Stiles did let Talia stick her claws in his neck.

He didn't like it and his initial reaction was "Hell no!" but when Talia explained it to him, that he would be able to enter Peter's mind and ask him directly, he was listening. The idea of entering somebody's mind caused the next big nope reaction because that was just wrong on so many levels but it was the only way they could ask Peter before they made a life-altering decision for him.

Stiles had just spent minutes, convincing Talia that giving Peter to Derek was not a bad thing and now she had to do the same with the werewolf mind-melt thing. The irony was not lost on Stiles.

"Okay, let's do this." Stiles huffed out a breath, steeling himself for what they were about to do.

Of course, they couldn't just march into Peter's sterile room and prick his neck with claws, the nurses around here had something against that kind of thing so Talia first had to go and find one of the pack members working at the hospital who had the authority to allow something like this.

Which left Stiles alone in the waiting area where he was bouncing his leg and getting more anxious by the minute.

It felt like an eternity but eventually, Talia came back. They were doing this.

Talia closed the curtains and Stiles dragged a chair over to Peter's bed while a nurse rolled Peter to his side so that Talia had excess to his neck. As far as Stiles understood, Talia would function as some kind of conductor between them.

"Thank you, Stacy. Could you wait outside?" Talia dismissed the nurse.

Stiles could tell how much this was against her work ethic but on the other hand, Stacy was a member of the Hale pack. She knew that Peter was a werewolf and that there were things beyond what doctors could do.

Stacy left the room but she promised to stay close in case they needed her. Stiles did not want to think about what could possibly go wrong that they would need a nurse in here.

"Relax, I'm not going to hurt you." Talia stepped around him and took her place between Peter's bed and where Stiles was sitting with a white-knuckled grip on the edges of his seat.

"I'm pretty sure that sticking your claws in my neck is going to hurt like hell." Stiles had to breathe against a sudden wave of nausea. It didn't help that Talia was now standing behind him.

"Just do it already." Stiles gritted out and steeled himself for the pain.

It hurt but not as much as Stiles had feared. His whole body locked up and he had just enough time to wonder if he was having a seizure before the room around him disappeared.

It was kind of like when Derek was dragging him through the pipes. But instead of coming out in the lake, where everything was calm and soothing, Stiles found himself surrounded by fire.

He was back in the fire. He wasn't sure but this might very well be the hallway he'd found Peter and Emily in. Fire and smoke filled the air, making it hard to see, so Stiles wasn't sure.

"Peter?" He yelled over the noises of the fire and to his surprise, he found that he could breathe properly. The air was warm but not the burning heat that had eaten away his nose-hairs when he'd run into the burning house. The smoke didn't burn in his eyes and when he tenderly reached out to test the heat of the flames, he didn't get burned.

"It's not real," Stiles realized. It made sense, this was all in Peter's head.

Turned out that the fire was very real for Peter.

Stiles found him on the floor just like the other day but this time Peter was conscious. More or less.

"Peter!" Stiles fell to his knees next to him.

His left side was just a black mess, bubbling with the tar-like substance that was eating its way through his flesh. Stiles didn't dare to touch it even if he doubted that the wolfsbane or the flames would hurt him but touching him there might hurt Peter even more. But he did put a hand on Peter's right shoulder. He didn't even seem to notice. It looked like he was screaming but it was lost in the roaring of the fire around them.

"Dammit, Peter." With his other hand, Stiles tried to turn Peter's head. "Look at me."

Now Peter seemed to notice him.

Peter gave him what counted as a nod when Stiles told him about Derek's offer but he highly doubted that Peter understood what he was consenting to here. Not that it mattered. Stiles was not going to leave him here to burn alive for what could very well be the next few years. Every minute in this hell was too long.

"Just a little while longer," Stiles promised. "Trust me. It will be over soon."

He didn't want to leave Peter but the sooner he got out of here, the sooner he could get Peter out as well. He did let his fingers linger on Peter's neck for a second longer but then Stiles pushed back.

He jerked awake so hard that he would have toppled over with the chair if it hadn't been for Talia's strong hand supporting his neck.

"We have to get him out of there. Now." Stiles scrambled to his feet and was at Peter's side in a heart-beat. They had rolled him onto his good side so Stiles was looking at the raw flesh of the left side of his face. The white stuff they had put on his wounds concealed the worst but what Stiles could make out was bad enough. It was overlapping with what he'd just seen in Peter's mind. Half his face had melted off his skull with that wolfsbane stuff.

"I'm getting you out of there," Stiles repeated his promise even if he doubted that Peter could hear him. Not over the flames and his own screaming. "Just hang in there for a little while longer."

"What did you see?" Talia spoke up behind him.

"He's stuck in the house." Stiles closed his eyes but that brought the images in his mind to life more vividly. "He's still burning."

It still took some convincing but in the end, Talia agreed to give Peter to Derek.

"It's not that bad." Stiles gave her a weak smile. "He will still be your little brother. And your beta."

