.” He didn’t want to insult Derek’s cooking, but it was strange. Derek was definitely the better cook of the two of them. There was something tangy about these eggs that was making Stiles’ stomach turn.

“I think your dad bought a different kind of hot sauce than he used to,” Derek explained. “Try some of the bacon.” Stiles picked up a piece, grease staining his fingers. He took a bite. It was stringy and tough, but it tasted pretty normal. He took another bite, trying to figure out why the texture was so strange. “What kind of meat is this?”

Before Derek could reply there was a frantic pounding on the door. Derek and Stiles exchanged a confused, worried look and moved toward the entryway. Stiles made it to the door first, and peered out of the peephole. He gasped, opening the door immediately to a bleeding Scott. 

“What the hell happened?” Derek demanded behind Stiles.

“Stiles your…it’s your dad.” Which is when Stiles realized that Scott wasn’t actually bleeding. He was coated in someone else’s blood. His stomach flipped, heart dropping. 

“What about my dad?” he asked, voice cracking. His dad and Melissa weren’t technically pack, but they were still somewhat bonded by the familial connections. Stiles could always feel him. He could still feel him. 

“We think the witches came back. They attacked. Your dad was out getting coffee early in the morning.” Stiles didn’t understand what Scott was telling him. “He’s…Stiles we couldn’t get to him in time. It’s…it’s not good.”

“No,” Stiles breathed. “That’s not…I can feel him.” Derek put a grounding hand on Stiles’ shoulder, but it did nothing more than make Stiles want to collapse into a heap in the entryway. “Take me to him. I’ll prove it. It’s not him.” Stiles isn’t crying because there’s nothing to cry about. He knows that his dad is fine. He had to be fine. 

“Stiles I don’t think you should see it,” Scott tried to argue, blocking his way when Stiles tried to move past him. “It’s bad. They…he’s in pieces .”

“No, he’s not ,” Stiles snarled. He shoved past Scott, shaking off Derek’s hand. He could tell without turning around that Scott and Derek were having some kind of silent alpha-to-alpha conversation behind him. “ Now Scott.” 

“I—okay. Okay. Just…you need to prepare yourself.” 

Stiles didn’t bother arguing again that there was nothing for him to prepare himself for. He just followed Scott.

The scene was a mess. Stiles blinked at the flashing police lights, eyes adjusting to the sudden onslaught of color. Yellow tape had already cordoned off the area, and there were two black SUVs there already. The BAU was there. JJ was at the barrier, a devastated look on her face that became more akin to panic when she saw Stiles approaching.

“Stiles you can’t go in there,” she tried, but Stiles was already shoving past her and ducking under the police tape. He stopped a few yards away, unable to take another step at the sight that greeted him. The victim was sprawled out on the pavement. He was paler than he should have been, the only patches of color appearing where blood had pooled. There was less blood on the pavement than there should have been, with the neat cut to the jugular indicating the victim had bled out. The victim wasn’t wearing a shirt, and there were strips of skin missing from his midsection. It looked like they’d been carefully removed, peeled away in relatively thin, rectangular pieces. Stiles took all of this in in a detached sort of way, eyes avoiding the face, the eyes that stared blankly at him as though in accusation.

Stiles fell to his knees, not even feeling the pain of his patellas hitting the concrete. His hands hit the pavement next and he doubled over, retching. Bits of the stringy, tough, wrong bacon he’d eaten for breakfast came back up, splattering below him. His vision was blurry, as he continued to vomit until there was nothing left, and then dry heaved for an extra extended period of time. 

Finally, panting, his eyesight returned, focusing first on the puddle of sick that his hands were now covered in. It was red, full of lumps of meat. Stiles scrambled back, scraping his hands on the pavement when he landed again. He hissed in pain and drew his hands up from the pavement to look at them. They were red and slimy, covered in blood that had nothing to do with the scrapes on his palms. There was gore caked beneath his fingernail, all eleven of them.

Chapter Text

There were arms around him, caging him in. He thrashed and they only tightened in response. Someone was saying something. He needed out, out out OUT OUTOUTOUT! He elbowed whatever was holding him. The arms refused to let go. He thought he might be screaming. His throat felt hoarse, his mouth opened wide, but he couldn’t tell for sure because everything felt like it was filtered through an ocean of blood.

Stiles

STILES

“STILES! Stiles, you’re okay, you’re awake, you’re okay.” As the voice filtered down through the rushing in his ears, Stiles’ screams abated, leaving him gasping, sobbing, tears flowing freely. He gripped his own arms tightly to keep from raking his fingernails down Derek’s. He felt his skin give way and dug in deeper, taking solace in the pain, because it was sharp and real and it fed something inside him. There was a BANG from somewhere. 

“I’m here, I’m here, I’m here.” Derek’s face was pressed into the top of Stiles’ head, mouth moving in his hair, not caring about the sweaty strands against his tongue. Derek gripped his wrists, forcing Stiles’ hands away from his own arms. “You’re hurting yourself,” he growled. “You’re okay, you don’t need…you’re okay. Please stop. Please don’t. I’m here.” Stiles trembled in his arms, sobs ripping free, leaving his lungs raw and burning. 

The first thing Stiles did when he could breathe again was get his hands free so that he could look at them. There was no blood underneath his fingernails. His hands shook as he brought the index finger of his right hand to his left thumb. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. He took a deep breath, heartbeat slowing to something just below the panic threshold. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten…Ten. Just ten. 

Derek waited as he gathered himself, keeping his arms around him, his face rubbing gently against his hair. He counted again. One through ten. No more. His eyes focused on a poster, focusing on the words, letting the letters order themselves, to prove to himself that they would order themselves. 

There was a dip in the bed as his dad sat down. So that’s what the bang had been, the door slamming open. Stiles was still shaking, but he let his dad take one of his hands, steadying it. “Nightmare?” his dad asked, the first to broach the subject. Stiles could see Melissa still in the doorway.

“There was-” He couldn’t bring himself to say any more, so he just nodded. His dad squeezed his hand. 

“Was it…Nogitsune?”

“Probably. It was angry with me. It’s…hungry.” 

“What happens if you don’t feed it?” Derek asked, removing his face from Stiles’ hair and replacing it with a hand, brushing through the strands. Stiles leaned into the touch, relaxing just enough to confess what he hadn’t wanted to admit.

“I think we’ll wither away, both of us. Or we would. Nogitsune would never let that happen, and I don’t think I’d be able to stop it, if it got desperate enough.” Derek’s fingers stilled in his hair, and though Stiles couldn’t bring himself to look at either of them, he knew that Derek and his dad were looking at each other. His dad let out a puff of air, releasing Stiles’ hand so that he could stand up.

“I’ll make some coffee.” 

A body in the road, drained of blood, strips of flesh missing. His dad’s face. Flesh under his fingernails. Strips of meat between his teeth.

Stiles’ hand shot out, gripping his dad’s wrist. “NO.” His dad stopped, and Stiles hated the pity in his eyes, but he couldn’t bear the idea of letting his dad leave, not now. His dad gently removed Stiles’ bruising fingers from his wrist, holding them in hand. He gave a gentle tug.

“Do you think you can come with me? Or we can stay here. Whatever you need, son.” Stiles moved to sit up, and Derek’s arms loosened enough to let him. 

“I can make something for all of us,” Melissa offered. 

“No, I can-” Stiles’ voice cracked. His throat felt dry. He swallowed, but it still came out hoarse when he said “I can come with you.” 

***

Stiles had just taken his first sip of coffee, seated at the dining room table because he couldn’t stomach sitting in the same place that he’d been seated in the dream, when Nogitsune appeared. Stiles’ breath hitched, fingers tightening around the mug.

“Stiles?” his dad asked, noticing the change. Melissa had ended up being the one to make the coffee, because Stiles had needed his dad and Derek to sit with him. He felt like such a child. He should have a better handle on this. Theo was right, none of this was real. It was just a nightmare. It’s not like it was the first one he’d ever had. “Stiles,” his dad stated firmly, lightly gripping Stiles’ wrist, bringing him back to himself. Stiles made an effort to loosen his grip. With the way his magic had blown the clinic’s door off its hinges, he was almost surprised he hadn’t shattered it. 

“I think I need to go get an MRI,” Stiles mumbled. His dad stilled, holding his breath for a few seconds before letting it out in an even stream of air. 

“Why?” his dad asked. 

“Something Theo said.” 

“When did you talk to Theo?” Derek asked, sitting in the other chair, voice suspicious.

“I’m seeing Nogitsune. Like…hallucinating it,” Stiles confessed, ignoring Derek’s question. He didn’t think Derek would take too kindly to the idea of their rooftop meeting. “None of you can see it though, so it’s not magic. It’s not…” he managed to tear his gaze away from Nogitsune, who was sitting across from him with an indulgent smile. He focused on his dad. “It’s not real, and I want to know what part of my brain Nogitsune is pressing on to make me hallucinate. I just…I need to know I’m not crazy.” 

“You’re not crazy,” Derek stated, and Stiles’ dad nodded his agreement. 

“Can’t Nogitsune just fake the results again?” Melissa asked, joining them. Stiles chewed on the inside of his cheek, debating whether or not he should reveal what he’d been thinking in regards to the faked frontotemporal dysplasia Nogitsune had caused so much damage with. 

“I don’t think Nogitsune faked it,” he revealed quietly. “I think it…caused it.” 

“You think it gave you your mother’s disease?” his dad exclaimed, grip tightening on Stiles’ wrist until he realized what he was doing and loosened it again. Stiles bobbed his head with the minutest of motions.

“How can it do that? That requires rearranging your cells,” Melissa said. 

“I know. But if it couldn’t rearrange cells, then possessing Allison wouldn’t have worked. It rebuilt her body from bones. It took a lot of energy and power, but if it can do something like that, it can definitely give me a brain tumor or something,” Stiles explained, words coming faster and faster, trying to get to the finish line of this conversation as quickly as possible. “I just…seeing it. I think it’ll make it easier to realize that it’s not real. I think I can make it go away. I just…I need to know that’s what it’s doing because if it isn’t, then…well then I’m just losing my mind and I– I can’t. I just can’t.” Stiles bowed his head, feeling tears pricking at the backs of his eyes and stubbornly refusing to give Nogitsune the satisfaction.

“This will help?” Derek asked, putting a hand on the back of Stiles’ neck, rubbing gently with his thumb.

“I think it will, yeah,” Stiles replied, relaxing at the two points of contact from his family, letting them ground him. Stiles pictured a mass in a human brain, right in his frontal lobe. Then he pictured it fading away, leaving the brain matter untouched. Nogitsune disappeared with a scowl. It could be a trick. But it might not be, and Stiles really needed to hang onto the maybes, because at this point he didn’t have anything else. 

“We’ll go once it gets a little later in the morning then,” his dad stated. 

“Forget that,” Melissa contradicted, standing and making her way toward where her car keys hung by the door. “I can get us in now. But…” she fixed her no-nonsense mom look on Stiles. “I’m calling Scott.” Stiles nodded, finding that he actually did want that. He remembered Scott embracing him, promising to turn him if his scans came back showing that telltale decay of his brain, back when Stiles had known for absolute certain that Scott McCall was his best friend and would do anything for him. It seemed only right that he was there for this too.

***

When the results came back, Stiles almost started crying. “Thank god,” he gasped. 

“We’re…happy about this?” Scott asked, sounding confused and a little bit distraught. 

“We are,” Stiles replied, reaching out to circle his fingers around Scott’s wrist. “We are very happy about this.” Nogitsune was standing just over Scott’s shoulder, looking reluctantly impressed. Nogitsune hadn’t been able to resist appearing while Stiles was in the MRI. The parallels were too good, and it had taken all of Stiles’ concentration not to scream and writhe as he felt Nogitsune on top of him, faces inches apart. 

“What are you doing Stiles?” it had purred.

“Proving that you’re not real, asshole,” he spat, keeping as still as possible while the MRI machine banged around him. 

“Don’t be ridiculous Stiles.” Stiles ignored Nogitsune. Or tried to, at least. Nogitsune pressed closer to him in the machine. “Well isn’t this cozy.” Stiles bit the inside of his cheek hard to keep from panicking. It only kind of worked. “You know Stiles, I am messing with your brain,” Nogitsune confessed. “But it’s only because you have such a pretty brain. All those synapses, making such quick connections. All those poorly regulated impulses.” Stiles didn’t reply, and closed his eyes so that he didn’t have to stare into those pitch dark pits above him. “Don’t be like that Stiles. What exactly do you think this little exercise is going to accomplish? Is it gonna give you some false hope that I’m not actually here? Because I am. I’m always here. Even if you can stop yourself from seeing him, I’m still” Fingers dug into Stiles arm, claws breaking skin. Stiles couldn’t help the grunt of pain that escaped him. “Inside you,” Nogitsune hissed, right by Stiles’ ear. “You can stop seeing me, but you’ll never stop being able to feel me.” 

The banging stopped, and Stiles slid himself out of the machine, jumping up, hand going to his arm, finding the skin smooth and unbroken. He glared at Nogitsune, who was leaning nonchalantly against the wall, smirking. By the time Stiles refocused on Scott in front of him, Nogitsune was gone. Visually at least. Because as much as Stiles hated it, he could still feel it, and he knew that it would never go away. 

Scott finally smiled. “Okay! Okay, we’re happy about this! My friend has a brain tumor! Yay!” 

Stiles laughed. “Well it sounds crazy when you say it like that.” 

***

Stiles forced himself to go to sleep the next night. And the night after that. And the night after that. He woke the whole house up with his screaming each time. Halfway through his first week of mandatory leave, he found himself on Lydia’s front steps at four in the morning. She looked very displeased when she opened the door, a pastel-pink robe wrapped around her and her strawberry blonde hair in curlers. Her gaze softened a bit when she saw Stiles. Stiles pretended not to notice.

“You had better have a good reason for this,” she snapped, stepping aside to let him in. 

“You used to get really bad nightmares, right? When Peter was…”

“Manipulating me into bringing him back to life?” 

