He remembered it better than anyone. The way he was trapped behind that fogged glass, watching himself be controlled and do things he would have never usually done. He had watched as he’d knocked out Kira and twisted that blade in Scott’s gut. He’d seen the looks of agony on the faces of his close ones. Stiles had been a witness to everything.
When he’d finally been released from the grasp of the thing that had possessed
him he couldn’t have felt more elated. Until he realized everything that had happened. So much blood had been shed and it was all his fault.
Upon waking up he hadn’t thought about it, for about a minute or so. He’d seen the faces of the people he loved. Scott had been there, Lidia… Somehow she still managed to look gorgeous even after she’d just saved his life. Derek had been there too. For a moment he almost thought that everything was okay – that everything could work itself out.
Then all the red had blurred his vision. All Stiles could see was the red on his hands, on his shirt and seeping through his chest. Blood rushed in his ears, came out of his eyes as he cried and when he’d tried to get up he couldn’t. He couldn’t feel anything. He tried to arch up and wiggle his toes, tried to stand up so he could run from all the red.
His breath had caught in his throat, the panic overcoming him when he couldn’t figure out why he couldn’t move.
He recalled something tugging at his spine when Scott and Lidia finally freed him. There had been a burning sensation at the base of his back where his hips met together and then after a stabbing shot of pain there had been nothing. That’s when he’d come to, eyes opening to see the Mccall’s living room.
His finger nails had scraped at the floor, forcing him onto his side. He’d sat up by sheer force and adrenaline, crashing down soon after and hitting his head on the corner of the coffee table. And someone had started holding him then – he thought it was Scott but no one had ever cleared it up for him – cooing words in his ears, trying to get him to breathe. Someone was shouting that something was wrong and Melissa had been checking him, trying to see what it was that had triggered Stiles into this state.
And then later on in the hospital, a place he was beginning to loathe since it brought him nothing but bad news, it was confirmed that he was paralyzed. Inexplicably, medical wise, but they all knew the real reason. The Nogitsune had taken more than just a piece of his life when it had left.
----
“I’m fine,” Stiles assured his dad as he dropped his school bag by the door. His shoes were the next thing to come off, though these were decidedly harder to take off. He bent at the waist where he could, reaching out with his arm and grabbing at the shoe lace that stuck up just high enough for him to grab with the tips of his fingers. As he forced his body to cooperate with its new conditions he cursed in his head, too proud and stubborn to ask his father for help despite the fact that he was but two feet away from him.
After a few minutes of still being unable to get even one shoe off Sheriff Stilinksi finally spoke up, hesitantly but with good intentions. “Are you sure you don’t want any help?” he began.