But he also would be Derek's. Forever.

Talia's jaw was working, she didn't like it but after what Stiles had seen in Peter's mind, and she knew that he was telling the truth about that, he couldn't lie to a werewolf, especially not to an alpha, she gave him a grim nod.

"How do we do this?" She asked, a worried eye on Peter. Aside from his horrible wounds, he looked peaceful. His body was relaxed and the good side of his face smooth as if he was sleeping. But Stiles knew that it was only on the outside, whatever they were giving him to keep him in a coma did that. On the inside, Peter was burning in hell. Literally.

"We have to bring him out to the lake," Stiles said, dark memories lurking in the back of his mind. He shut them down with the image of Peter burning alive. This was different. "You have to give him to Derek there."

"He's going to drown him." Talia's voice was shaking.

"Yes," Stiles confirmed. "And let's be honest, that's going to suck. Big time. But compared to what he's going through right now …" He made a helpless gesture over the still form in the bed.

"Stay with him," Talia ordered before she marched out of the room.

Stiles nodded numbly. They were doing this. Peter would join them at the bottom of the lake.

"Derek isn't so bad, you'll see." Stiles tried a smile but it felt more like a grimace.

"Everything alright?" The nurse, Stacy, stood in the door. She seemed unsure of what to do now since Talia had left. This was supposed to be a sterile room, Stiles remembered. Not that it mattered any longer.

"Can we turn him to his back?" Stiles asked. That way the burn wounds wouldn't be right in his face and he would be able to see more of Peter's good side.

Glad for something to do, Stacy stepped closer and with a practiced move, she rolled Peter to his back and checked on his wounds.

"Can she help him?" Stacy asked with a glance in the direction Talia had disappeared in.

"He'll be fine soon," Stiles assured her. "But we'll have to transfer him somewhere else for that. Can I stay with him until Talia comes back?"

Stacy thought about that for a moment. Officially, nobody was allowed in here but the damage was already done. So she agreed but she kept the curtains closed when she left.

Stiles didn't know how much time had passed, at least half an hour, before Talia came back. With Stacy and another nurse who was bringing a gurney.

Stiles wondered who Talia had kicked out of bed, it had to be around midnight by now, to get this arranged but he didn't ask. He just stepped back to let the nurses transfer the too still body over to the gurney and then they were on their way to the elevator. According to Talia, there was an ambulance waiting for them.

Perks of having a large pack, Stiles thought but didn't say out loud. Stacy was pack, he knew that but he was not sure about the other nurse.

The nurses rolled Peter into the back of the waiting ambulance, secured him, and then they left. Stiles wondered what they were thinking about this but he didn't care. He didn't want more people to witness what they were about to do anyway.

Stiles climbed into the back of the ambulance with Talia and then they were sitting shoulder to shoulder in the cramped compartment. It was the most surreal ride of his life. Not just the fact that he was sitting right next to the alpha of the Hale pack but the situation as a whole.

"He always wanted me to get to know you better. You and the pack," Stiles said, eyes firmly on Peter's face. At least they were sitting on his right side. "I bet he didn't think that we would bond over murdering him."

"We're trying to safe his life," Talia said. Stiles didn't have to look at her to know that she was fighting the tears.

"We're doing kind of both." Stiles shifted in his seat. He wanted to bounce his leg but there was not enough room. How long until they arrived at the lake? It felt like they had been on the road for hours already.

The second the car came to a halt, Stiles opened the door and jumped out. He needed to move.

"I can't go farther with the car, we'll have to walk from here." The driver had gotten out of the car as well and only now Stiles realized that it had been Anthony, Emily's father, driving them. For a second Stiles wondered about the logistics behind that but then he was too busy with helping Anthony with getting the gurney out of the car without jostling it too much. Not that it mattered, the narrow path leading to the lake would be way bumpier than this.

"How's Emily doing?" Stiles asked just to fill the silence. Talia had taken over his place at the gurney. With her werewolf strength, she was doing most of the work. The wheels barely touched the ground and the journey was way more smooth for Peter than Stiles had feared.

"She's asking for you," Anthony answered his question. "She wants you to read to her and she wants to play Uno with you and Derek." He threw a glance at Peter. "And she wants Peter to read to her again too. She thinks it's her fault. He shielded her from that grenade."

"When I showed him the Marvel movies, I didn't expect him to pull a Steve Rogers like that," Stiles muttered but he couldn't blame Peter. He would have done the same.

They arrived at the lake in silence, each of them deep in thoughts.

"What now?" Talia stood at the shore, the waterline only a few inches from her feet. She had Peter at her side, an iron grip on the gurney.

Derek hadn't given him instructions and was conveniently absent right now so Stiles went with his gut.

"Make it official," he told Talia.

Talia nodded and straightened up.

"Derek!" She called out over the still lake. "I'm Talia Hale, alpha of the Hale pack. My ancestor promised you a member of his pack but he wronged you. I'm here to pay off his debt."