Author's Note: So, Stiles decided to take the term "forged by fire" and run with it.

Any and all blame is totally on him.

The thing Derek loved about being teamed up with Boyd was the silence. If he'd been paired with any other member of the pack Derek's ears would have been bleeding before they'd even reached their designated section of the forest. He'd have spent the the previous twenty minutes being badgered half to death for details on his and Stiles' relationship, rather than what they were actually supposed to be doing.

If Stiles had sent Derek out with any of the others, save for maybe Parrish, every second would have been filled with incessant and invasive questions; How it all happened and where it was going, why it took so long for both of them to get their shit together and admit how they felt- Not to mention the thinly veiled and flat out threats of "hurt him and I'll kill you".

Fortunately, Stiles knew Derek better than anyone and had seen fit to give him Boyd as a partner. The two of them worked well together, moving through the forest in silent tandem, while keeping their senses open and on alert for anything even remotely indicative of the Kearney clan having been there.

Derek chose to forgo the shift, deciding that staying human facilitated communication more easily than his wolf form did.

Not that Boyd was particularly talkative. As a matter of fact, he and Derek hadn't said more than a handful of words to each other since they left the rest of the pack. They just worked their section of the grid with singular focus, thankfully not crossing paths with any hunters.

Unfortunately, they also hadn't come across anything that might lead them to the hunters, either. Derek tried not to let himself get frustrated, but it got more difficult the longer they spent traipsing through the underbrush. Just knowing that the Kearney's were out there, their sole intention to bring pain and death to the pack; It made anger simmer under Derek's skin. He'd lost his pack once, he'd die before he let it happen again.

Forty-five minutes into their search Derek's phone vibrated in his back pocket. Boyd didn't even blink at the sound, simply slowed his pace and pulled out his own phone when it hummed a second later.

From Lydia:
- Unforeseen effects from hunter's bullets. No immediate action required, but avoid contact if at all possible.

"Well, that sounds horrible." Boyd said blandly as he tucked his phone away. "What do you think they do?"

"Other than knock a werewolf on his ass for over a day?" Derek asked sarcastically, rolling his eyes at the forest floor.

Boyd snorted. "There it is."

Derek's eyebrows went up in question as he tossed a look over his shoulder at Boyd. "What?"

"Stiles." Boyd shrugged, as if that said it all.

"What about him?" Derek asked, albeit a little defensively.

Boyd leveled Derek with a bored look. "Come on, man. You guys have that weird mind-meld thing going on. Sometimes, you open your mouth and he just spills out everywhere."

Derek's foot chose that moment to get caught in a snarl of fallen branches and he pitched forward. He managed to reach out and steady himself with the trunk of a nearby tree, though not before he felt his ears heat.

Boyd let out a genuine laugh, then. "Yeah, that didn't sound quite as dirty until I said it out loud." he chuckled. "But, the point stands."

"I don't know what you mean." Derek snapped, righting himself and shoving away from the tree.

It was a lie and they both knew it. It hadn't escaped Derek's notice how much influence Stiles had over him. It was impossible to pretend he didn't see the multitude of ways he'd changed, especially over the last year or so. The more time Derek spent with Stiles, the more they seemed to pick up bits and pieces of each other.

It never really bothered Derek, to be honest. He found himself loosening up a little, a smile splitting his face more often and with greater ease, and couldn't bring himself to hate it. The pack noticed, too. Derek would never forget the shocked expression on Erica's face when the words "five by five" passed his lips after Stiles made him watch Buffy for an entire weekend.

Stiles got things from Derek, too. Where Derek leveled out and found a balance between the positives and the negatives, Stiles found his own kind of equilibrium.

After the incident with the Darach- when Stiles, Allison, and Scott had sacrificed themselves to save their parents -the darkness around Stiles' heart brought a darkness to Stiles himself. That shadowed part of his soul created a hollow; A lifeless, empty space inside him that the Nogitsune had been all to eager to fill. The aftermath of that possession left Stiles with a fractured part of himself that he had no idea what to do with.

The more time Stiles spent with Derek, the more comfortable he got with that part of himself. Instead of letting himself wallow in it, allowing it to spread, Stiles found focus and acceptance in Derek. It wasn't that Malia and the rest of the pack didn't try to understand. They did, it was just impossible to understand unless you lived it.

Derek had.

Derek knew what it felt like to be responsible for the deaths of people you cared about, even if you, yourself, hadn't been the one to take their life away. Derek understood what it was like to wrestle with guilt no one else could ever hope to comprehend, to close your eyes every night and see the faces of the people you couldn't save, hadn't know enough to know they needed protection from you in the first place.

