Author's Note: This did NOT go as I'd planned but I think you'll like it better. Funny how stories sometimes drive themselves! Enjoy.

How to Starve a Demon

PenPatronus

Chapter 2 of 2

Feed Me

Stiles went from using his real eyes to look at Scott and Derek, to the dreamscape version of the loft, using his dream eyes to look down at his own body. He gasped. He stumbled backwards. His right hand covered his mouth. "How the hell am I alive?" he whispered.

Stiles' body was corpse-thin, his skin corpse-toned. His clothes were as soaked with sweat as they'd been with rain. Whether it was because of the frontotemporal dementia, the demon, Deaton's poison or the starvation, Stiles didn't know. And it didn't matter.

Everything that was him was dying.

"Watch this," a voice hissed behind him. "Watch your friends die trying to save you."

Stiles spun around and saw the Nogitsune creeping towards him. He groaned, and the demon repeated the sound in a mocking voice. Stiles turned back to his body and saw everyone else in the room as well. Kira and the werewolves knelt around him and Scott began to draw Stiles' pain into himself. "That's my pack," Stiles whispered. He'd never considered using that word when referring to himself but as he said it, it felt right. "That's my pack and they're…" He smirked at the Nogitsune. "They're going to kick your ass!"

The Nogitsune began a chuckle that quickly morphed into a cackle. Stiles' stomach dropped to his heels. "Do you know why demons need human hosts, Stiles?"

Deadpan, numb, Stiles whispered, "No." He thought about it for another second and then guessed: "Because you're spirits. You have no physical form. We're just… we're just vehicles for you. Just arms and legs."

The cackle merged with a snort through the Nogitsune's invisible nose. "Clever thing you are. But why, Stiles, do you think we choose humans? Humans, not animals or monsters. Not any other living thing in this world?"

Stiles shook his head. He was fed up with riddles.

The Nogitsune slithered over to Lydia and trailed his bandaged forefinger down her arm. She shivered and flapped her hand like she was swatting a fly. "Human souls are limitless, Stiles. A never-ending, bottomless well. You're capable of infinite love, infinite hate, and infinite—"

"Pain." Stiles dragged all ten fingers through his hair. He thought of how much he loved his dad – how he couldn't imagine ever being able to love him enough. He thought about how much he missed his mother – the sharp pain he felt in his chest every time he remembered her – how the pain's sharpness had slowly dulled through the years but would never, ever go away… "Scott could take out as much as he can stand but it will never be enough."

"We demons are made of pain, and also fueled by it." The demon walked around the werewolves but none of them seemed to sense him like Lydia did. "When we don't have a body to infest we're forced to feed on ourselves and eventually we die. But you, Stiles, you're a buffet. 'All you can eat.' I could drink everyone in this room until they die and still live off your soul forever. I'd be disappointed with only your flavor of pain to consume but, still, immortal." The Nogitsune had snuck up on Stiles and now he whispered in his ear. "Scott is going to give up his Alpha powers for you, Stiles. He might even give up his life. And it won't make any difference."

"Stop," Stiles said to the shadow that was Scott. He tried to touch him but his hands passed through Scott's body like he was a ghost. "Scott, Derek, stop! You have to stop!" He yelled.

The Nogitsune retreated back into the shadowy corners, his laugh victorious.

Stiles turned in a circle, desperate for some miracle to come along and save his friends. Tear drops flooded his view of the room. "I don't know what to do," he said aloud, his voice shaking and then breaking. "How do I—" His gaze fell on Lydia. He said her name, then walked right up to her face and repeated it. For a full minute – maybe longer – Stiles begged Lydia to hear him. "Listen to me, Lydia, tell them to stop!" he screamed. "They'll die! That's enough, that's enough, don't let them die! Lydia!"

Isaac let go first. It was too much – the electrical burns combined with Stiles' pain. He hung on for almost a full minute before Deaton and Melissa picked him up and led him back to Derek's bed. Isaac was unconscious before he even touched the sheets.

It looked like hundreds of skinny black snakes were crawling over Stiles' skin. They skittered up six hands but the seventh, Kira's, couldn't absorb the pain. She'd never tried before. It was a long shot but she still felt like she'd failed Scott. Frustrated, she let go of Stiles' arm and retreated back to the picnic table. Peter and Deucalion joined her a minute later. Neither of them were willing to suffer more than a dull ache for Stiles, no matter how much Derek threatened them.

Ethan and Aiden had their own agenda. Saving Scott's best friend would surely convince the Alpha to let them into his pack. They'd made it a competition – the Twin who took out the most pain was the winner. They didn't let go even when they started to sweat and shake. Groans came next, followed by shouts of agony. And then, almost at the same time, Ethan and Aiden passed out from the pain, smacking the backs of their heads into the cement when they fell.