“Yeah, that.” Stiles wandered into her kitchen. Some might say that Lydia’s place was a lot of house for just one person, but Stiles knew that was the way she liked it. It made her feel like a queen, ruling over her castle. Lydia took in the way his eyes were darting around, fingers drumming on the counter, and sighed. Stiles could make the physical apparitions of Nogitsune go away now that he knew for sure they weren’t actually there, but his guard was down when he was asleep. He knew all the tricks, but the thing about dreaming is you don’t really think to check whether or not your dreaming until shit really starts to get fucked up.

Lydia placed a mug of hot water with a tea bag already steeping in it in front of Stiles, startling him. “You were checked out there for a bit,” she remarked, sitting on a stool next to him.

“Yeah. That’s…yeah.” 

“You were asking about nightmares,” she prompted.

Stiles nodded, cupping his hands around the mug. “Um. Yeah. How did you make them stop? I know it wasn’t just Peter because…well because they continued even after he was brought back so I thought…I don’t know if it’s a Banshee thing, like biological or whatever, then how did you get them to go away?”

Lydia didn’t look at him with pity, or even with very much sympathy. She looked at him like he was a particularly difficult math problem that she knew she could figure out the answer to if she just dug a little deeper. “I didn’t,” she finally replied. Stiles felt his heart sink. “I just got better at recognizing them for what they were.”

“I already tried that. I can’t figure out that I’m dreaming until something bad enough happens that I have to wake up,” Stiles whined, hating how much he sounded like a child but unable to do anything about it. He was dangerously close to bursting into tears. He just needed it to stop. He just wanted to go to sleep. He was going to lose his mind. He was going to hurt someone.

“Stiles,” Lydia snapped. Stiles tore his hands away from the mug, which had started to boil between his palms. They were red and raw. 

“Sorry,” Stiles said, trying to calm down, pressing his hands flat to the cool marble. 

“Have you thought about looking in Deaton’s Grimoire?” she asked, and Stiles was glad he wasn’t still holding the mug because it probably would have shattered. “I’ll take that expression as a yes.”

“I don’t want his help,” Stiles said. “Or the help of his stupid book. He’s the reason I’m even like this. He did this to me.” 

“You did this to you,” Lydia stated. Stiles looked over at her, confused and hurt. “He pushed you towards it but only because he knew that telling you not to do something was the best way to get you to do that thing. Well look at this. If it isn’t the consequences of your own actions.” 

“I did what I had to to protect the pack,” Stiles argued, meeting Lydia’s hard look with a glare of his own. How could she not understand? He’d give up everything for her. For all of them.

“That’s the problem ,” Lydia pressed. “You’ll do anything—take any risk—to protect the pack. But you won’t do the same for yourself. Maybe looking in Deaton’s book bites you in the ass later. Maybe you find nothing at all. But to not even try? It’s like you're punishing yourself.” For a long moment, Stiles said nothing. Lydia put her hand over his on the counter. “Stiles, are you punishing yourself?” 

“Of course not,” Stiles said uncomfortably. He couldn’t look Lydia in the eye. He wasn’t punishing himself. Sure, everything that was happening to him was his own fault. He’d played right into Deaton and Peter’s hands the entire time. He’d killed someone who was even more of a pawn than Stiles himself was, and he didn’t even feel bad about it, not really. He wished it had taken longer, that Alex had suffered more. And he wished that JJ hadn’t killed Calliope, so that he could’ve made a meal out of her. 

When he woke up from nightmares, he was in a blind panic, and his first instinct was always to hurt Derek, who was keeping him contained. If Stiles hadn’t become the emissary and therefore made it impossible for him to harm any of the pack, he was positive he would have killed him by now. So no, Stiles wasn’t punishing himself. But if he was…well maybe it was because he deserved it.

“Stiles,” Lydia said. “Look in the Grimoire.” Stiles continued to avoid her eyes, suddenly finding the countertop to be very interesting, but he could feel her green eyes boring a hole in the side of his head. “Stiles,” she pressed. “I swear to god if you don’t look in the Grimoire I’ll steal it from you and do it myself.” 

“I put wards around it. You wouldn’t be able to,” Stiles muttered.

“Oh yeah? Would your wards even hurt me? You’re my emissary.” 

“They don’t have to hurt you to keep you out.” Truthfully, Stiles had no idea. 

“Well then. Guess I’ll just have to find out,” Lydia sniffed. “And for the record, I’m not exactly useless at magic. If I have to pick apart your wards piece by piece, I’ll do it.” Stiles believed her. But he just…he just couldn’t.

“Can I bring it here?” he asked, hating how small his voice sounded.

“And then we can look at it together,” Lydia said, not bothering to answer his actual question. 

“Maybe. Or you could look at it.”

“Stiles.”

“Or we could look at it together.”

“Then yes, you can absolutely bring it here.” Stiles finally looked at her. She was smiling with the knowledge that she had won (again). 

“You’re the worst.”

“You love me.”

Stiles turned his hand over so that they could interlock their fingers. “Yeah. I guess I do.”

Chapter Text

Stiles hesitated at the door to the hotel room. He hadn’t really spoken to the team in a few days, because he was a coward. They’d appeared to take their world violently changing pretty well all things considered, but that could have just been because it hadn’t had a chance to really hit any of them. He clutched his battered bestiary in his hands, gathering the courage to raise one of them to knock. 

Stiles didn’t get the chance to knock. The door opened on its own, which made for a very awkward situation of him staring at Morgan, looking like he was lurking outside of the room. “Um. Hi.” 

Technically he was here for Reid, but he’d come prepared to see everyone else and possibly get brutally rejected. Realistically he knew that wasn’t going to happen, but that didn’t stop the little voice in his head from battering at his confidence. It wasn’t even Nogitsune’s voice. It was just regular old anxiety.

Morgan looked him up and down, and stepped aside, ushering him inside. “You look like hell.” Stiles didn’t have any way to refute that. He knew what he looked like. He’d been running his hands through his hair. That combined with all the thrashing he’d been doing in his sleep made for strands going in impressively strange directions. The skin around his eyes was so dark that he could have been cosplaying as a raccoon, and the rest of him was so pale that his veins were standing out in blue squiggles. 

“I have a brain tumor,” Stiles blurted. Reid’s head snapped up from the book he’d been focused on, leaning back against the headboard of one of the beds. “Sorry. That…came out worse than it should have.” 

“Is there a good way for that to come out?” Morgan asked, wisely taking a seat at the small desk under the window. Stiles remained standing, hovering awkwardly in the middle of the room. 

“It’s not…It won’t kill me. It’s not real. Or like it kind of is, but only because Nogitsune is manipulating my cells, and it doesn’t want me dead, so the tumor’s basically there just to make me hallucinate.”

“Man, your life just never gets easier does it.” Morgan said it so evenly, a fact of life that Stiles’ life really sucked most of the time. It broke some of the tension. 

Stiles laughed. “Yeah,” he breathed, some of the stiffness leaving his shoulders. “Anyway.” Stiles made his way over to Reid’s bed, sitting down on the edge. “I actually came to give you this.” He held the bestiary out, a bit reluctant to let it go. It was a rare individual who had been given full access to his compendium of all the magical creatures he’d learned about over the years. Some of the pack members (not Theo), and his dad. But if anyone was going to take good care of a precious book, it was going to be Spencer Reid. 

He managed to get his fingers to relax and the tome changed hands. It was a hefty clump of parchment, with a blank leather cover. Unlike whatever Deaton’s grimoire was made out of (Stiles wouldn’t be surprised if it was human skin), the leather binding of the bestiary was fake. His bestiary had started out as a spiral notebook, but once the first one had been filled, he’d decided that a book about magical creatures deserved to look like a book of magical creatures. So he ordered a nice notebook online, with faux parchment for pages; it was one that you could buy more pages for as you filled them. He figured with the way his life tended to only get crazier that that would be a useful feature. 

Morgan stood up to drift closer and Reid carefully opened the cover. The first page had ‘ Werewolf’ written at the top in red pen in Stiles’ legible but scratchy handwriting. 

“That’s full of magical creatures?” Morgan asked as Reid scanned the page in a few seconds before turning it over and continuing at his usual fast pace. 

“Yep. It’s not a one-page-to-creature ratio though,” Stiles assured him. “Some beings that we know a lot more about take up a lot more space.”

“Nogitsune only has two pages,” Reid said, drawing Stiles’ attention back to the book, which was opened to the couple pages about a third of the way through the book, written in a shakier-than-usual hand about the Japanese fox spirit. “And what’s there isn’t good.” 

Stiles took a breath to keep his voice from shaking. “I actually need to add some things to that. Since apparently things are possible that we didn’t know about the first time.” 

“You know you can talk about it right?” Morgan said, sitting next to Stiles on the bed. “You don’t have to,” he added quickly at the way Stiles’ shoulders had scrunched up again. “But you can. We’re not gonna run away from you. If anything, all this lets us understand you better, and the more we know, the more we can try to help. Even just knowing what topics not to press on. And that goes for all of us, not just boy wonder and I.” 

“I know,” Stiles said. The words felt empty though. The truth of the matter was that he didn’t know how to open up about this kind of stuff. He’d been so careful to keep his lives separate. Having them collide in such sudden and messy fashion hadn’t left him any time to figure out how to bring those two parts of himself together in any easy way. 

Morgan could sense the lack of conviction behind them. He clapped Stiles on the shoulder, giving it a gentle squeeze. “When you're ready. Or never. Just know that the offer stands. You’ve got a support system. A couple of them actually.” 

“How’s Emily doing?” Stiles asked. He was sure the other two noticed the clunky subject change, even with Reid’s nose buried in the bestiary, but neither said anything about it.

“Recovering. She’ll be alright. You could check on her yourself. Pretty sure if you don’t make an appearance soon, she’s gonna hunt you down, and that would be bad for her and for you.”

“He’s just saying that. You’re the reason she’s hurt in the first place.” Stiles’ eyes flicked over to Nogitsune in the corner. He took a deep breath and it disappeared, voice lingering as it hissed “you can’t ignore me forever Stiles.” 

“Watch me,” Stiles muttered, not realizing he’d said it aloud until he returned his attention to Morgan. 

“Hallucinations?” Morgan asked, tone deceptively light.

“It’s a great time,” Stiles remarked, matching his false joviality. Surprisingly, Morgan didn’t pursue the topic at all. Maybe that wasn’t so surprising. They were all trained to deal with trauma victims. Was that what Stiles was now? A trauma victim? Oh, who was he kidding, he’d always been pretty traumatized, it just hadn’t been quite so broadcasted before. 

“All of this is really out there?” Reid asked, having reached the end of the bestiary. The last couple pages were about dryads. The only reason they took up the three pages that they did was because Stiles had catalogued the different types he was aware of existing around Beacon Hills. Other than that, there were (to his knowledge) redwood, oak, and fir dryads around, and that the oak dryads were specific servants of the Nemeton, he just had some vague sketches of what they supposedly looked like. Malia was the only pack member to have actually seen any of them, and those memories were hazy because they’d been made when she was a coyote. 

“Unfortunately,” Stiles replied.

“But vampires aren’t real.”

“ Right ?” Stiles exclaimed. “Like there’s no way. They’re out there. I can’t prove it—yet—but it’s true.” 

“Are you actually a witch?” Reid asked, flipping through the pages back to the section on witches. “Cause you don’t seem like a witch. But you do magic, and you do have a connection to nature. Though it seems more like nature has a connection to you .” Stiles leaned over and moved a few pages back toward the front of the book, stopping on a mostly empty page, with ‘ Spark ’ written at the top. 

Below the title, there were only a few lines of text:

‘Magic

Belief powers (whatever that means) ~ Connection to Nature ~ A witch but natural ~ Warlock? (Ask Deaton)

Not a warlock

Creation god? Hopefully not’

“That’s it?” Reid sounded personally offended by the lack of information. Stiles could relate. 

Stiles shrugged. “It’s an imprecise science, this magic stuff.” 

“‘Hopefully not’ is not a no for the god question,” Morgan said, peering over to look at the page. 

“We don’t think I’m god because I age, and as far as we know I can die. But we also can’t prove that I’m not because there are plenty of religions that believe in gods reincarnating into mortal bodies. And since dryads and hellhounds are real, we can’t actually rule out the existence of Greek deities or even the Christian God, which means we can’t rule out other deities either. Basically it’s a mess and we don’t really know anything about anything.”

“There’s got to be a way to find out,” Reid mused, and Stiles could see him forming plans in his mind. “I could run some experiments.” 

“Um yeah, or you could not,” Stiles replied, raising an eyebrow. “Considering I’m not super down to be a lab rat.”

Reid frowned in confusion. “No, not like…I wouldn’t do that. That’s just unethical. Also, I have doctorates, I’m not a medical doctor.” 

“Just making sure.”

Reid’s mind was already elsewhere again. “I need to do some research. Does Beacon Hills have a library?” 

“It does, but it’s not exactly massive. You’d have better luck on the internet.” 

Reid made a face. “I’ll see what I can find there first.” Reid popped up standing from the bed on the other side, and started lacing up his shoes. Stiles and Morgan exchanged amused looks, neither one willing to get in between Reid and his pursuit of new knowledge. 

Stiles and Morgan followed him out, Stiles providing directions to the Beacon Hills public library. Reid left the hotel without a backward glance, barely giving a cursory wave goodbye. Stiles was considering making his departure as well, tapping his fingers on the cover of the bestiary, but Morgan was giving him a look.

“Yeah alright.” Stiles followed him back inside and to Emily and JJ’s hotel room door.

***

“You look like you could use one of these.” 

Hotch turned from where he’d been staring into the distance, mind turning over and over to see Rossi holding out a tiny bottle of whiskey. He looked from the offering to Rossi.

“I come prepared,” Rossi explained. “Unless you’d rather whatever they have in the hotel,” he added wryly. The hotel didn’t even have a bar, which he was well aware of. Hotch shrugged, taking the little bottle and twisting the cap off. “Whiskey for your thoughts?” Rossi pressed. Hotch took a swig and grimaced. He’d never really acquired the same taste for whiskey that Rossi had, but the gesture was enough to loosen him up. 