Long before they'd become a them, Stiles and Derek found solace in one another, found someone who gave them the pieces of themselves they hadn't known they were missing.

Derek just didn't realize that the rest of the pack realized the extent of it.

"I believe your companion is referring to the long established and newly intensified bond between your mate and yourself, Wolf." The response, notably not from Boyd, startled Derek.

He and Boyd turned toward the voice as one, both of them lowered into a defensive crouch, their fangs tripped and their claws out. Derek straightened when he realized who the voice belonged to.

"Prince." he sighed, sheathing his fangs.

"I am pleased that you recall our previous interaction." The faerie beamed from his perch on a nearby fallen log, his wings folded up behind him. "I admit, I was a bit worried you may not remember me outside of your wolf's skin."

"Prince?" Boyd asked, one brow hiked at the faerie though his question was clearly directed at Derek. "You know this... guy?"

"We've met." Derek allowed. "Remember that thing with the faeries a few days ago?"

Boyd's expression didn't change, save for the brow he arched at Derek.

"Prince, here, is the head of their Court." Derek explained.

"Indeed." Prince nodded, chocolate curls bouncing.

Derek shoved his hands into his jacket pockets, giving off an air of patience. He'd had enough dealings with the Fae to know that this one wouldn't get around to his reasons for appearing until he was good and ready. Boyd followed his lead and propped himself casually against a tree, hands in the pockets of his jeans.

"What can we do for you?" Boyd asked, his tone dry.

"Not a thing." Prince answered, then turned his attention to Derek, "However, there is quite a lot that I might do for you. Tell me, Wolf, where is your boy?"

"With Scott." Derek lied easily, testing.

It was something his mother taught them when he and his siblings were still pups. "You always want to know exactly what cards are in play before you show your hand," she told them. It was a strategy Derek employed on a regular basis and, in this case, seemed to be the way to go.

Prince's eyes darkened a shade, his smile losing a bit of its curve. "Did you know that the Fae share a talent with werewolves?" When neither Derek nor Boyd answered, Prince elaborated. "We, too, can hear lies. The mechanism may vary, but the result is the same."

"Why ask a question you already know the answer to, then?" Derek asked, brows up. "These woods may belong to the McCall pack, but your Court is inhabiting them. You know better than we do who's out here."

Prince's wings unfolded, their copper surface catching the sun and reflecting it in a glittering shine. He fluttered forward, hovering less than a foot away from where Derek and Boyd stood.

"True though that may be, Wolf, my question is not for nothing." the faerie admonished, his eyes fixed solely on Derek's face, dismissing Boyd entirely. "I'll not ask thrice. Where. Is. Your. Boy."

"He's here." Derek told him, grudgingly. "Out by the Ironworks."

Prince shuddered, the tremor rippling through him all the way to the tips of his wings. "A wretched place, that. To more than the likes of me, I would venture." After a moment, a long pause in which Prince's eyes glazed over and went distant, he seemed to remember himself, "Quite fortuitous that your pack should count a phoenix among your number."

Derek considered that, frowning. If Prince knew that Stiles was with Parrish... "You already knew that Stiles was here, in the woods." he accused.

"I did." Prince agreed.

"But, you asked where he was." Derek frowned harder, trying to get ahead of his thoughts, to untangle the web of information Prince was weaving around him.

Fucking faeries. They could never just be forthcoming with what they knew. Always with the song and dance.

Prince didn't respond, just lifted his brows expectantly at Derek.

"Is he... He's not in trouble, I'd feel it." Derek said, just as much to reassure himself as to reaffirm it as fact.

"Your boy is safe." Prince said, his eyes wide and serious. "For the time being."

Derek took a step forward, only halting when Boyd laid a hand on his shoulder and gripped. "Easy." Boyd said warningly.

"So eager to battle." Prince observed, head tilted as his eyes brightened. "That instinct will serve you well in the coming days."

"What are you not telling us?" Derek demanded, loosing the last of his patience with the Fae's brand of mind games.

He cast his senses out to make sure that Stiles was indeed alright. He was relieved to find that he could feel Stiles, his determined curiosity and his apprehension, as though he were standing right beside him. Stiles was fine, if a little antsy, but it still served to ease the knot of worry in Derek's chest.

Prince ignored Derek's question. Instead, he held out his hand and unfurled his fingers. Derek's eyebrows pulled down in confusion when he spotted the small drawstring bag held out to him, its long silken ties glinting. The bag was larger than the palm it sat in, its velveteen fabric a deep, rich shade of green, swirled through with symbols Derek had never seen before.