That left Derek and Scott. They'd both had enough practice with pain to be able to stay silent around it. Around the ten minute mark, Derek collapsed forward. His cheek landed on Stiles' chest. That heartbeat was the last thing Derek heard before he passed out. His last thought was the hope that it wouldn't take twenty hours to recover this time like it did with Cora. Deaton and Melissa had just finished dragging the Twins off to the sidelines. They moved Derek as well, leaving him on his back beneath the iron spiral staircase.

Scott's eyes radiated red. The slithering snakes slowed down but didn't stop. Exhausted, Scott lay on his side, parallel with Stiles, and just barely kept three fingers on his friend's skin. His determined look scrunched up with pain and he could no longer hold back a wolf roar of agony. It felt like the time Derek held a blow torch against his skin to reveal his tattoo. It felt like a thousand blowtorches right at his heart.

Suddenly, Lydia squeaked and sprinted over to him. "Scott, stop." She knelt between Scott and Stiles' heads and shouted, "That's enough, Scott. That's enough! You're killing yourself!"

Scott didn't care. He couldn't. He drew the pain out faster, his resolve firm. All that mattered was saving Stiles.

He probably would've died not a minute later if his mother hadn't grabbed his wrist and yanked him away from Stiles. Scott wanted to curse at her. He tried to crawl back to his best friend but he couldn't move. "I'm sorry, baby," Melissa whispered to him, her hands cradling his cheeks. "I'm sorry but I won't watch you kill yourself, even for Stiles."

Scott passed out with his best friend's name on his lips. The black shade to Stiles' veins disappeared and everyone went silent.

A long time passed before Deaton turned to Kira. "Ready?"

Kira reached into her purse and took out a fox tail she'd lifted from her mother. "I think so," she said with a tremor in her voice. She took a deep breath, and snapped the tail in half. The Oni appeared instantly. At Kira's instruction it grasped the side of Stiles' head, its firefly-eyes glowing. When the examination was complete it disappeared in a puff of black smoke. Deaton, Lydia, Melissa, Kira and Deucalion gathered around. Even Peter was curious enough to join them. Deaton gently folded Stiles' left ear and examined the skin behind it, looking for the Oni's mark, the backwards "5" that meant there was only one "self" in Stiles.

It wasn't there.

Stiles was still possessed.

"Dammit," Deaton whispered. He looked at Melissa and Lydia with wet eyes. "It didn't work. I'm sorry."

Scott woke up with a migraine that threatened to knock him out again. He moaned, rotated his shoulders, and cleared his throat. A blink or two later he realized that he was lying on the floor with his head cushioned by Kira's lap. Her eyes were red and her cheeks were swollen. "Did it work?" Scott asked.

"T-There's good news," Kira stuttered. "Y-You're still an Alpha. Deaton thinks that True Alphas can't give their powers away since they didn't take them in the first place."

Scott switched to begging. "Tell me Stiles is ok!"

"Scott," Kira hiccupped, "he's…" She shook her head back and forth. "I'm so sorry."

Scott fought through his dizziness and sat up. Light poured through the tall loft windows – it was noon, if not midafternoon. All of the other werewolves, including Isaac, were awake and on their feet. Derek was helping Scott's mom change an IV bag connected to Stiles' arm. Stiles hadn't moved an inch since Scott last saw him. Alive, still, but barely. "No," Scott tried to say but couldn't because his throat was so constricted. Constricted for a second, and then wide open the next when Scott banged his fists so hard into Derek's floor that he cracked it, and let out a howl so loud and high-pitched that the Twins had to cover their ears.

He didn't save Stiles. He couldn't save Allison. His two best friends – his brother and the first woman he loved – they were gone.

Dreamscape-Stiles ached to touch the grieving Scott. He just wanted to touch his shoulder and thank him for trying. All of them. Lydia and Kira, too. Stiles wasn't sure if Lydia actually heard him or if she just saw for herself that Scott was in trouble. Either way, he wanted to say goodbye to her, too. More than that Stiles wanted to make a joke to break the tension. Maybe order Scott to show "Star Wars" at his memorial service. They could have a big junk food feast. Tables full of taffy and chocolate ice cream, Gobstoppers and angel food cake, fried Twinkies and candy bars as big as a man's arm. They could eat and drink until they puked, until their stomachs exploded, until they burst. He'd make Derek read a sappy poem or sing a song about—

Stiles froze. He sat, frozen, for so long beside Scott that, if his friends could actually see him, they would've called an ambulance. And then Stiles lifted his face and looked around the room. He saw Deucalion and Peter eating the leftover pizza from the night before. He saw Deaton urging Isaac to drink more water. And he saw Derek's lonely little mini-fridge purring against the wall.