“You weren’t back yet when I hired Stilinski,” he stated. Rossi hummed in agreement. Stiles had been hired just before Rossi’s return, just after Gideon’s abrupt departure. “I assume Gideon told you about hiring Reid.” 

“I told him he was crazy, that the kid was too young, head still too far in his books. He ignored me of course, and boy am I glad he did.” 

Hotch nodded. “You weren’t the only one who didn’t approve. The BAU’s a specialist team, we don’t often hire straight from universities. Ever actually, save twice.”

“Stiles was your Reid,” Rossi deduced. Hotch would never play favorites as obviously as Gideon had, and he didn’t confirm Rossi’s hypothesis, just kept telling the story. “I did a lecture at UC Berkeley to a class of criminal justice seniors. Stiles was there, twenty-two and almost exactly as he’s always been. He had already graduated and was working on his PhD, but he’d attended that lecture for fun. He asked so many questions that the other presenters were starting to get annoyed, and it was plain that his classmates only tolerated him because they found him amusing. He came up to me after the presentation was over to ask one more thing, what the hiring process was like at the BAU. He’d had good questions during the presentation, and Reid had recently been a huge success for Gideon. Stiles reminded me of him, and it couldn’t hurt to have some new blood. I asked why he wanted to be a profiler, expecting the usual ‘I just want to help in any way I can’ or ‘the human mind is fascinating’ stuff. Instead he told me, with a completely straight face, ‘my major was criminal justice and my PhD is in psychology, what else would I do?’ Then he made a Spider-Man reference. You know, ‘with great power comes great responsibility?’ I told him to call me when he graduated. You know he wrote a paper on the psychology of lycanthropy?”

“Well. You know what they say about hindsight,” Rossi said. 

“Werewolves,” Hotch stated, finishing off his drink.

Rossi raised his own little bottle in a toast. “Werewolves.” 

“He lied to me. I took a chance on him, and he lied to me, and now people are dead and I don’t know what the hell I’m gonna say about it.” 

“It wouldn’t be the first time you stretched the truth for this team,” Rossi pointed out. “It’s just a bit weirder.” 

“This is different,” Hotch protested. “I fired Elle for something similar. If I let Stiles get away with this, I’m creating a double-standard. We can’t take the law into our own hands like this.” 

“He knows that, or nobody would have been able to talk him down,” Rossi stated. “You can’t change what happened with Agent Greenaway. But you can make sure Stiles never gets pushed to this point again. We know everything now. We weren’t able to be there for him before, but we can now. This is repairable.”

“There is something dark living inside of him, and for once that’s not a metaphor.” 

“It’s only because he’s got so much light in him that he’s managed to handle that darkness. The people that become our unsubs are—for the most part—people that everyone gave up on. We both know you won’t let that happen to Stiles.”

Chapter Text

“I want to invite the team to the full moon,” Stiles said. The full moon was in two days. Everything was fine between Stiles and most of the team. Reid was distracted and tense, spending every waking moment in the library, and Hotch hadn’t spoken to Stiles at all, but everything else seemed fine, other than the fact that he hadn’t kep his promise to Lydia to bring the Grimoire over to be looked through, and the fact that he hadn’t slept more than four hours in the last two days. He’d started counting his fingers again pretty much every second of every day, drilling it into himself that literally anything could be a dream. It was working too well. He’d woken himself up within thirty minutes of the dreams he’d been having the past few nights. No dreams, no Nogitsune, and no sleep. Which is probably why he had just blurted out his request to Derek while Derek had actively been saying something that Stiles wasn’t listening to.

Derek paused mid-sentence. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” he said carefully. The red had completely faded from his eyes now, the spell having worn off. Stiles was glad. He preferred Derek’s natural eye-color. 

“I think they need to be there,” Stiles pressed, tapping each finger against the dining-room table in sequence. One, two, three, four, five. Awake. “Hotch especially. And I know Reid would jump at the chance for any new information.”

“We’re not science experiments,” Derek argued, eyes narrowed, crossing his arms across his chest, closing himself off. 

“He knows that. It’s not like there are any new wolves there. Everyone knows how to control themselves on the full moon now. It wouldn’t be dangerous.” 

“Just because it’s not dangerous for the humans in the pack doesn’t mean it won’t be for random FBI agents with guns.”

“They’re not random FBI agents, Derek, they’re my friends. They’re your friends.” Derek didn’t answer, face shuttered. “I’ll make sure they leave their weapons behind,” Stiles pressed. 

“It’s not a good idea,” Derek repeated.

“Why?” Stiles groaned. “None of the wolves are gonna freak out. It’s just another full moon.” Derek didn’t respond. He just stared at Stiles. Stiles hated when he did this, because he simultaneously knew exactly what it meant and also had no idea. Derek only did that when he was waiting for Stiles to figure something out because he didn’t want to be the one to say it. 

“What?” Stiles asked. “Stop looking at me like that. What’s the issue?” He could hear the anger in his own voice, and knew Derek would hear his heart-rate speeding up. He took a deep breath, concentrating on slowing it. Lack of sleep was not doing wonders for his control. 

“It’s not about the others,” Derek ground out. He didn’t elaborate and Stiles felt the frustration rise again.

“Then what ?” he demanded. “God Derek I hate when you do this, just fucking talk to me !” Stiles was standing before he knew it, fingernails digging into the wooden table. Derek’s expression pinched, and he glanced significantly at Stiles’ hand on the table. Stiles made an annoyed sound and followed his gaze. When he saw what had caught Derek’s attention, he ripped his hand away from the table. The force of the gesture sent a spear of power toward the wall behind Derek, the glass of a framed photo of Stiles and his dad cracking into a spider-web of broken slivers. Stiles clutched his hands to his chest, glancing from the broken picture frame to the blackened hand-print on the wooden table.

“We all get more powerful close to the full moon. So do you,” Derek said. “And this isn’t just any full moon, it’s the first after…”

“After I got possessed,” Stiles spat. “You can say it, you know. Avoiding the words isn’t going to make it go away.”

“ I’m avoiding it?” Derek demanded, finally rising to the bait of Stiles’ tone. “You won’t talk to me about it at all! I’m fine, you say, and then something explodes near you. You’re not sleeping, you’re counting your fingers every chance you get, and you won’t even look in the grimoire for answers because you’re too petty to realize that it doesn’t matter who it belonged to if it can help you.”

“Of course it matters!” Stiles shouted. The windows rattled. “You don’t get it. None of you get it! He took everything from me! He forced me to be the emissary, and of course I took the bait. It was my only option to protect you! So sure, I did this, but I only did it because the other option was to let all of you get hurt! You’re all treating me like I’m some broken thing, something to be tip-toed around. The only one who’s talked to me like a person is Theo! How fucked up is that? Even Lydia is all about a solution. Just look in the grimoire, you’re all saying, as if it’s that fucking easy. Well it’s not! It’s not that easy! Do you realize how much information could be in that book? Damaging, dangerous information? I am dangerous right now, and I am powerful enough without the extra knowledge of dark magic that I can literally feel radiating out of that grimoire. I have a brain tumor because a dark fox spirit is manipulating my cells so that I see, and hear, and feel hallucinations of it. I wake up screaming, and I can’t control myself enough not to hurt anyone that isn’t technically in the pack. Do you have any idea how that feels? I could kill someone without even knowing what I’m doing.” Stiles didn’t care that this outburst was only proving Derek’s point about his volatility. He’d started crying at some point.

“I can’t, okay?” he sobbed. “I can’t look in that book right now. I can’t. And I can’t give it to someone else because it has to be me. He left it to me and nobody else will be able to read it. So yes, I know that I have to look there, but I can’t right now. I can’t, I can’t I–” Derek’s arms were around him, and his mantra broke off into sobs, face pressed into Derek’s shoulder, arms trapped between their bodies. Stiles hissed in pain at the pressure and Derek stilled, pulling back slightly. 

“Are you hurt?” he asked. 

“No, it’s nothing,” Stiles stepped back, wiping at his eyes. “I’m sorry I snapped at you.”

“Stiles–”

“You’re probably right anyway.” He looked at the broken picture. “Introducing the team to the whole full moon thing this time around might be premature. I’m sorry,” he repeated. Derek took a step forward, and Stiles took a step back in answer. Derek’s frown deepened.

“You don’t have to apologize.” He took another step forward. Stiles hit the edge of the table when he tried to step back again. Derek reached out, gently taking one of Stiles’ wrists in hand. Stiles tried to pull back, but Derek didn’t let go, sliding the sleeve of Stiles' shirt up past his elbow. “Stiles.” Derek sounded pained, staring at the scabbed over red scratches that spanned from Stiles’ inner elbow halfway down his forearm. There were five, as though he’d taken his fingernails and raked them deliberately down the underside of his arm. This time when Stiles pulled slightly Derek let go and Stiles rolled his sleeve back down. “Stiles that can’t happen. You can’t do that.”

“It was an accident,” Stiles said weakly. The pain from pressing into them in Derek’s arms had calmed him, Nogitsune’s desire for strife fading as it accepted the snack for what it was. Magic skittered over the lines, a spell Stiles had lain to keep any of the weres from smelling blood on him.

“That’s not a place where you accidentally scratch yourself, even when you have claws, which you don’t.” 

“I almost killed someone a few nights ago,” Stiles replied. “You were holding me, but if you hadn’t been there, I would have left, and not just killed the first person I found, I would have tortured them; I would have drunk their pain like it was fine wine. I couldn’t stop myself.” 

“I was there,” Derek said. “You don’t have the same healing factor that we do. If you need to hurt someone, then we’ll find you an animal or something.” 

“That won’t be enough,” Stiles stated.

“Then we’ll figure something else out. This?” Derek gently took Stiles' arm again. “This can’t happen again.” Stiles didn’t respond, unable to make that promise. If it kept him from hurting innocent people, Stiles would carve as many lines into his skin as he needed. He gently pulled away from Derek again. 

“I’m going to take a walk.” He maneuvered out from the space between Derek and the table, heading for the door.

“Stiles, wait.” 

Stiles had already closed the door behind him. 

***

Hotch wasn’t expecting to find Derek Hale on the other side of his door when he opened it to a knock. In fact, of all the people, including Stiles himself, he probably expected Stiles’ husband (the werewolf, apparently) the least. He’d met Derek on a scarce couple of occasions, specifically one memorable dinner that Garcia had lovingly titled ‘the family dinner’. Everyone had been there with their significant others and children in tow. That had been such a big group though that Hotch probably hadn’t said more than a couple introductory sentences to Stiles’ husband. Derek hadn’t struck him as the type to seek out conversation, even then. He had followed Stiles around, plainly unsure what to do with himself with that many people he didn’t know. 

“May I come in?” Derek asked, standing farther away than was necessary. He was giving Hotch control of how this went, assuming (rightfully perhaps) that Hotch might be wary of him and his hidden fangs and claws. Derek’s expression was neutral. He didn’t fidget like Stiles. He just stood there, waiting. The only sign that he was uncomfortable was the way his jaw was clenched so tightly that a muscle was visibly twitching in it. 

Hotch stepped aside. Derek nodded gratefully and stepped in. Hotch left the door open. Derek didn’t comment on it. He didn’t comment on anything. Now that he’d been allowed inside, it was like he’d forgotten why he was there. 

“How can I help you Mr. Hale?” Hotch asked. Stiles and Derek hadn’t taken each other’s last names. Hotch thought that made a lot of sense, given the way they both felt a lot of pride regarding their families (Peter Hale excepted). 

Derek cleared his throat. “I need to talk to you about Stiles.” Hotch had guessed this much. “Nogitsune feeds on pain.” Oh, so they were really going right to the center of it. Hotch shouldn’t have been surprised. Derek was direct. Hotch could appreciate that. 

“Sit,” Hotch stated, nodding to the desk chair. Derek did not sit. He barely gave the chair a glance. 

“If Nogitsune doesn’t feed, it hurts Stiles because Stiles won’t let it hurt anyone else. He’s being…stubborn…about it. Partially because he’s worried about what you will think of him.” Hotch was sure Derek had some stronger words that “stubborn” in mind for what he felt Stiles was being. 

“I can’t authorize an agent to hurt people, no matter their crimes,” Hotch stated, thinking he might know where this was going. 

“I know that,” Derek snapped. Hotch bristled at his tone, but kept himself carefully controlled. “He can take pain from people. We all can, it’s part of our…thing. The only difference is that for him it’s a food source, for the rest of us it’s just something we can do. One of my…people” Hotch thought he’d been about to say pack members, but stopped himself at the last second “goes to the hospital once a week to take the pain away from terminal patients. It doesn’t hurt them, it just makes everything hurt less.”

“Most of the victims we work with are dead,” Hotch said. 

“There’s more than one kind of pain,” Derek answered. 

Hotch took a moment, then said “I’ll consider it.” Stiles would have argued, would have tried to further plead his case, explain even more in depth. Derek just nodded, turned around, and left.

Chapter Text

Stiles could feel the moon. That in itself wasn’t odd. He’d been able to feel the moon to some extent for years. This was different. So different. Oh god, not wonder Scott had gone batshit the first time. Stiles tried to rake his fingernails down his arms again, just for some relief, but a different pair of hands clasped his wrists, keeping them in place. He couldn’t see who it was but they felt warmsafepack . Stiles didn’t care. He tried to wrench his hands free. The person grunted with the effort of keeping them in place. Stiles was so much stronger. He could feel a tenseness to his muscles, like they were coiled up, ready to spring into action at a moment’s notice. 

“Stiles, stay with me. Focus.” Derek. It was Derek’s hands on him. He stopped struggling. There was a silver tint to his vision, bathing everything in white light. Derek’s eyes were ruby red. There were others around them in a circle, keeping him contained. Pack, his instincts provided.

“Food,” Nogitsune disagreed. 