"You will also need this, if your pack is to survive to see month's end." Prince said solemnly, his eyes never once leaving Derek's. "Your Alpha did my Court a great service by allowing us to stay here in his forest. The Fae are not fond of leaving debts unpaid." He smiled then, his eyes crinkling at the corners, "In the interest of transparency, I must also admit; I find myself quite fond of you and your boy. Such a curious pair you make. I would be... displeased with your loss."

Derek hesitated but took the bag when Prince shook it softly in his direction. He didn't hear a lie in the faerie's heartbeat and took the risk, holding the bag gingerly. "What is it?" he asked.

"Go now, give it to your boy, Wolf." Prince directed, his eyes glowing a clear jewel tone green. "He will know its purpose."

Before Derek could open his mouth to ask any more questions the faerie vanished into thin air with a faint pop, leaving nothing behind but a fine puff of faerie dust.

"What the hell was that?" Boyd questioned, peering over Derek's shoulder to eye the bag held in his hand.

Derek growled under his breath, more frustrated than he'd been before Prince decided to stick his nose in the mix. "Your guess is probably as good as mine at this point."

Boyd nodded slowly, his mouth pulled down at the corners. "Are faeries always that vague with their warnings?"

"Pretty much, yeah." Derek sighed, turning the bag over in his hand. "From what my father told us, the Fae are only allowed to interfere with human matters to a certain degree. Us being wolves gives them a bit more leeway, but they still have rules they have to follow."

"Okay... So, what do you want to do?" Boyd asked, casting his gaze around the now eerily silent woods surrounding them.

Derek deliberated for a moment, trying to convince himself that Stiles was perfectly safe with Parrish, that there was no reason for them to deviate from their set course. He almost succeeded, too.

Right up until pain ripped through Derek's chest, a tearing burn through his right pectoral that punched the air out of him, one word carried out in a gust.

"Stiles."

An angry, agonized howl was renting the air, ripping empty space into tatters in its ferocity. On its heels came the piercing shriek of a phoenix, both sounds ricocheting through the forest louder and sharper than a whip's crack.

Derek was tossing Prince's bag to Boyd and shredding his way out of his clothes before he even registered the decision to move, the only coherent thought in his mind the panicked, terrified echo of Stiles' name reverberating around his skull like a bassline drumbeat.

Boyd was pocketing the bag and shifting, ready to follow Derek into a battle he couldn't see, couldn't feel, without a second's hesitation, when another howl went up. Boyd flinched, recognizing the furious sound of Erica's call, undoubtedly able to feel her rage through their own bond.

"Fuck." Derek snarled, the word going twisted and distorted as the wolf burst through his skin and he bolted into the trees, thundering through the forest with the need to get to his mate, to find Stiles and rip apart whoever had been stupid enough to hurt him.

"This place gives me the creeps." Parrish pulled a face, a shiver tracking its way down his spine.

Stiles snorted as he climbed the crumbling stone steps to the front entrance of the Beacon Point Ironworks. "Sorry, Deputy Big Bird, but it's in our cut of the forest."

Parrish chuckled and shoved at Stiles' shoulder, rolling his eyes at the nickname only Stiles dared to employ. "Don't think it has escaped my notice that you're the one that divvied up the territory."

Stiles kept his mouth set in a half-smirk, ignoring Parrish in favor of pushing his way through the rust-encrusted front door, wincing a little as it creaked noisily in protest.

With a heavily put upon sigh, Parrish flicked on his flashlight and followed Stiles inside, his gun up and ready. "Are we going to pretend that there's no particular reason you wanted to search this building, specifically?" he asked, sweeping the beam of artificial light around the shadowed interior of the long abandoned building.

"Depends." Stiles shrugged as his eyes bled Gold and he blinked into the darkness. "What are the chances that you won't rat me out to Derek?"

"Slim to none." Parrish immediately responded, adding "But, only if he asks." as an afterthought.

Stiles let that roll around in his head while he pushed his senses out into the cavernous factory, searching for anything outside of the expected wildlife sounds and scents, layered over years of dust and mildew. The building smelled heavily of iron, which was also to be expected. However, there were a few distinct scents lingering beneath the iron, scents that Stiles would have been more surprised to not find.

Having found what he was looking for, Stiles decided it was time share with Parrish the suspicion he'd withheld from the rest of the pack.

"If I told you that I was ninety-nine percent sure this is currently being used as a Kearney safe house, how pissed would you be?"

Parrish sighed again. "Given the gravity of Lydia's message, and the fact that you and I alone are no match for an entire clan of hunters? Astronomically."

