"Tell me again why we're walking into the lion's den?"

Lita did not understand the nogitsune. She liked him, as much as a lunatic with little to no human emotion could like someone. She wanted him to screw her. But she did not in the least understand him, or his game. The chess board threat was understandable; a strategic move to mess with their heads & leave them trying to figure out whether or not it was a message from Stiles, or simply another trick. What was not understandable, however, was the nogitsune walking right into Derek Hale's loft.

Derek Hale, a werewolf & close friend & ally of Scott McCall.

Lita had faith in the nogitsune's abilities to burn Beacon Hills to the ground, if she didn't, she would have stayed at Eichen & waited for Malia to tear apart an orderly (the day was sure to come). But the way Stiles had explained werewolves & Scott's pack to her in the basement of the asylum, she couldn't help but feel they were outnumbered. Yes, she was an overconfident psychopath who liked to believe she could kill just about anyone she wanted to— but she wasn't stupid. Lita knew when she was getting into a fight she couldn't win.

"Because I'm a thousand years old & can't be killed." The demon responded bluntly, his voice monotone. "Do you have short-term memory loss?"

"Fuck off." She muttered, leaning against the side of the building. "I'm down with murder, I just killed my parents for shit's sake, but are we seriously about to go in there with no weapons & wait for a pack of werewolves to show up? Maybe you misunderstood me when I explained my condition. I'm psychotic, not suicidal."

"We aren't. I am." He clarified, bored with her already. Lita was dead weight, but she had a part to play; even if the game was still his without her, she was added entertainment. After all, if she played exactly as he anticipated, it was going to be one hell of a match. "You're going back to Eichen."

"On second thought, maybe I am suicidal because I'd rather kill myself. What the hell kind of game are you playing, Dracula?" Lita hissed, her eyes narrowing into slits as she stood up straighter. She wasn't going back to Eichen— she was going to stay right where she was, in the middle of a werewolves vs. demon fight, and ensure she died in the crossfire if there was so much as a fragment of a chance she'd be dragged back Eichen when all was over.

"I don't recall telling you that was my name."

"You never told me your name." She pointed out, all annoyance that had previously been in her tone disappearing completely. To an outsider it would seem immensely bipolar, but to her there was plenty of reason to drop all signs of rage in an instant. Anger was useless against someone who played on it. He would only toy with her if he knew he could. Besides, she knew just what he was doing. Changing subjects was her specialty— she drove each & every therapist that had desperately tried to help her to the brink of insanity. "Don't change the subject."

"Don't tell a demon what to do. When you're the one wielding the power, do as you please, but until then, I'm the one who makes the rules." The nogitsune snapped, now glaring daggers at her. "You don't question me if you want to live."

Lita jokingly held up her hands in surrender, stifling a laugh at the demon. "Yes, master. F-Y-I, I love it when you get all dominant. It's such a turn on."

"I could still kill you." He reminded her.

"You like me too much."

"I don't like you that much if I'm sending you back to the psych ward." The demon smirked, hoping he'd hit a nerve & upset her again, but the psychopath was far from angered. In lunacy she trusted, and as utterly stupid as going back to the place where she'd surely be locked in the closed unit if caught was, Lita was slowly beginning to realize why the nogitsune wanted her to go there.

A particular talent of hers was being able to maintain a dull conversation whilst devoting most of her attention to her own mind— it was what she did when the doctors tried to get through to her in her earlier days at Eichen. She acted as though she was paying attention, answering their questions like a good little patient, all while her main focus was conversing with the voices in her head who often told her ways to further agitate the doctors.

Whilst she had been mindlessly bickering with the demon, she'd realized two things: firstly, the sun was setting. She did not know the exact time, but her best guess would've put it around eight thirty— the time she usually would have been given her antipsychotic pills. Second; the nogitsune was not the only demon in Beacon Hills. They had been pushed to the back of her mind as soon as she'd become acquainted with the most famous, but they were not to be forgotten. Stiles had told her about the warrior demons, the Oni, who sought out the nogitsune to destroy him. They disappeared during the day, but at night, they returned; and from sun down to sun up, they relentlessly hunted the demon possessing Stiles.