“Let go,” Stiles said. It was difficult to force the words out past the low hum of a growl that had been constantly flowing from him. 

“I can’t do that.” 

“Derek please . You’re hurting me.” The result was immediate. The hands released his wrists. Stiles smiled. 

“You really are too easy,” he remarked. “No wonder Kate managed to fool you.” Stiles couldn’t stop the words, relishing in the flinch from Derek. A ripple of unease went through the others. The emotional pain of the name Kate Argent was wonderful, but not as filling as Stiles needed. He groaned, going to scratch at himself again. His fingernails were longer than normal, not quite claws, but pointed and strong nonetheless. Derek reached out again. Stiles took the opportunity and changed course, batting Derek’s hands aside and going for his throat, only to be stopped by some invisible force. Stiles growled in frustration, rising to his feet. He was surrounded by the wolves. Stiles looked at each of them, assessing weaknesses. He needed to get through them. His gaze landed on Alec, the little wolf, the puppy of the pack. 

“Stiles stop!” Scott, always meddling, always taking the high road. He sounded so afraid, and so not powerful. For being a true alpha Stiles was pretty sure he could kill him with a thought. Stiles had no idea why the pack supported Scott so much as an alpha. He got so distracted by this fact that he turned away from Alec, making it possible for a heavy mass of werewolf to knock him aside from behind. He rolled over, a frustrated yowl caught between a snarl and a yip punching out of him. He was on his feet in moments, shoving away from whoever had just attacked him in his moment of triumph. It was Liam. Of course it was. Scott’s favorite little beta, betrayals and all. True alphas. What a joke. His eyes glowed yellow, claws out, stupid sideburns taking over his face. 

“Enough” Scott snarled, teeth on full display. “This isn’t you.”

“Because you know me so well?” Stiles taunted. “We barely talk at all anymore. You don’t know anything about me.” 

“I know enough to know that you would never hurt anyone,” Scott remained firm.

Stiles laughed. “I know this is hard for you, but try not to be a fucking idiot Scotty. Of course I would. I did. Do you ever get tired of sitting on your high horse? Your ass must be sore.” Scott’s eyes flashed, a muscle jumping in his forehead. Stiles smirked, waiting for the attack.

“Grab him,” Scott ordered. Before Stiles could protect himself, there were two pairs of hands on him, grabbing onto his arms and pulling him back. He struggled, but the strength of two werewolves that were fully paying attention was enough to keep him contained. He tried to concentrate long enough to get his magic to do something, but then Malia was in front of him. She held chains in her arms, thick, iron links. 

“Come on Malia, there’s no need for that,” Stiles protested as she started to wrap the chains around him. She had to lean close to his face at one point and he snapped his teeth. She barely moved back in time to keep him from ripping off a chunk of her ear. It was an instinctual move; his teeth wouldn’t have been able to connect, but he relished in her flinch.

“Don’t make this harder on yourself,” Theo growled, causing Stiles to struggle harder as the chains tightened. He could feel the magic woven into them and that it was Lydia’s work. If he could get past the screaming desperation in his head he could break it, but he couldn’t concentrate. They pulled him backwards, splitting a tree so that Stiles’ back was pressed completely against it. Malia went around the back to lock the chains. Only once he was fully secure did the trio back off. Stiles yanked experimentally, but they held fast. 

“You don’t understand,” he pleaded. “I need it. I’m so hungry. I can’t…I can’t breathe . It hurts.” He kept pulling at the chains. 

“I’m sorry Stiles,” Scott said. “We’ll figure something out.” 

Derek came up beside him. “I know you’d never forgive yourself if we let you go,” Derek said. The wolves were pacing restlessly now. “Go,” Derek told them. Scott looked doubtful, and so none of the betas moved. “We’ll be fine here Scott. The pack needs to run,” Derek stated. 

“Take care of him,” Scott replied, relenting. Derek nodded. He and Stiles watched as each member of the pack shifted, Malia going so far as to undress without shame and become a full coyote, a talent she’d only recently begun utilizing again. She trotted up to Stiles and pressed her nose to the side of his face before turning tail and running off into the woods. The others followed, Scott last, stopping by Stiles just like Malia had. 

“You’re going to be okay Stiles. I’ll make sure of it,” he said, voice clogged because of the extra teeth in his mouth. He was gone before Stiles could come up with a scathing enough retort to bring any relief to the clawing hunger within him. Left alone, Derek pulled his shirt over his head, letting it fall to the ground. Shoes, socks, pants, underwear were all systematically removed. Like Malia his eyes glowed brighter for a moment, and then there was the sound of cracking and shifting bones. Dark fur sprouted over his entire body as he shrank, face elongating into a snout, fingers shortening into paws. The full shift was over in a matter of seconds. Derek padded over. 

“What are you, a therapy dog?” Stiles snapped. A twitch of Derek’s ears was the only sign that he heard. He laid down beside Stiles, laying his head on Stiles’ thigh. Stiles tried to kick his leg to get him off, but Derek would not be moved. Stiles verbally poked and prodded at every mental wound he knew Derek had, and Derek’s head remained on his knee, even closing his eyes at one point, for the whole night.

***

As the rest of the pack trickled back to Stiles and Derek, the pain in Stiles only grew. Scott came back first, Jackson and Ethan last. The sun could be seen through the trees now.

“Why isn’t it going away?” Stiles gasped, breaths short and desperate. Derek was still a wolf, but his red eyes were concerned, and he wasn’t resting his snout on Stiles anymore. “Isn’t this supposed to stop after the moon sets?” 

Nobody answered. Stiles looked to Scott, because even after being let down he somehow expected Scott to figure something out. “Let’s untie him,” Scott stated. 

Liam moved immediately, but Stiles shouted “No!” His shout turned into a cough, a thick black substance coming up his esophagus, a little bit of it escaping, coating his lips. Derek whined. Stiles caught his breath. “Whatever you do, do not unchain me.” His eyes bore into Scott’s. “I’ll hurt someone. It’s a survival instinct.” 

“We can’t just let you die,” Scott protested.

Stiles could feel his magic wrapping around the enchantment in the chains. “More immediate problem,” he ground out, trying to pull it back. “These chains are not going to hold.”

“Focus Stiles. Pull it back,” Lydia stated in that matter-of-fact way of hers.

“Oh yeah, I’ll just do that. If I could do that it wouldn’t be a problem!” Stiles snapped. The enchantment buckled. The chains didn’t just fall away, they disintegrated. The only thing keeping him from lurching to his feet was another set of wracking coughs, sending him to his hands and knees, black blood coating the grass beneath him. “I can’t hurt you,” he gasped, fisting his hands into the grass. “Stop me. Hurt me if you have to, just make it stop!” There was someone nearby who wasn’t pack; he could feel them on the county road going for a morning run, blood pumping. They’d been running for long enough that they would have to stop soon, lungs starting to scream for a steadier oxygen supply. Before Stiles could stand, a massive wolf slammed into him, knocking him onto his back. 

Derek’s red eyes glared down at him. He snarled. Stiles brought his hands up to try and shove him off, but then Derek did something that stopped his movement completely. He opened his jaws and bit down, hard, on his own foreleg. 

“Derek!” Stiles had no idea who the shout came from, because suddenly he was drinking Derek’s pain, relaxing like it was a shot of morphine. Derek pressed his nose into Stiles’ neck, giving Stiles direct skin-to-skin access. The shudders wracking Stiles’ body slowly stopped. He brought a hand up to tangle in Derek’s fur. 

It was over too quickly. Derek pulled away, and moved off of Stiles. He was barely limping, wound already mostly healed and pain completely gone. Stiles sat up, still feeling a pang of hunger, but no longer sure that he was going to rip apart the first person that he saw, slowly and with care. He took a deep breath, ran his fingers through his tangled hair, and dropped his head between his knees, kept breathing carefully. 

Then he screamed. 

He pressed his hands into the back of his head and screamed until his voice gave out. It wasn’t a pained scream. In fact in this instant he felt healthier than he had in weeks. And that was why he screamed. Because this—This was his reality now, and sometimes screaming about reality is all you can do.

A hand was placed on his shoulder, fingers brushing the skin of his neck and more of someone else’s pain flowed into him. He looked up at the sensation, up and behind him, where Scott was standing, broken arm hanging at his side, other hand pressed into his shoulder and neck. “Stop,” Stiles croaked. “Don’t.”

“You need this. It’s okay,” Scott said. There was a gasp of pain from Stiles left and his head whipped that way to see Lydia approaching him the back of her forearm bleeding from where she’d told Jackson to pierce his claws into her skin. She knelt and brushed the back of her hand over his cheek. 

“We have you,” she whispered. Malia, still a coyote, took the same route Derek had, taking her own teeth and plunging them into her leg. She used her good leg to prop herself up on Stiles’ knee so she could press her soft forehead to his, rubbing their faces together, whimpering until he took all of her pain away. Liam took one of his hands and Stiles closed his eyes. Hands touched him, pain flowing into him from every angle until he was able to relax completely. 

The pack stayed like that long after the pain stopped flowing and the sun was high in the sky, lying in a heap on the grass, Stiles at the center. Derek and Malia had shifted back at some point. Stiles didn’t know when because he’d fallen into a dreamless sleep. He woke up with Derek pressed against one side of him and the other pack members around them. Jackson’s hand had somehow ended up tangled in his hair, and Theo was draped over his legs. Stiles looked down at him.

“Shut up,” Theo grumbled, not moving because Liam was on top of him and he didn’t want to disturb him. Stiles snorted a laugh, waking the others up with the noise.

“Guys we’re kinda fulfilling stereotypes right now with the dog-pile,” he quipped, but he wrapped his arm more tightly around Derek and took Lydia’s hand with his other. He felt amazing, like he was centered in himself, in full control, and also more powerful than he’d felt in his entire life.

“I told you. This can be a good thing as long as you keep us healthy.” Nogitsune was standing above the dog-pile, looking down at the group with amusement, and something like…relief.

Stiles didn’t acknowledge him, but he knew in his heart that Nogitsune was right. He’d accepted that this was reality now. He was just going to have to make this work. He and Nogitsune would learn to coexist, maybe even to work together. They didn’t have a choice.

Chapter Text

Stiles felt electric, like he could run ten miles or I don’t know, fly. Honestly I totally could fly. Stiles decided he could fly, and actually managed to float a couple feet off of the ground before Derek got a hand on his wrist and pulled him back down to earth.

“Hey!” Stiles complained, then realized what he’d actually been about to do. “Oh my god, I can fly ?” 

“If you believe you can, yes, but I’m not going to risk you getting up into the air and then having a moment where you stop believing,” Derek replied, practically dragging Stiles up the steps to the house. Stiles was on him as soon as the door had shut, crowding Derek up against it. He didn’t remember the last time they’d had sex, and that was a problem. He refused to let them become those married people that stop having sex just because they’re married…or something. That’s definitely a thing that happens. Stiles studied psychology, he would know. Not the time to be thinking about this. He was supposed to be having hot werewolf sex, which was actually just normal sex except that there was a strict no-biting rule (on Derek’s end anyway) and that Derek could lift him up if he wanted to. Stiles wanted him to, except he also wanted to keep Derek pinned to the door. This was a very serious dilemma. 

“Stiles,” Derek murmured against his lips. If he could still talk Stiles obviously wasn’t kissing him thoroughly enough. Derek managed to get his hands on Stiles’ shoulders and move him away. “Stiles,” he said more insistently. “I’m glad you're feeling better, but this is your dad’s house, and we are in the doorway.” Ah. Well yes that was a good point. 

Stiles grinned. “Well come on then,” and grabbed his very hot husband by the wrist, practically dragging him upstairs, laughing like he had not a care in the world. In two days he would be on a plane, heading for Virginia. He’d be able to go back to his job, and his job involved a lot of pain which actually was kind of a good thing now that Stiles was thinking about it. If he was a little less content at that moment he might have felt bad about being excited for all the pain, but then Derek was pressing him down into a mattress and all he became capable of feeling was yes . 

***

Derek was given permission to fly back to Virginia on the jet with the team and the pack was there to see the two of them off. Stiles had expected a bit more resistance from them (Scott) because of his new status as their emissary, but no one had said anything about wanting him to stay. Stiles still felt pretty good, but he wasn’t as full of energy as he’d been the past couple of days. He felt completely normal actually, which he knew was actually a sign that he’d need to take more pain within a few days, a week at most. Stiles had decided not to worry about it though. Nogitsune had been strangely helpful, not conjuring any terrible visions, and only providing warnings about needing to eat again soon without being threatening about it. Sure, they’d come to an agreement to actually try and work together but he hadn’t been sure it would work. It almost felt too good to be true.

The team was waiting to board the plane, sending wary looks at the werewolf pack surrounding Stiles. Reid was the only one who seemed completely unfazed. He’d gone right up to the pack when they’d arrived with Stiles and started asking question after question until Derek finally told him he’d answer his questions if he just went to wait by the plane because Theo looked like he was ready to rip Reid apart. 

“Call me if you need anything ,” Stiles said. “I’m serious guys, anything. It’s literally my job to help you now and just because I’m leaving doesn’t mean I’m not going to do it. Besides maybe I’ll learn to teleport.”

“You cannot teleport,” Jackson stated. 

“I can do anything I put my mind to,” Stiles shot back with a smile and two thumbs up like those stupid slogans on the posters hung in an elementary classroom. Jackson rolled his eyes, but the corner of his lips was turned up in an almost-smile. “You two,” Stiles pointed at Theo and Liam “be good, don’t kill Scott.” 

“Are you ever gonna let that go?” Liam complained. 

“Nope!” Then grabbed Liam and pulled him into a tight hug. “You know this is why we call you mom,” he mumbled into Stiles' shirt. Stiles smacked him lightly on the back of his head in response before letting him go. Stiles moved on to Mason. “Stay in touch with Garcia. She’s a genius,” he ordered. 

“Um…okay?”

“I’m serious,” Stiles said. “Also I think she’s decided to take you on as her like, Padawan, and she absolutely knows where you live and also everything about you, so don’t even try to avoid her. It’s not worth it.” 