"Pain fuels you," Stiles whispered out loud. "Our fuel is food. Water, sunlight, food. We starve without it but – but it's possible to have too much, too." Stiles got to his feet and started pacing in a circle around Derek, Melissa, and his prone body on the floor. "Sunlight gives us vitamins but it can also burn. You need to drink water everyday but if you drink too much in too short of time you can drown yourself. And – and it's rare but you can literally eat so much that your stomach ruptures…"

Suddenly the Nogitsune emerged from behind Scott. Although the bandages covered its face, Stiles could tell that it looked panicked.

"They can't starve you," Stiles whispered. "But they can overfeed you!"

As though it were a planned race and somebody had just fired the starting pistol, both Stiles and the Nogitsune sprinted towards Lydia.

No one was paying attention to Lydia. No eyes were on her and the room was deadly quiet. So to say that her sudden yelp startled them is an understatement. She covered her ears and cried out, "Stiles – Stiles, stop, you're hurting me!" Water burst from her eyes and fell on Derek's shirt.

Just like that, it was over. Just like that the yelling in her head vanished as suddenly as it came. Lydia found herself kneeling on the floor with the others standing around her, dumbfounded. "I heard him," Lydia sobbed. "I heard Stiles – I'm sure, this time!'

Scott grabbed her arms and pulled her to her feet. "What did he say?"

"I just heard two words," she squeaked. "He screamed them at me but they don't make sense – they don't make sense!"

"Just tell us!"

Lydia took a deep breath to calm herself down and then she said, incredulously, "He said 'feed me.'"

Scott's grip on her elbows loosened. "What?"

Melissa spoke up first. "You mean… feed him food? But he's unconscious, Lydia."

"I don't – that's just what he said. I don't know what it means I just heard it!" Lydia wiped her eyes with the heels of her hands. Aiden came up behind her and pulled her face against his chest.

Derek stepped away from the group and returned to Stiles' side. Since he'd woken up, and only when the others weren't looking, he kept tugging more pain out of Stiles. He just couldn't give up, couldn't shake the feeling that there had to be something more that he could do for his friend.

Not friend. Pack-mate. Derek wasn't sure when it happened, when he transitioned from finding Stiles' personality irritating to endearing. At some point he'd started caring for Stiles as much as he cared for his sisters. And not just because he'd helped Derek. Not just because he'd saved Cora's life, covered for Derek numerous times and basically became not just Scott's but the pack's conscience. Stiles was his brother, so Derek took his hand and took more and more pain from him. Maybe just one more minute would starve the demon for good.

"Starve it," Derek first thought and then whispered out loud. That was how Deaton described the plan to them. Had Stiles heard it? Had he watched Derek and the others try it? "I'm starving," Derek realized. No pizza for him. No food had touched his lips in 24 hours. He needed to eat if he was going to keep working on Stiles' pain. He needed to feed.

"Feed!" Derek shouted. He leapt to his feet and returned to the group. "We were starving the demon of pain, guys, but Stiles wants us to feed him pain!"

Six voices asked, "What?"

"That's what he meant. I'm sure of it!" Derek looked to Scott for support. "What have we got to lose at this point? Nothing else has worked, are we just going to let him die?"

That last phrase woke Scott up. Determination / resolve / obsession / replaced his hopelessness / helplessness / despair. He shouldered his way past Ethan and Aiden and joined Derek at Stiles' side. "Push our pain into him instead of pulling his out?" he clarified.

"Find any physical pain in your body and focus on it. When that's gone, find some memories that are painful and push them." Derek looked over his shoulder at Kira. "Have that Oni on standby to check him."

Kira nodded. The werewolves returned to their spots and touched Stiles once more. "Do you really think this will work?" Scott whispered to Derek.

Derek shook his head helplessly. "Only one way to find out, Scott. You know that. On three?" Derek looked at the others. They nodded. "Ok. One, two, three—!"

The pain was the same color leaving their bodies as it was going in. Not a trickle but a downpour of pain. So much that Stiles' veins couldn't hold it. The blackness spread to his bones, his muscles, the rest of his skin cells until every inch of Stiles' body was inky black. The convulsions started, then. Stiles rubbed his wrists and ankles raw against the cuffs and chains. "Keep going!" Derek ordered the group. "Don't stop!"

It was torture. Ultimate torture. Stiles would be screaming if he was awake. They only hoped that the Nogitsune was.

And then, like one of the Argent's grenades, black smoke burst from Stiles' mouth. The blackness in his body climbed up his bones until it reached his throat. Ten seconds was what it took for the darkness to drain. With a final exhale, Stiles' lips went from black to pink and all of the smoke left him to hover above. It was so dark that it blocked the sunlight from the window, the display on Deucalion's watch, the blinking red lights of Derek's alarm system.