"I think you like me a lot more than you're letting on." Lita spoke, her brown eyes tinted orange as she stared up at the setting sun. She didn't believe what she was saying— she knew the demon felt nothing for her as she felt nothing for him. But she did believe that while he may not like or need her, he wanted her for something. If he didn't, he would've killed her a long time ago. He had more chances than either of them could count. "They're coming for you, and you're sending me away to keep me safe. Isn't that the plot to like, every love story ever?"

"I don't recall Romeo ever sending away Juliet to keep her from a grisly demise at the hands of Japanese warrior demons." The nogitsune pointed out, no longer bothering to deny any of her accusations. She was a form of entertainment, nothing more and they both knew it. "And I'm not sending you away to keep you safe. I'm sending you away to meet an old friend of mine."

"Introducing me to your friends already? Aw, Drac, I already feel like part of the family." Lita put a hand on her heart, faking a variety of emotions. "Another demon?"

"Are you ever going to stop calling me that?" He grumbled, wishing he'd never used the comparison to begin with, regardless of how well it matched.

"Not until you tell me your name." The psychopath smiled, lying. He was a thousand years old & more than likely had some type of weird demonic name. Lita could barely decipher half of the Jesus freaks' biblical names they requested she call them (when she refused to refer to them as her lord & saviour Jesus Christ). Dracula was easiest to remember. Plus, the nogitsune did bare some resemblance to the infamous vampire. Pale, didn't eat anything aside from what people feel (whatever that meant? Some of Stiles' explanations made very little sense) & immortal. Modern day Dracula if you asked Lita.

"I don't have a name." The nogitsune deadpanned, sounding more bored than ever— as if that was even possible.

Lita furrowed her brows, confused for a second before she realized just what had been meant when Stiles referred to him as a fox spirit. The spirit of a fox possessing a human vessel. The trickster. That was why he needed to possess someone, why he needed Stiles— and why he had no name. He never lived a human life. He only became human sometime in the afterlife; how? Lita didn't know, nor did she care. In fact, the only actual question she had regarding the nogitsune was whether or not her having sex with him would be considered beastiality. She voted no, because technically he was human.

"Is that all you think about?" The demon's voice interrupted her thoughts. It came as no surprise to her that she'd said her question aloud instead of in her head; she half intended to.

"No, I also think about killing people." Lita clarified in a sickly sweet tone. As much as it seemed unbelievable, her brain was only forty percent sex; fifty percent was for murder, whilst ten was reserved for whatever the hell popped in her head when she was bored. More often than not it involved making others suffer for her own entertainment."And torture. I like to hear people scream."

"I'll keep that in mind." He commented. She wouldn't be much use, but if all went as planned, she wouldn't need to be— she had ideas in her mind so dark & twisted that not even a nogitsune could create, and that made her a valuable asset. "It's a shame you're human."

His words caught her off guard. "Hm?"

"I won't lie to you, I see potential in that sick little mind of yours." The nogitsune told her honestly, slowly moving closer to her. This time in the woods behind an apartment complex, Lita had once again found herself being backed against a wall by a demon & she was loving every second of it. "I see potential in your insanity, your limitless desire to inflict pain upon others simply for your own entertainment, regardless of the injuries you acquire in the process." He traced a finger along the purple bruising on her jaw.

"If this is your way of getting me to go back to Eichen without anymore questions, it's working." Lita muttered. On any other occasion, she'd kill whomever was attempting to manipulate her or die trying, even if it was the devil himself. But on this particular day, she was more than happy to be the devil's bitch if it meant more of this.