“Couldn’t hurt to have a real hacker in the pack,” Ethan said. 

“I am a real hacker,” Mason replied, affronted. 

Stiles patted him on the shoulder. “Sure you are buddy.”

Malia didn’t wait her turn, but rather pulled him into a painfully tight hug. “Don’t ever scare me like this again,” she growled into his ear. Stiles squeezed her back just as tightly. 

“No promises. Proud of you by the way. The whole coyote thing.”

She buried her face in his neck, no doubt breathing in his scent. It was a long time before she let go and Stiles wasn’t going to move away first. When she finally did, her place was immediately taken by Lydia. She leaned in for a much briefer hug and a kiss on the cheek. She pulled back and hesitated, on the verge of saying something. She looked troubled. 

“What?” Stiles asked. “I just said you should tell me if there’s anything wrong.” 

“I think you should open the Grimoire,” she said carefully.

“Lydia,” Stiles sighed. “I–”

“When you’re ready, I get it,” Lydia interrupted him. “But I just–You need to open it.” 

Her conviction gave Stiles some pause. “Is this a banshee thing?” he asked. She bit the inside of her cheek and nodded. “How bad?” Stiles asked.

“Bad.” 

Stiles’ good mood dimmed considerably. He reached out and squeezed her hand briefly. “Okay. I’ll–” He took a deep breath. “I’ll look.” She met his gaze, green eyes searching. “I promise,” he said. “Call me if anything changes or happens or…just call me.”

“I will.” She stepped back, and now it was Stiles’ choice who to go to next. Obviously, he went straight to his dad, standing off to the side. He hugged him tight. This time Stiles had to be the one to let go first or the hug would have gone on forever. 

“You be safe kid,” his dad said, hand resting on Stiles’ shoulder.

“I will,” Stiles promised.

“I know you’re taking care of everyone now,” Melissa cut on from beside his father, “but we’ll always be here for you too.” Stiles nodded, touched. He’d never called her mom, and he was never going to, because his mother was dead Stiles wasn’t willing to replace her like that, even though it didn’t actually mean he was replacing her. But Melissa was like a mother to him, and he loved her like one. Neither of them needed the official title to know that. 

“Alright Alec, your turn,” Stiles exclaimed, clapping his hands together and blinking away a few traitorous tears. 

“Me?” Alec asked, voice small from where he was practically hiding behind Scott.

“You,” Stiles nodded. He looked at Scott and Scott moved to the side so Stiles could access the newest beta. “You seem like a nice kid,” Stiles said. He didn’t try to touch Alec, to lay a hand on his shoulder. That wasn’t something you did unless you knew it was okay.

“Thank you?”

“And you’re in this pack just like everyone else, which makes you my responsibility. You can call me if you need anything. I know you’ll probably go to Scott first, but like, I’m cooler anyway so you should definitely call me. You’re family now, and I’ll help you just as readily as I would anyone else in this mess of a pack okay?” 

“Okay,” Alec replied in a small voice.
“However.” Stiles stood up straight, voice hardening. “I also don’t know you, and there have been times when someone I didn’t know came into this pack and almost tore it apart. I want you to know that Theodore over there is the exception, not the rule. If you betray this pack, I will make sure you don’t get a second chance. At anything.” 

“Stiles,” Scott warned, a bit of a growl in his voice.

“Relax Scott. I actually feel good about this one.” Stiles offered Alec, who looked somewhere between defiant and terrified, a smile. “But you can never be too careful.” Especially with your track record , he didn’t add. He heard a chuckle that belonged to his own vocal chords and saw Nogitsune smiling behind Alec. Hey at least there was someone to laugh at the meaner jokes Stiles would never make out loud. 

“It’s okay,” Alec said, gathering some courage. “I understand,” he told Stiles.

“That’s what I like to hear,” Stiles said. In the background he could hear Derek doing his goodbyes with the others as well. They were considerably shorter and gruffer than Stiles’ had been, but it was a mark of how much Derek loved his pack that he was making them at all. Stiles tuned it out as he finally focused on Scott. Scott didn’t say anything.

“Not gonna tell me to stay?” Stiles asked, going for humor and missing the mark by a big enough margin that Scott winced. “Sorry,” he said.

“No, I deserved that.” Scott stuffed his hands into his pockets like he didn’t know what else to do with them. 

Stiles opened his mouth to say an awkward goodbye but what came out instead was “I forgive you.” 

Scott looked up sharply. “What?”

Stiles hadn’t realized how true the words were until he’d blurted them out. “I…forgive you,” he repeated more slowly. “I forgive you for Donovan, and I forgive you for Theo. I forgive you for trying to make me stay last time and always trying to do the right thing because your heart is always in the right place and it definitely clouds your judgement and is absolutely infuriating and I forgive you because that is just who you are and you mean well and I can forgive you for meaning well because you’re my best friend and I love you.” Stiles really hoped that made more sense out loud than he thought it did. It must have done something because Scott has his arms around him. 

“I love you too man,” he mumbles into Stiles' neck, breathing him in in a way that only Malia and Derek have really done because Scott and Stiles haven’t been where they should have been in a lot longer than either of them are really comfortable with admitting. Stiles has never hated Scott. He’s not sure he would be capable of hating Scott, but he’s definitely resented him, and if this monumentally shitty experience of almost dying and then almost killing a bunch of people and actually killing some poor kid had taught Stiles anything, it was that they were all fucked up in their own ways, and Scott was trying. This whole time he’d had Stiles’ back, even when Stiles was making some seriously questionable decisions, even when Stiles was yelling at him, he was trying to understand and to help. And if Scott was trying to understand, then Stiles could forgive him for the times that he hadn’t been capable of that level of understanding. They’d been teenagers for fuck’s sake. It’s not as though they’d been particularly emotionally intelligent. 

“I’m gonna let go now because I think if I take any longer that jet will leave without me,” Stiles said, and this time Scott did laugh—a little wetly—and then stepped back. His eyes were a little shiny but Stiles didn’t comment.

“Call if you need anything,” Stiles reiterated.

“You too,” Scott shot back. 

“Seems like a fair trade,” Stiles conceded. Suddenly he didn’t want to go. That’s a lie; yes he did, but it was still hard to actually take the action and turn away from his family. It helped that Derek was going with him, and that he knew for sure he had the pack’s, and most importantly Scott’s, support.

“Well then,” he said to the team. “Guess it’s time to get back to normal.”

“Normal?” Emily scoffed. “Never heard of it,” and was the first to ascend the stairs onto the jet.

Chapter Text

The plane ride started off awkward. Plane rides home after cases are often pretty quiet, each team member decompressing in their own ways, but this time around they’d had two whole weeks to decompress. None of them seemed to know how to have a conversation with Derek there and honestly Stiles was in the same boat. The ultimate shock comes when Derek is the one to break the silence.

“I said I would answer your questions,” he said gruffly, addressing Reid, who was sitting across from Stiles and Derek. “Ask.” Reid’s eyes darted over to Stiles, who nodded his permission. 

“Does silver actually kill you?” 

Stiles’ breath left him in a huff and Morgan, sitting a couple seats away, chuckles uncomfortably. Everyone is paying attention now. “Jesus kid, you sure know how to start a conversation,” Morgan said. Stiles expected to have to jump in here, and reached over to lay a hand on Derek's, which had tightened on the armrest at the question. At the contact, Derek relaxed.

“No,” he answered shortly.

“Not the metal anyway,” Stiles said. He waited for Derek to protest, knowing he wouldn't explain further if Derek wanted to keep that conversation under wraps, but Derek remained silent. “I’m assuming you know what ‘silver’ is in French?”

“Argent.” Reid pronounces it ‘ar-jan,’ with a slightly off French accent. Stiles was sure Lydia would have something to say about it if she were there.

“Allison Argent,” Stiles stated. “It’s the family that kills werewolves, not the metal.” 

“Allison was a werewolf hunter?” Emily asked, sitting up and leaning forward in her seat behind Reid. 

Stiles made a so-so motion with his hand. “Her family was. She didn’t know werewolves existed yet when she and Scott started dating.” 

“Bet that went over well,” JJ chimed in. She stood, moving to the couch across the aisle from Stiles. Emily followed. 

“Yeah,” Derek scoffed. “It got me arrested for murder.” 

“Scott and Allison caused a lot of problems,” Stiles brushed over that. “They sure were something special though.” Stiles found himself smiling at the memories, despite their messiness. Derek laced their fingers together. 

“So if silver doesn’t kill you, what does?” Reid asked, getting them back on track. The track being ‘how to kill a werewolf 101’. 

“Wolfsbane, mistletoe, mountain ash in certain circumstances,” Stiles ticked them off on his fingers. “And you know, the classics. Bullet to the heart, cutting off the head. Probably blood loss but that would be pretty hard.”

“That’s more than I was expecting,” Morgan said. 

“They’re shapeshifters, not immortal,” Stiles replied.

“How does the pack dynamic work with werewolves?” Reid asked. 

“It depends on the pack. We tend toward the unconventional,” Derek said. 

“Two alphas,” Reid pointed out. 

“Among other things, like mixing wolves, coyotes, kitsune and humans,” Stiles said. 

“And whatever you are,” Morgan said to Stiles. 

“And whatever I am. I started off as human though.”

“A human who refused to leave well enough alone,” Derek said, fondly annoyed. 

“A human who kept this dumbass pack alive.”

“I will grant you that,” Derek allowed. “Still should have stayed out of it.”

“Wow. My husband saying he wishes he’d never met me. Are you guys hearing this?” Stiles rolled his eyes, squeezing Derek’s hand. 

Derek’s lips twitched. “That’s not what I meant.” 

“So how does it work then? With the unconventionalities?” Reid asked.

“It makes us unpopular,” Stiles replied easily. “But also really powerful. We have a bit of a reputation actually. The Nemeton naturally draws supernatural creatures but things have calmed down because the McCall-Hale pack is known for being too strong to mess with. We’ll take the judgement for some peace of mind.” 

“The two alphas work because I’m not there most of the time,” Derek continued. “Scott’s the true alpha. That’s his actual species name. It means that he didn’t inherit being an alpha through death. He earned it on his own merit. And most of the betas are his. Isaac was the only one left that I turned. Scott turned Liam, and everyone else’s loyalties are to Scott more than to me.”

“Not mine,” Stiles chimed in. “And anyway, Scott’s loyal to Derek. It’s kinda complicated.” 

“Scott’s the peoples’ princess, and Derek’s the king,” JJ summed up. 

Stiles thought it over. “Actually yeah that’s pretty accurate. Guess that makes me the queen.” Stiles pretended to toss long hair over his shoulder. Any remaining tension in the room dissipated at that, easy laughter ringing in the enclosed space. The rest of the flight was punctuated by a few questions, but mostly it was regular conversation, and for that Stiles was more thankful than he thought possible. 

***

As soon as they made it home, Stiles was in Derek’s arms again. It wasn’t as rushed as after the full moon. This was coming-home sex. They were alone, in their own space, together, and everything was okay, for the moment at least. Stiles had always made fun of the expression “making love” but when Derek pressed his face into the side of Stiles’ neck, breathing him in, Stiles legs wrapped around his waist drawing him in deeper, deeper, that’s the only way it could be described. There was a desire, a need to become one being, inseparable, two souls in one body. More than soulmates. 

***

Stiles didn’t know what he was expecting—technically he’d just had two full weeks without work—but for some reason he hadn’t considered that they’d immediately have a case the day after returning. JJ waved him up to the conference room as soon as he got to headquarters. Everyone else was already there, including Garcia, who ran over and gave Stiles a big hug as soon as he entered the room. 

“Oh my god hi! Hello! I missed you! So glad you’re okay. Are you okay?” She leaned back a little, scrutinizing his face, hands clamped firmly on his shoulders like he might disappear. 

“I’m okay Penelope,” Stiles assured her. 

“She’s…colorful,” Nogitsune said with clear distaste. 

“If we didn’t have a nasty gruesome case right now I would delve deeper into that obvious lie,” Garcia stated, squeezing his shoulders for emphasis. “But alas, it will have to wait. It will be happening though.” Stiles got the feeling she was glaring into his soul.

“I’ll look forward to it.” He smiled his most angelic, innocent smile. “Missed you.” 

She made a little noise in the back of her throat and hugged him again. “You’re manipulating me and I don’t even care.” Hotch cleared his throat and Garcia let Stiles take his seat at the round table. He didn’t need to look at the pictures that appeared to know they were horrendous because he felt a stab of satisfied curiosity as Nogitsune peered at them with interest.

“Now that is art.” 

Stiles bit his tongue to keep from voicing his disgust and reprimanding the voice in his head out loud. He looked at the photographs that Garcia was blatantly avoiding looking at even as she presented them. 

“As you can see, Columbus, Ohio needs our help. This is their third body that they’ve found in…this state.” She waved her hand vaguely at the gruesome sight on the screen. The body was not recognizably male or female from the crime scene photograph. The pieces of skin that weren’t covered in blood were shriveled. Stiles would have guessed the victim was someone over the age of sixty. One of the victim’s hands was in a claw-like position, gnarled fingers curved inward. The other hand was missing, and the cut wasn’t a clean one. The piece de resistance however, was the human leg stuffed into the victim’s mouth, foot up in the air. The body however, still had both its legs, meaning the leg came from someone else. 

“The leg has been confirmed to be from a different victim, obviously, but it’s not one that’s been found yet, pour soul,” Garcia continued. “This follows the established pattern, as this gentleman's missing hand was found in the mouth of the previous victim.” 

“Gentleman? You’ve got an ID?” Morgan asked.

“Yes, this is Kasper Swapan.” Another image appeared on the screen, and Stiles eyebrows rose in surprise. “He was a twenty-two year old college student at Ohio State University. He went missing a little over two years ago.”

“Two years is a long time to keep someone in captivity,” Emily remarked. “He must have a secluded environment that he’s able to have complete control over.”

“What about the two other victims?” JJ asked. 