It was instinct – pure instinct that pulled Kira towards Stiles and the cloud. Electricity from the power station, electricity from the live wire at the hospital and her own internal fox fire erupted from her fingers. Golden eyes fixed on dark demon. Kira looked like some ancient goddess of lightning as she shot bolt after bolt at the Nogitsune and wave after wave of rolling fire over Stiles. Heat, brief shocks, directionless wind forced everyone else against the loft walls. Scott and Derek stared, open mouthed at the scene, their eyes darting from Stiles' body to Kira to the demon they'd exorcised.

Slowly, sunlight began to replace darkness. The smoke seemed to evaporate, each molecule folding in on itself until nothing remained but the demon's scream that all of them could hear. The fire pierced Stiles but left no burn, no mark, not even a scent of singed hair. A final flash of lightning from Kira. Mini thunderclaps echoed off the walls.

The shadow disappeared.

Eyes still glowing, Kira snapped her fingers and summoned the Oni. The creature cocked its head to the side as it examined Stiles. The others got to their feet and slowly tiptoed back towards the center of the room – all eyes on the firefly spirit. When it disappeared it was Kira who got down on her knees to inspect Stiles' skin. The golden color in her eyes faded, but silver tears appeared.

"The demon's gone. He's no longer possessed," she said. Her voice shaking and her hands too, Kira then said, "But he's not breathing."

Scott moaned. His eyes rolled in his head and he slumped against what he thought was the wall but turned out to be Derek. The scene in front of him unfolded like a movie he was watching from a distance. Voices shouted, figures moved. They seemed to move in slow motion, his mother pumping Stiles' chest, Lydia breathing into his lungs, Deaton and Isaac retrieving medical supplies from the bed, Peter calling an ambulance…

Scott and Derek leaned against each other, both listening for a heartbeat.

If you walked by the MRI rooms in Beacon Hills Memorial Hospital two days later, this is what you would see:

The exorcised and unharmed, but thoroughly exhausted Allison Argent sitting on a bench between Isaac and her father. She's holding Isaac's hand and leaning her cheek on Chris' shoulder. Lydia's sitting at her friend's feet repainting her nails for the fourteenth time while Allison plays with her hair. Alan Deaton is sitting on the bench across from them. There's a medical journal in his hands and he's looking at it, but not reading. Scott is on his left and Derek is on his right. The beta has been trying to sleep. Even though his eyes are closed, everyone can tell by his breathing that he's awake. Scott and Kira are holding hands. She and Scott's mom chat quietly about pets and favorite bands and the bad haircuts Scott got when he was a child.

The door opened. Everyone stood up. Sheriff Stilinski walked out of the examination room. He tried to put his trembling hands in his front pockets but couldn't seem to aim them. "They did the scan twice. He's…" The Sheriff tripped over his own tongue. His bloodshot, watery eyes searched the crowd for Kira's. "I don't know how you did it," he whispered to her, "and I couldn't care less. It's gone. All signs of atrophy in his brain, all symptoms of dementia. Stiles is completely 100% cured."

Lydia burst into tears and threw her arms around Allison. Isaac looked at the ceiling like he was thanking it and Deaton collapsed back into his chair, relieved. "Can we see him?" Scott asked.

Stilinski held up his hands in a hold-on-a-minute gesture. "One or two of you at a time. Keep in mind that he's worn out and—"

Stilinski didn't get a chance to finish his sentence. Derek and Scott sprinted by him so fast that the breeze nearly blew him over.

Stiles Stilinski sat on the edge of the MRI machine wearing hospital scrubs pants and a red Beacon Hills lacrosse t-shirt. He was barefoot, and pale, and too skinny, but he was Stiles, he was himself and he was healthy and he was grinning so wide it looked like the corners of his lips might tear. At the sight of his friends he jumped off the machine and spread his arms. It was a "hug me" gesture but even more so, a "we did it!"

The water in Scott's eyes threw off his depth perception so bad that he almost slapped Stiles in the face when he hugged him. Derek's weight nearly knocked Scott and Stiles to the ground but the beta was so strong, and his arms so long that he lifted the pair of them off their feet for a moment as he squeezed. All three of them cried: Derek mutely, Stiles sniffling and Scott outright sobbing. And then they looked at each other and some sort of combination of love and hysteria filled them at the same time and they burst into joyful laughter. There would be time later – years, hopefully – to say everything they were thinking: thank you, I missed you, I love you… But for now they just held onto each other and thanked every star in the sky that Stiles was all right.

The End

Author's Note: Pardon me while I go have a nice cry… If you liked this story, don't forget to review and share it with your fellow "Teen Wolf" fans! If you didn't like it, read it again. And then review.