"You don't feel pain in the way others do. You don't feel sympathy for those you hurt. You don't feel fear." The demon listed off, slightly distracted. This was the first time he'd really looked at her without all the blood covering most of her injuries— the bruises had darkened significantly. He liked the way it looked like it was causing her pain, when in fact he knew it wasn't. What he couldn't seem to like quite as much was the way it made her look weak, breakable, even. It was a reminder that she was human & a liability if he chose to create an actual role for her in the game, rather than leaving her to be a sideshow. "Even now. I could kill you, and you're not the least bit concerned."

"Do you get off on constantly reminding me of that?" She wondered aloud. Contrary to the playful tone she'd used, Lita wasn't joking— she'd lost count of how many times the nogitsune had told her he could kill her. The empty threats were quickly becoming boring.

He laughed dryly in response to her question. "See? Even now, you're not afraid, your heart rate is steady. This is as much a joke to you as it is to me, and as painful as it is to admit, I admire your limitless desire for chaos, strife & pain. You're the perfect wildcard— but unfortunately, we're playing Chess."

It was now Lita's turn to laugh. "Oh, Drac, we're not playing Chess. Stiles & his friends are, but you & I, we're playing something much more complex. I don't know the Japanese name for it, but I know it's called Go in English, and it drives the Jesus freaks to Hell & back when I beat them at it. Two years in the nut house & you didn't think I'd know every damn game on this planet?"

Admittedly, the nogitsune did not expect her to know that. He understood that Lita was smart in ways most humans were not, he knew simply from observing her in Eichen House that she was of use; but what he didn't know was that she had been observing him too, possibly more intently. She made it seem like her only interest was being screwed (literally) but it wasn't. Of course, that was definitely one of her interests, one she still intended on pursuing until the demon made it clear he had no interest instead of responding in a code she couldn't begin to understand, but it was not her main interest. She wasn't just staring at a pretty face, she was profiling the demon behind it— analyzing everything he did, pairing a reason with every action & fitting each puzzle piece perfectly into place.

Unbeknownst to her, in a way, she had tricked the trickster.

For Lita, what she has been doing was something she'd always done. She paid attention to detail with the littlest of effort; she noticed the small things, anything that would go undetected by most were the things that drew in her attention, if only a fragment of it; even when she was bored out of her mind, she still picked up on a slight twitch in someone's expression as they told her lies upon lies. She noticed patterns & similarities with ease, and it hadn't taken her long to link the nogitsune's game to the game Go.

She had initially mistaken it for Chess, as she assumed he wanted her to. The turning point in which she realized her mistake had been when he left the Stilinski home. That, in her opinion, was check— one move away from checkmate. No one willingly let the opponent out of check (or refrained from putting them in it), not when they were that close to winning unless they were looking to forfeit, or throw the game; and Lita knew the nogitsune would do neither. It was then that she realized he wasn't moving Chess pieces into position, he was placing stones in all the right places. He was slowly surrounding them, carefully planning how he would eventually take every place on the board; it was truly ingenious, a horde of degenerate teenagers would never know the game of an ancient fox spirit, especially when he masked it as a cry for help from their poor, possessed friend.

They still had hope for him.

They still had hope that he could be saved; that he was still in there somewhere, forced silent by the demon controlling his body. Maybe, for now, he was. Trapped in his own mind, confined to an inescapable prison where he could do nothing but listen to the screams of those around him. Lita liked to think he was in there, seeing everything the nogitsune saw, feeling everything he felt. She liked to think he was able to see the monster's plans for a town he called home, but helpless when it came to doing anything to stop him. Most of all, Lita liked to think that Stiles knew she was going to kill him someday— even if it killed her.

If she was going to hell, she was going to drag him down with her.

—

UNEDITED

yikes can you tell this is a filler? next chapter lita meets noshiko at eichen :~) fun times. keeping with the 2-2.5k chapters because i wanna stretch out the 4 episodes into like a 20-30 chapter book. also, friendly reminder that this is sort of an au & i can (and will) do whatever i want & kill whoever i want. no one is safe. i am evil. this is gonna be so much fun!! (that last sentence needs to be read in deadpool's voice, no exceptions)

as always, comment opinions? i love you all.