“Beatrice Gabriels was victim number two. She was found exactly 12 days ago with Mr. Swapan’s severed hand in her mouth and the same skin condition, which according to the ME was caused by leprosy. The first victim, who was found exactly twelve days before Ms. Gabriels, Nikita Mees, also had leprosy and was discovered with two of Ms. Gabriel’s fingers angled out of her mouth like fangs.” Corresponding pictures of the victims before they were murdered and after appeared on screen.

“How did the victims die?” Reid asked, frowning. “Leprosy’s not fatal, and cells can lay dormant for years in a host body. It can take up to 20 years for someone to show symptoms.” 

“The victims were dispatched with a blade,” Garcia outlined. “Single stab wound directly to the heart. Mutilation was done postmortem, thank god for small favors. However, the leprosy was at an advanced stage in all three victims at the time of death.” 

“That’s probably what he was waiting for,” Stiles said, tapping a pen against his thigh in thought.

“It’s likely he started with one victim who contracted leprosy and has been using them to infect his other victims,” Reid continued. “Leprosy isn’t transmitted by mere contact, it’s transmitted through droplets from the nose and mouth, similar to the flu or the common cold, but then it has to be followed by prolonged, close contact.” 

“So there’s a patient zero,” Rossi summed up. 

“If he had Kasper for over two years, and Beatrice was killed before him, it’s probable he was keeping them at the same time. Same with Nikita,” JJ said. 

“So far the bodies have been found every twelve days,” Hotch stated. “Kasper was discovered four days ago, so we have eight days to find the unsub. It’s likely that he already has his next victim, but we’ll keep an eye on abductions all the same. Wheels up in twenty.” 

Stiles moved to stand with the rest of the team, but Hotch said “Stiles, a moment.” The images disappeared from the screen as Garcia turned it off on her way out and Nogitsune blinked out of a trancelike state. When everyone had vacated the room, Hotch asked “how are you feeling?” He sounded awkward when he said it, like he wasn’t used to this part of his job. 

“I’m good boss,” Stiles said, probably a little too lightly because Hotch did not look like he believed him at all. “I mean, I have a chaos demon in my head but we’re working through it.”

“I need to know that you’ll be able to handle this before I let you out into the field,” Hotch said. 

“I can,” Stiles replied immediately. “Seriously. In fact I think this is the best thing I could possibly be doing.” He hated to admit it, but the gruesome murder-board pictures had made him feel better and he knew that being in person with the atmosphere of chaos and pain for the case would only improve his temperament. He expected to receive a patented Hotch blank stare that somehow still managed to communicate exactly how much Agent Hotchner thought whatever he’d just said was bullshit. 

Instead, Hotch nodded. “I agree.”

Stiles blinked. “You…do.” 

“Derek spoke with me before we left Beacon Hills,” Hotch confessed, and oh boy Stiles was terrified to know where this could possibly be going. “He explained some of what you do, with pain.” 

“I eat it,” Stiles said bluntly. He could feel Nogitsune’s full attention on this conversation now, making the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. 

Hotch’s features tightened momentarily, what would have been a full grimace on anyone without Hotch’s control. “In order to do that, you can take it from others.”

“Right…” Stiles replied. 

“Which is why I’m going to have you interview the families.”

Stiles stood there in stunned silence for a few long seconds. “Um. Okay.” 

“I’ll send Emily with you, but I wanted to touch base with you first because I need to know if that will be good enough to keep you on track.” 

Stiles was struck with the most bizarre idea that this was like Hotch giving him illicit drugs. Granted he needed those drugs to not only not kill people, but also to live himself. Still though…Stiles felt like he was somehow tarnishing the great SSA Aaron Hotchner’s honor. 

“You don’t have to do this. I can figure something out. You can just treat me like normal,” Stiles said, rubbing the back of his neck.

“Why are you being an idiot? Is this not the best way for us to work together?” Nogitsune demanded like a college student wondering why anyone would ever turn down free food. 

“You’re not normal,” Hotch stated, and some of the usual steel was back in his voice. “It would be foolish and a poor show of leadership if I tried to act like you were. Now does this plan work for you?”

“Okay. Yeah,” Stiles acquiesced. “Thank you.” 

Hotch didn’t respond. Stiles wondered if it was because he felt guilty, which made him feel guilty in turn. 

“Weak,” Nogitsune hissed in his ear, and Stiles couldn’t even say it was wrong.

Chapter Text

“The victimology here is off,” Morgan mused, leaning back into his seat on the jet. “These three are all from vastly different areas of life. The only thing bringing them together is all of them being from Columbus, Ohio.” 

“They could be victims of convenience,” Emily pointed out. 

“If it was just about convenience, the unsub would take less high risk victims though,” Reid argued. “Nikita was a twenty-six year old high school teacher, Beatrice was a married mother of three, and Kasper was a music major at the university. If their paths ever crossed, it wasn’t significant.” 

“So they have some kind of meaning to the unsub,” JJ summed up. “Just not as surrogates.”

“I’m looking for any connections, but so far our own boy genius is correct,” Garcia said from the screen, the sound of her fingers flying over the keyboard in the background. “They grew up in different neighborhoods, they’re not very close in age so they wouldn’t have gone to school together, their parents never interacted. I don’t think they’ve ever even passed each other on the street.” 

Nogitsune was once more fixated on the sights of the victims on Stiles’ tablet. Stiles looked furtively at the others and then decided to get over himself. “Okay, what,” he demanded quietly, then shook his head when the others looked at him, trying to figure out which of them he was addressing.

“It’s fascinating, the lengths you humans will go and still claim to abhor pain,” Nogitsune replied, head tilted to the side. 

Stiles sighed, wishing he hadn’t asked. “Not helpful.”

“Unlike you, I don’t make a habit of throwing out incorrect ideas.” 

“Which idea was incorrect?” 

“Surrogates don’t have to always represent one individual.” 

“What, like, surrogates for ideas?” Nogitsune didn’t respond, and Stiles turned to look at it. It smiled slightly and shrugged one shoulder, clearly sending the message that it was done being helpful. Stiles glared and then turned back to the group, who were all staring at him like they weren’t sure how to broach the topic that needed broaching. “Don’t worry about it, it’s being unhelpful anyway.” Unless Nogitsune provided something more specific, it was going to have to deal with Stiles pretending like it had added nothing of consequence. If it wanted to be a petty bitch he would do it right back. 

“What did you mean by surrogates for ideas?” Hotch asked. 

“Hell if I know,” Stiles muttered, trying to figure out what Nogitsune was trying to say. “The victims don’t have anything in common. They’re not all religious, they don’t have the same interests…I don’t know.” 

“The bodies were all positioned the same way. It could be about the method of murder, and not the victims themselves,” Rossi said.

“You can’t die of leprosy,” Reid pointed out again. “In Christianity, leprosy is considered a punishment for sin,” he mused. “Cannibalism could be connected to an extreme form of gluttony, or even lust, the desire to consume someone entirely.” 

“You think it’s sexual?” JJ asked. 

“I wouldn’t rule it out. The mutilations were post-mortem, but leprosy is a painful enough disease to consider the unsub as a sadist.” 

“But he’s not eating the victims,” Stiles cut in. “He’s posing the victims so they appear to be eating each other.” 

“So that cannibalism is a symbol more than a practice,” Emily concluded. 

“If he’s punishing the victims with leprosy, then maybe he sees them as cannibals,” Stiles mused. “Consuming something they shouldn’t, and therefore sinners who deserve punishment.”

“Garcia, do any of the victims have financial problems? Have any of them taken out loans?” Hotch demanded.

“Hm. Give me one…second. Oh! Oh sir you are good,” Garcia crowed. “Eighty percent of Kasper’s tuition was being paid by student loans, Beatrice had a serious shopping addiction and had just recently taken out a loan from the bank, leveraging her house in the process, and Nikita was still paying off her own student loans and had been late for the past two payments.”

“So he sees them as financial cannibals, consuming more than their share, money that he believes should go somewhere else,” Emily stated. “He could be someone who was denied a loan of his own, and is taking his anger out on people he thinks don’t deserve the money.” 

“It’s a good starting place,” Hotch replied. “When we land I want you and Stiles to talk to the families. Morgan and JJ, go to the ME. Dave, Reid, and I will go to the station to set up and talk to the local PD. Reid I also want you to get started on the geographic profile when we land.” They all nodded. 

“So orderly,” Nogitsune said with distaste. 

“Did I ask?” Stiles demanded, shrugging off the hand that Nogitsune had placed on his shoulder just to fuck with him. “If you could all stop looking at me like I’ve lost my mind considering the voices in my head are very real…” The team made a show of looking anywhere but at Stiles and Stiles felt kind of bad for snapping. He took a deep breath. “Sorry.” 

“It’s fine man,” Morgan assured him.

“It’s not. I’m just…getting used to it,” Stiles replied. “If I’m acting like an ass, call me on it. I mean it.” 

“Careful what you wish for,” Emily teased. “Even pre-possessed you was an asshole a lot of the time.”

“Okay, rude. I am a lovable sarcastic little shit,” Stiles replied with a smirk, relaxing.

“Oh is that what they’re calling it now,” Rossi said with a sophisticated raise of his eyebrows. He shook his head ruefully. “Kids these days.”

***

Kasper’s parents were already at the station when the team arrived. Hotch introduced them all to the local Captain, Captain Christine Reynolds, and then followed her with most of the rest of the team to the conference room that she’d had set up for them. Emily stayed behind with Stiles, who was looking through the blinds into a smaller room with a couch and a coffee machine. Two people were sitting on the couch, and Stiles knew they were Kasper’s parents. They were sitting with their shoulders pressed together, taking comfort in each others’ presence. It was a strong marriage. Plenty of parents would be blaming each other, sitting on opposite ends of the couch, just barely holding hands for show. Plenty more would have already gotten divorced after the disappearance of one of their children. A third figure was standing by the coffee machine, a young woman that shared a lot of the same features as Kasper. Something about that caused Stiles to furrow his brows in thought. There was something there, but it was just out of his reach. 

“You ready?” Emily asked. Stiles let the feeling slip away, and Nogitsune made an exasperated sound. Stiles ignored it. 

“Yeah. This part always sucks.” 

“Never gets easier,” Emily agreed, squaring her shoulders and entering the room first, holding the door open for Stiles to follow. There were two armchairs across from the couch. Kasper Swapan’s parents looked up at the two of them, hope and dread in their gaze, but Stiles’ focus was drawn to the young woman. She looked like she was around twenty-five, and was certainly Kasper’s sister. 

“We’re very sorry for your loss,” Emily said gently, and the last light died from the parents’ eyes, as though their son’s death was truly confirmed now that the FBI had shown up. “I’m SSA Emily Prentiss, and this is SSA Stiles Stilinksi. We know this is a hard time, but we need to ask you a few questions if that’s alright.” She sat down across from Kasper’s parents. 

“The past two years have been hard,” Kasper’s father said, his voice deep and rough, like he’d been crying recently despite the stoniness of his expression. “This is…something else.” 

“What happened to him?” Mrs. Swapan asked, squeezing her husband’s hands and bringing them into her lap like a treasured comfort object. Mr. Swapan made no move to resist the motion. 

“I’m very sorry,” Stiles said, “but your son was murdered.” Mrs. Swapan made a pained noise in the back of her throat and Stiles relaxed as the wave of pain washed over him. 

“Who would do such a thing? Everybody loved Kasper,” Mr. Swapan said. 

“Can you think of anyone new that came into Kasper’s life in the months before he disappeared?” Emily asked. Mr. and Mrs. Swapan exchanged thoughtful looks and then shook their heads. 

“He mostly stuck to his own company. He had some friends in the music school, but he wasn’t much of a partier, and he preferred to sing on his own, not in choirs.”

Stiles once again found his gaze drawn to Kasper’s sister, who was looking at the floor with a furrow between her brows. 

“This one has a secret,” Nogitsune sang, at the same time that Kasper’s parents looked over at her for confirmation of their words.

“Anika?” they asked. “They were always much closer with each other than with us. Twins, you know.” Anika looked up at the sound of her name. She pressed her lips together, as though physically keeping something contained. 

“No, no one,” she finally said. Stiles could feel the lie in the chaotic mix of her emotions and the pain of keeping a secret. Emily too seemed to sense something off about her answer, because her gaze lingered a bit before she turned back to the parents. 

“Okay,” Emily said. “Was Kasper religious? You don’t have to answer, but there were some religious elements to her murder.” 

“Hindu. Could he have been killed for…for that?” Mrs. Swapan stumbled over the words with dread. 

“We don’t believe so, but we can’t rule it out. Had he faced any hate speech or actions on campus?” Stiles asked. 

“Not that he ever told us,” Mr. Swapan said. 

“Like he would have told anyone,” Anika scoffed, the first thing she’d said without prompting. All eyes turned back to her and she looked like she wanted to take the words back. “It’s Ohio,” she finally added. “The University was good for him, but he wanted to go somewhere else after he graduated. He and a friend were looking at apartments in San Francisco.” 

“Could we have the name of his friend?” Emily asked. Given the surprise on the parents’ faces, they hadn’t been made aware of Kasper’s plans to move away from home.

“Yes, I would like to know as well,” Mr. Swapan stated. 

“Why did you never tell us?” Mrs. Swapan added. 

“He wanted to tell you himself,” Anika replied, then for the agents’ benefit, “Mark. I don’t know his last name, sorry. I think I can find his phone number though.” 

“That would be very helpful,” Emily said. Anika took out her phone. Stiles saw that her hands were shaking slightly. He stood.

“You can give me the number out here,” he said, gesturing towards the door. “SSA Prentiss can finish here.” He looked at Emily for confirmation and she nodded. Anika looked grateful for the out and followed Stiles out of the little room. 

“Thank you,” she said quietly, swallowing. 

“Of course. I’m very sorry for your loss.” Stiles almost reached out to touch a hand to her wrist, could feel Nogitsune urging him to do it, to take her pain rather than just feel it coming off of her, but he held back. Stiles, evil spirit or not, was not so far gone that he would touch someone without clear indication that they wanted to be touched. At least not yet. He dreaded the day when that might happen. 

“Here’s the number,” Anika said. “I don’t know where he is now. We lost touch after…um. Anyway.” Stiles copied the number down in his notes.

Then he leaned in just a little closer, keeping his voice low. “Kasper and Mark. Were they…just friends?” Anika looked at him sharply, and then looked around. Very few people were looking in their direction, and everyone was out of range of overhearing them. 

“He was going to tell our parents. He had planned a dinner for it that week,” she said, voice barely above a whisper. “Mark wasn’t out either. They wanted to move to start over together.” 

“Nobody else knew?” Stiles asked.

Anika shook her head. “We told each other everything. He was my best friend.” Tears welled in her eyes, but she sniffed and brushed them away before they could fall, like she was angry at herself for having emotions. 

“We’ll find who did this,” Stiles assured her. 

“Like you found who took him two years ago?” she replied. There wasn’t any particular malice in her voice. She was resigned to the fact that her brother’s killer would remain free. Stiles didn’t know what to say to convince her otherwise, and he didn’t get the chance to try because the door to the meeting room opened and Emily came out with Kasper’s parents.

“Thank you for your time. We are going to do everything in our power to ensure we find who did this,” Emily was assuring them. Mr. Swapan reached his hand out for her to shake, and she took it. Stiles held his hand out as well, and when their palms connected, a rush of pain too long concealed flooded his body. Nogitsune sighed contentedly, reaching out as though it could also touch Mr. Swapan. The man took his hand away and Stiles stepped back, feeling Nogitsune’s disappointment. 

“What did you get from the sister?” Emily asked. “Must have been good.”

“What makes you say that?” Stiles asked, tapping the back of his phone to his palm. 

“When you were shaking Mr. Swapan’s hand, you looked more relaxed than I’ve seen you all day. And it’s like you’ve been filled with a boost of energy now.” 

Stiles hadn’t noticed he’d also been rocking back and forth on his feet. He did feel much better. Stiles didn’t know what to respond to Emily though. He did get something from Anika, but it had nothing to do with his happier mood, because that was brought on by him feeding off of the emotions of a grieving father and loving every second of it. 

“I’ll tell you when we get to the conference room,” he said.

Chapter Text

Mark had moved to San Francisco only six months earlier, but he said he would be willing to talk to the agents if they went to him, so Emily and Stiles were granted permission to use the jet to fly across the country. Stiles could feel his pack bonds getting stronger the closer he got to his home state more clearly than he ever had before, like there was a string around one of the ventricles of his heart viciously tugging him home. It had been a fairly constant ache of homesickness since he’d left, but now that the bond sensed the possibility of his return it was nearly unbearable. He rubbed at his chest absentmindedly. 

“Don’t have a heart attack on me,” Emily remarked, catching the motion. He was about to pass it off with some excuse of him being tired before he remembered that he could actually tell her things like this now. 

“It’s because we’re getting closer to Beacon Hills. I can feel it,” he admitted.

“Does it hurt?” she asked, knowing the answer.

He shrugged, and fell back on a reliable lie. “It’s fine.” She raised an eyebrow. “There’s nothing I can do about it,” he amended; she nodded, satisfied.

“Has the devil on your shoulder had any input?” she asked, a propos nothing. 

“Nothing helpful,” Stiles said, making sure to glare straight at Nogitsune standing over Emily’s shoulder as he said it. “It hinted that there’s a connection between the victims but wouldn’t tell me what. It would rather watch us struggle to figure it out.”

“What can I say? You’re a rather entertaining little rat, running through your little maze.” 

“If I’m a rat, what are you? A flea? A little parasite clinging to me?” Stiles shot back. 

“Touchy,” Nogitsune grinned, showing Stiles his own pointed teeth. 

“It’s going well then,” Emily said with an impressive facade of calm that surely came from her years as a spy. 

“It could be going a lot worse.”

Nogitsune smiled wider and an image of Emily flashed across Stiles’ mind, on the floor, one arm ripped clean off, blood pouring from the wound and painting the carpet, chairs, walls, and ceiling of the plane, her eyes wide and staring. Stiles blinked it away and took an anxious sip of water to dispel the bile that had risen in his throat. He had hardly managed to clear the image from his mind when his chest gave an extra sharp tug. He lurched forward, clutching at his shirt. He tried to straighten up but the pain was too great. He squeezed his eyes shut, not daring to breathe, fearing that feeling of glass in his lungs that had made itself apparent. 

“Stiles!” Emily exclaimed. She got up from her chair and kneeled in front of him, one hand on his shoulder, the other on his knee. “Hey, what’s wrong?” 

“Fuck,” he groaned eloquently. “Phone,” he rasped. Emily scrambled in his blazer pocket, drawing it out.

“Who do you need to call?”

His first instinct was Derek, but he knew as soon as the thought crossed his mind that that was wrong. “Scott,” he said through clenched teeth, unable to stop the pained whine that came after. Emily scrolled through his contacts until she found his name, and put it on speaker. The pain increased when it wasn’t Scott who answered, but Malia. 

“Stiles?” she sounded shaken. For a moment he couldn’t answer. Thankfully, Emily recognized the issue here.

“This is Emily. Stiles is here but he’s not able to talk. He said to call Scott.” 

“That emissary thing’s no joke,” Malia said, voice distant. There was shouting on her end. “It’s Stiles!” she called to whoever else was in the room. 

“Thank fuck.” That was definitely Lydia, her voice only a little quieter than Malia’s. Then it was much louder. “Tell me you looked in the Grimoire, because something is happening.” 

“Scott,” Stiles gasped. It seemed to be the only thing he could say.

“He’s injured. We got attacked by…” she trailed off. It was never a good sign when Lydia couldn’t find her words. Stiles had stopped paying attention after ‘injured’ though. 

“What happened to him?” Emily demanded on Stiles’ behalf, once again finely tuned to the implicit needs of everyone around her. 

“He’s poisoned but we don’t know what it is yet. It was on their swords.” 

“Swords?” Stiles gasped. His first thought was the Oni but that couldn’t be right. Their swords were only poisonous when Nogitsune made them that way. 

“It wasn’t the Oni. They were zombies,” Lydia was quick to assuage his worries. 

“Zombies with swords?” Emily asked. 

“The problem is there’s about a million myths about zombies so we have no idea what they actually were,” Malia was back. “Mason’s researching but we don’t know how long Scott has. He’s not fighting it off like he should be.”

The pain was lessening, and Stiles hoped it was because he was fixing the problem and not because Scott was…nope okay not thinking about that. “What did they look like?” he breathed, straightening up as much as he could, wincing as his chest gave another tug. 

“Like zombies. You know, dead but walking around,” was Malia’s typically blunt answer. 

“Average zombies don’t have swords,” Stiles pointed out.

“They weren’t people, not recent ones anyway,” Lydia stated. “And they definitely weren’t from the Beacon Hills cemetery. They looked kind of like the berserkers,” she added, “but their skulls and bones were human, not animal. They had horns made of thin branches.” 

“One of them turned into a crow!” Theo shouted in the background. 

There was something tugging at Stiles’ memory but he couldn’t put his finger on it. He looked over at Nogitsune, hating how desperate he must appear.

“Sounds familiar,” Nogitsune purred. 

Stiles knew what it wanted. “Please,” he said.

“If I’m a spirit from Japan in the East, and werewolves are a creature of Greece,” it rhymed. “There’s beasts everywhere, none of us unique. La Llorona haunts rivers in the South, Jiangshi steals life in the East. The spirits unable to cross the river to the after, battered by stones for their evil deeds in life haunt the West, and in the North what do we get?”

“A riddle. Really?” 

“You like riddles.” 

“I really don’t,” he said half-heartedly, but thought over the words all the same, knowing it was all he would get out of Nogitsune. La Llorona was a ghost in Latin American folklore, a woman who drowned her children and so was cursed to look for them in rivers for her afterlife. Jiangshi was a witch-like ghost creature in Chinese folklore who fed on the souls of the living, and the evil spirits being unable to cross the river was from Mississipian folklore, where a group of six threw stones at spirits crossing the slippery log to the afterlife, and only the evil spirits who tried to dodge the stones fell into the water. All stories of the dead unable to cross over: zombies and ghosts, but there was so much of the world that was considered Northern. It could be an Algonquian story, a tribe native to Canada and decidedly in the Northern hemisphere. But the most common thought when it came to “the North” was the Norse. The Norse equivalent of a ghost or a zombie was a–

“Draugr!” Stiles exclaimed, looking to Nogitsune, who only smiled. It wasn’t a no though. “Draugr. They’re Norse undead.”

“Okay?” Malia said. “What kind of poison do they use?”

“They don’t,” Stiles replied. “They don’t usually have swords either. What are his symptoms? Do you have any of Deaton’s other books?” As much as he was loath to admit it, Deaton knew way more about medicinal remedies and plants than any of them. Stiles supposed that now, as the emissary, he was supposed to know about all of that stuff but he’d kind of had a lot going on. He didn’t have time to study botany. 

“Ethan and Jackson went to get them, but we didn’t think it was safe to move Scott,” Lydia replied.

“Where are you guys?” Stiles asked. 

“In the woods.” 

“Near the Nemeton?”

“No. Obviously we thought of that first.” Stiles didn’t let Lydia’s harsh tone get to him. She was just worried. Everyone was. He could feel it coating the inside of his mouth like cotton on top of his own barely tamped down terror.

“What are his symptoms?” Stiles asked, wishing Reid was on this plane as he surely had an encyclopedia of some kind memorized that would help with this.

“He’s sweaty and red, his pupils are dilated, he keeps spasming, and um…I think he’s seeing things.” 

“You think?”

“He said Allison’s name and he was looking into the open air.” 

“Where’s Mason?” Stiles asked. 

“Liam’s on the phone with him. He’s looking up the symptoms.”

“Okay. Okay good.” Stiles leaned back, the pain pretty much entirely gone. “Tell me what he comes up with.” 

Mason’s voice should have been quiet—in fact, through two cell phones, even on speaker it shouldn’t have been audible at all—but Stiles heard it clearly, if a little muffled, when he exclaimed “henbane! We need goat milk and fennel!” 

“Where the hell are we going to get goat milk?” Malia exclaimed. 

“Deaton will have some,” Stiles stated, positive that it was exactly the type of thing the weird druid would have in a fridge somewhere. It might be spoiled, but it would be there. 

“I texted Jackson; he says they’ve got it!” Lydia cried in relief. Stiles sunk back into his chair. It was a matter of a few tense minutes before Jackson and Ethan made it back to the clearing, evidenced to Stiles by the exclamations of the others. Still, he was forced to wait as they administered the supposed cure to the wound.

“He’s stabilizing,” Lydia sighed.

“Thank god,” Stiles mumbled, chewing on a nail. 

“You’re welcome,” Nogitsune said.

“Thank you,” Jackson stated. 

“I didn’t really do anything,” Stiles replied, confused. He’d been pretty much useless over the phone. He was definitely going to buy some books on medicinal plants the first chance he got. Figuring out that it was Draugr they had been fighting was good for them to know, but hadn’t been at all relevant to the poison.

“Deaton didn’t have goat milk,” Jackson said. 

Stiles stopped chewing on his nails. “What? But—”

“We opened the fridge, and there was nothing. We think he cleaned it out before he left. We were about to run to a grocery store as a last resort when it appeared in front of us, right there on the center of the shelf as if it had always been there,” Jackson explained.

Stiles considered. “I just assumed he had it.” 

“And so he did,” Lydia said.

“I didn’t even notice I did anything,” he mumbled.

“That’s good,” Lydia maintained. “That means it was instinctual.”

“I’m not sure I want to be doing magic without noticing that I’m doing it,” Stiles argued.

“Be glad you did, or Scott would be dead,” Theo said with his usual helpful and cheery disposition. Stiles felt an urge to be home so strong he was a little surprised he didn’t accidentally teleport himself to Beacon Hills. He shoved it to the side with considerable effort.

“The fact that there was poison on the blades of the draugr implies that they were equipped with weapons before they got to you,” he said. “It also means they were summoned rather than created, because they couldn’t have come from the Beacon Hills cemetery.” 

“So there’s some new big bad in town. Shocker,” Lydia said. 

“Do you need me to come home?” Stiles asked, no longer biting his nails but still rubbing his thumb over his lips, feeling the chapped skin there from how much he’d been biting them. 

“Believe it or not, we can cope without you,” Lydia stated.

“That’s not what I asked.”

“We’ll be okay,” she assured him.

“Liam?” Stiles asked, knowing that he was the most likely to ask him to come home for fear of the pack being in over their heads without him. 

“Lydia’s right,” Liam said. Stiles had a feeling Lydia was making very threatening gestures towards him to get him to say it, but it eased his fears anyway. “We’ll call you if we need anything.” 

“You didn’t call me this time,” Stiles pointed out.

“You knew something was wrong before we had the chance,” Lydia argued. “Which should be even more proof that it’s fine.” 

“But what if I can’t get to you in time?”

“Stiles.” She was using the voice she used when he was being particularly stupid. “You can theoretically be here in the blink of an eye. You have literal magic powers.” 

“Theoretically,” he muttered petulantly. 

“Goodbye Stiles.” 

“Wait, I want to talk to Scott!” Nothing. “Lydia?” Stiles drew the phone away from his ear and looked at the screen to confirm Lydia’s betrayal. “She hung up on me.” He glared at the phone for a few more seconds. 

“Do you always experience debilitating pain when one of your friends is in danger?” Emily asked, getting shakily to her feet and then collapsing back into her own seat.

“It’s a new development. It used to be just a feeling of immense dread or panic.” 

“Fun.” 

Stiles snorted. 

“Do you need to go home?” she asked.

“They told me not to.” Stiles crossed his arms and then realized that made him look like a pouting five year old and uncrossed them, resting his palms on his thighs. 

“That’s not what I asked,” Emily said with a teasing smile. 

Stiles rolled his eyes. “No, they’ll be okay. I just worry.”

“Any mother would.” 

“Oh my god,” Stiles groaned. “I am not their mom!” 

“You totally are,” Emily disagreed. 

“I should never have introduced you to them.” 

“The fact you’d keep your children a secret from me really shows how much our friendship must mean to you. I’m a little offended.” 

“You’re the worst.” Stiles’ phone buzzed and he looked at the screen. It was a text from Derek.

Talked to Jackson.

You Okay?

Scott’s fine now. It was an awful few minutes though.

I’ll call you later. You okay?

Had to duck into the back office with my eyes closed

Shit

Good now

Stiles tucked his phone away again. He didn’t tell Derek that for him it had felt like he was having a heart attack (more like getting his heart ripped right out of his chest). That seemed like a conversation for a phone call, not a text. 

***

Emily rang the buzzer while Stiles looked at the street that Mark’s apartment was on. It wasn’t San Francisco’s nicest neighborhood, and it was a painful uphill walk to get to it, but all things considered it couldn’t have been cheap. They were buzzed up almost immediately. It was an older San Francisco building, without an elevator, so they walked up the rickety, narrow staircase to the second floor apartment. The door was open when they got there, a young man standing there. 

Mark was tall, really tall, at least six foot six, and built like a linebacker, but despite that he had a generally non-threatening demeanor, hands shoved in his pockets and eyes clear and friendly. “SSA’s Prentiss and Stilinski?” he asked.

“Thank you for meeting with us,” Emily replied. He reached out a hand and they shared a firm handshake. Stiles did the same. Mark wasn’t in a huge amount of pain. The only thing there was the dull ache of an old wound. Unlike Anika and the rest of Kasper’s family, Mark seemed to have found a way to cope with his loss. Perhaps the clear signs of another person living in the apartment had something to do with that: two mugs on the kitchen counter, a mix of styles in the furniture, and of course the photograph of Mark with another man on the fridge.

“Coffee? Tea?” Mark asked, leading them into the small but cozy living room, and gesturing for them to take the couch. There wasn’t other seating so he dragged a chair from the kitchen a few feet away for himself.

“No, thank you,” Emily replied. Stiles wouldn’t have minded some coffee to settle his nerves, but felt it would be awkward to ask if Emily had already declined.

Mark sat. “You found him then?” His face was grim, hands clasped in front of him tight enough for the knuckles to be devoid of color. 

“We’re very sorry for your loss,” Emily replied. It was answer enough. Mark let out a long, slow sigh. 

“I never really thought he was still out there but…I couldn’t know, so there was always that…”

“What if,” Stiles provided. Mark nodded absent-mindedly. There was a shine in his eyes that he was clearly trying to keep from becoming full tears. 

“We’re sorry to have to ask you about this, but you and Kasper were together when he was abducted right?” Emily asked.

Mark blinked hard. “Uh, yeah. It had been almost two years.” His voice caught. “We were going to move here together.” Without thinking about it, Stiles reached out to put his hand over Mark’s. 

“Take you time,” he breathed as the pain washed over him. It took effort to pull back again. His mind was sharper after the contact.

“Had anyone new come into your lives?” Emily asked. “Anyone at all. I know it was a long time ago, but really any tiny detail could help.” 

He shook his head. “No. No one. We stayed pretty solitary. I had a bigger friend group, but it was still mostly people I grew up with.” 

“Anyone you interacted with on an average day? A barista at a favorite coffee shop?” 

Again, he shook his head no.

“What about anyone that disappeared from your lives? Someone who had been a friend or a constant, who left one day?” Stiles asked.

Mark hesitated. “I mean…there was David, but he just dropped out. Moved back to his hometown.” 

“Do you have a last name?” 

“I don’t remember, sorry. We weren’t close. He was a Classics major. Kasper met him his first year when they were in a mythology class together. The type of friends that might eat in the dining hall together but don’t hang out, you know? You don’t think he could’ve done this, do you? He was just a normal guy.” 

It didn’t sound super promising, but it was better than nothing. “We’re just trying to gather all the information we can,” Emily replied. “Did you see Kasper the day he was taken?” 

“Why?”

“It’s just to build a timeline,” she reassured him. 

He rubbed his palms on his jeans. “He was gone when I woke up. I knew he had lunch plans, so I wasn’t worried until he didn’t meet me for dinner.” 

“Who were his lunch plans with?”

“I don’t know. I—I should’ve asked. That’s probably the last person that saw him, I just…I didn’t think about it. I didn’t—”

“This is not your fault,” Stiles stated. “You couldn’t have known. It’s healthy that you didn’t need to know everything about where he was going.” Stiles’ phone began to buzz in his pocket. He frowned, taking it out. It was Hotch. He showed the screen to Emily, and she nodded for him to go back towards the front door. “Sorry,” he muttered to Mark. 

“Hotch?” he asked, keeping his voice low.

“We have another kidnapping,” Hotch said without preamble.

“Shit,” Stiles breathed. “Okay, we’re almost done here, and then we’ll hop back on the jet.”

“The boyfriend give you anything useful?”

“Maybe.” Stiles ran a hand through his hair. “I’ve got a first name, and then a mystery figure that Kasper was supposed to have lunch with the day he disappeared.” Saying it out loud, it sounded like pretty much nothing, but Hotch was much too professional to say that. 

“I’ll pass it to Garcia. What’s the name?”

“David.” Stiles winced at the incredibly common name. He supposed if anyone could find their needle in a stack of needles it would be Garcia, but he still wasn’t holding out much hope.

“Okay. What about the new victim?”

“Ezra Boyce. Another college student. His girlfriend reported him missing today.”

“What the hell? They have to be victims of opportunity. Kasper was two years ago. He’s been planning this for ages, but he had to wait for victims that checked all his boxes, whatever those boxes are. Financial issues can’t be the only correlation.” 

“We think so too. We have no way of knowing if he has all of his victims already, or if there are some that he hasn’t crossed paths with yet. We’re scheduling a press conference on the Ohio State campus to warn the public to be vigilant.”

“Okay. We’ll be back in six hours.” Stiles hung up the phone and returned to the living room. He caught Emily’s eye and nodded a little towards the door. She understood immediately, standing up.

“Thank you for all your help,” she said to Mark. 

“I’m sorry I don’t remember anything more useful,” he replied, standing as well. 

“It’s all useful,” Stiles reassured him.

Emily handed over her card. “If you remember anything, don’t hesitate to call.” 

When they were back out on the street, Stiles revealed “there’s another missing person.”

“I figured,” Emily sighed.

“Ezra Boyce, another college student.” 

Emily shook her head. “Ohio has a lot of empty farmland; he could be holding them anywhere, but he has to have some way to transport the victims when he grabs them. Something nondescript, that wouldn’t be noticed.”

“Not a white van,” Stiles said, making an attempt at humor. It didn’t work.

“What’s the most commonly driven car in Ohio?”

“That would be a question for Reid, but probably a truck of some kind.”

“Hm, no. He doesn’t strike me as a Ford F-150 kind of guy.”

“No he doesn’t; not to mention an open truck bed would make kidnapping way more complicated.” 

Emily fell silent. “Let’s just get back to Ohio,” she said finally. “Maybe the team will have found something by then.

***

The team had found something, but it wasn’t what they’d hoped. They were almost back at the Columbus police station when Emily’s phone rang.

“Prentiss…Yeah, we’re almost there, 10 minutes,” she answered. “What? Okay, turning around.” She took the phone from her ear and, one handed with one eye on the road, punched an address into Maps. Then she made the most dangerous U-turn Stiles had ever experienced (and he’d made plenty of werewolf-evading maneuvers in his time). 

“What happened?” Stiles demanded, gripping the doorframe for dear life. 

“Anika’s missing.” 

“What?” 

“She was supposed to meet her parents for breakfast, but she never showed. They went to her place and she was gone. There were signs of a struggle.” 

“Why would he go after Anika? After all this time? It doesn’t make any sense!”

“I know.” She pressed harder on the gas pedal. 

***

They arrived at Anika’s little house in record time, but the rest of the team had still arrived before them. Stiles was out of the car before it had fully stopped moving, racing through the open front door. 

“What the hell happened?” he demanded without preamble to the agents who were standing in the living room. 

“There were no signs of forced entry,” JJ provided. Emily came in behind Stiles. 

“So she let the attacker in? It was someone she knew?” 

“Or someone she thought she knew,” Stiles said. He’d run in so fast, he hadn’t immediately felt the change in atmosphere, but it prickled over his skin now. Stiles licked his lips. His eyes fell on a little pile of dust on the floor. He strode over and knelt beside it, putting on a glove before pinching some of it up, inspecting it. “Moonstone,” he muttered. “That’s weird.” There was a sweet scent in the air. 

“Do you guys smell that?” he asked. “Like…sweet?” He pointed to a vase of lavender on the table. “It’s not the lavender, it’s stronger.” 

“They have no idea what you’re talking about,” Nogitsune provided, prompting Stiles to look at his teammates' faces. They all looked like they desperately wanted to believe him, but it was clear they couldn’t sense what he could. 

“Nevermind,” he said. “Carry on. I’m just gonna look outside for a second. It’s probably nothing.” 

“Wait, Stiles–” Morgan tried, but he was already gone, out the back door. Stiles followed that sweet, cloying scent around the side of the house and back towards the front. Anika’s tiny backyard hadn’t opened onto another street, but the unsub still took her out the back and then back around the side to the front, maybe for better access to the shadows in order to ensure that the street was clear before he got her into his vehicle. Stiles brushed a hand over the ivy growing on her side fence. It was torn up in places, like Anika had been fighting, still conscious when she was taken. Interesting. A flower was lying on the path ahead, just before the sidewalk. 

Stiles knelt down and picked up the culprit of the sweet scent he’d been smelling. Angel’s trumpet. Unlike the moonstone, the flower hadn’t been crushed. He’d probably just had it whole in his pocket. Crude, and barely effective, but with enough raw power it could work. 

“Stiles!” Stiles looked up toward the street, flower held between two fingers still. It was Reid, standing with the rest of the team. He had the light of discovery in his eyes, hands fluttering around, like he was already in the process of explaining himself even though he wasn’t speaking. 

“What’d you find?” Stiles asked, jogging over.

“I think these are sacrifices,” Reid said. “All of the victims were from vastly different backgrounds, but if you put those backgrounds side by side, they’re the Greek gods. It was tugging at me before, but Anika and Kasper are twins. Kasper was studying music, and in Anika’s closet we found archery materials, the kind used for bow hunting.”

“Artemis and Apollo,” Stiles nodded, seeing where Reid was going with this.

“Exactly!” Reid exclaimed. “Ezra Boyce was a theater major, but he was known for partying. He was always out, always the first to invite people for drinks. One of his friends said that he was rarely seen sober. Our other two victims were a teacher, and a mother and wife.” 

“Dionysus, Hera…”

“And Athena. I think. That one’s a stretch, but the rest all fit,” Reid finished. 

“It’s a good theory,” Stiles said. “Especially when you consider that I found this.” He held up the flower. “It’s angel’s trumpet. That’s what the smell was. And the dust on the floor was crushed up moonstone. Both are used for glamor and illusion spells. I’m not talking witch here; I’m talking someone with access to Google. He just stuffed the flower and crystals into his pockets. It shouldn’t have even worked, but with enough natural talent, or with a token of some kind, it’s possible. It didn’t work well though. I think when some of the moonstone dust fell out, the illusion started to fade, and that’s when he resulted to brute force. He took her, still conscious, out the back and down the side. She fought the whole way, but he never knocked her out.”

“Maybe he didn’t want to damage her,” JJ said. 

“If the victims are sacrifices, he may need them intact beforehand, as part of the ritual,” Rossi agreed.

“My thoughts exactly.” 

“If the victims are all representations of the twelve olympians, then who is he sacrificing to?” Emily asked. 

“Kronos?”

“The cannibalistic aspects must mean something, or he wouldn’t go through the trouble of staging the bodies like that,” Morgan pointed out. 

“Kronos did eat his children, didn’t he? The twelve olympians.” JJ said. Reid nodded. 

“But why sacrifice to Kronos?” Stiles asked.

“If he thinks these victims are the twelve olympians, maybe he thinks there’s someone out there already who’s Kronos,” Reid posited. “I’m gonna take another look at the geoprofile, see if the where the bodies are found might have some correlation that we didn’t see before. If he wants someone specific to witness his handiwork, then there has to be someone who would have reason to be in all those places.”

“Good idea. In the meantime, we need to find Anika,” Hotch stated. “Stiles, is there any way for you to track this guy? You were able to follow some kind of trail to that flower.” 

“I can try, but it’s not strong magic; it won’t leave much, especially over a long distance.”

“Try anyway,” Hotch said. “Even if you can give us a direction. Then we can have Garcia look into possible locations along that trajectory.” 

Stiles nodded. “Anika didn’t have financial issues,” he said. “Did she?” 

“Not that Garcia could find,” Morgan replied.

“That means financial distress is a personal preference, but not the overall mission. The sacrifices are the higher purpose,” Rossi said. “But finances are personal. That’s where we’ll get this guy.” 

“We’ll have Garcia look into anyone who was passed over for a loan going back three years,” Hotch said.

“Have her start with students at the University. It’s his main victim pool,” Rossi added. 

“Reid and JJ, go back to the precinct and continue the geo profile. Morgan and Prentiss, I want you to talk to Anika and Kasper’s parents again, make sure there’s nothing we’re missing. Dave, I want you working on the Ezra Boyce angle. Stiles, I’ll go with you to see if we can follow the unsub from here.” 

Stiles was a little surprised that Hotch wanted to tag along for the magic stuff, but he wasn’t going to complain. He knew that Hotch didn’t trust him like he once had, and that was fair enough. Hotch had gone out on a limb hiring Stiles in the first place. If this was a chance for Stiles to show him that he was the same person he’d always been, the same person that Hotch had trusted would be an asset to the team those years ago, then he was going to take it.