"And, if I said that I am now one-hundred percent sure?" Stiles pursed his lips and gave Parrish his best innocent doe eyes.

"Unquantifiably." Parrish fixed Stiles with a disapproving glare, which wasn't very effective considering Stiles spent the last nearly four years of his life around Derek. "How screwed are we, Stiles?"

"Since no one is here at the moment, not very." Stiles reasoned, earning himself another, darker look. "Oh, don't be like that, man! Look, when Isaac told us about the Beacon Point thing, I remembered my dad talking about this place. It's been empty for years, right?"

"Right." Parrish agreed reluctantly, letting Stiles lead them deeper into the recesses of the building. "They shut it down in the sixties. So?"

"So, Dad said it was cited for negligent environmental practices. All the runoff from the plant caused obnoxious levels of iron, phosphorous, and lead in the soil, and the EPA had a conniption fit." Stiles explained as they stepped into an open section of the factory floor.

"This has what to do with the hunters?"

"Iron- raw, untreated iron- wreaks havoc on almost all supernatural creatures, including werewolves. It fucks with our senses, our healing, and our ability to shift back and forth between forms. Malia, Kira, and Lydia would all be affected, too. I don't honestly know how a phoenix would react to iron, but I didn't find anything that said it was toxic to you, so... Can you see where I'm going with this?" Stiles asked, dragging open a heavy steel door, one much like the one in Derek's loft.

He peered inside the mostly empty room, stepping inside when he spotted a make-shift living area set up in the furthest corner away from the door. There was an old table with a couple of chairs against one wall and a dirty, ancient looking sofa and chair set against the other.

"You think the Kearney's have been hiding here because the pack would be naturally inclined to avoid this area?"

Stiles nodded, shifting through some papers left out on the table. They didn't seem to be anything important, just random bits of notebook paper, but the scent of wolfsbane was pungent on their surface. Stiles' skin itched but he continued to snoop around, searching for clues.

"Where better to hide than in the last place a pack of werewolves with a hard-on for revenge would look for you?" Stiles muttered, bending down to get a closer look at an empty bullet casing lying on the floor beside the table.

It was nearly identical to the bullets in the gun Jackson snagged from the hunters, right down to the tapered tip and the symbol engraved in its side; A dagger clenched in a gloved fist. It wreaked of wolfsbane and iron, but there was something off about it. Underneath the familiar scents was another, stronger scent. It made Stiles' head ache just smelling it, so he made the wise choice and left the casing lying where it was.

"Why didn't you just tell Derek and the others?" Parrish questioned, brows knotted tight. "We could have come as a pack, Stiles."

Stiles jaw went tight as he stood up, his eyes blazing Gold. "I couldn't risk leading them into a trap, Jordan."

"But you could risk us, risk yourself?"

Stiles didn't like the knowing look in Parrish's eye. He downright hated it, if he was being honest.

"It's not really a risk for you." Stiles tried to reason. "It would take a hell of a lot more than what these hunters are packing to put you down."

"Do you really care so little about your own survival?" Parrish almost snarled the question, taking Stiles by surprise with his anger. "Damn it, Stiles! You already died once for this pack, wasn't that enough? You're not invincible, you moron. How many times do you think there's going to be an escape hatch from death? How many times are you going to risk it?"

"As many times as it takes!" Stiles snarled back, defensive and painfully sincere. "If it means protecting the pack, protecting Derek and my dad and Scott, protecting everyone I love, I will throw myself on the pyre every fucking time."

Parrish's eyes flashed that fiery, flickering shade of orange, but before he could hurl back any sort of rebuttal Stiles was on his knees and howling.

They hadn't heard the hunter approach, hadn't heard the gun cock or the trigger pull.

And yet, in the blink of an eye, Stiles was down, black and crimson rushing down his chest from the hole in his chest as poison spidered out, tar-like and noxious in his veins. The sound of Parrish emptying his clip barely registered as Stiles bowed up from the floor, futilely trying to get away from the pain.

Parrish was avian before Stiles' howl died in his throat, picking up where he left off, the phoenix cry piercing and shrill as he launched himself at the lone hunter.

The world was going blue at the edges when Stiles heard Erica's howl rip through the forest outside, making what was left of the windows shudder in their panes. There were more footsteps, more hunters flooding into the room, and Stiles was fighting to shove himself back to his feet.

If they were going down, they were going down fighting.

Stiles' claws wouldn't come when he tried to force them through the tips of his fingers, though his fangs dropped with only a bit of resistance. His wolf was whining and writhing in his head, thrashing in pain as the wolfsbane seared through them, but Stiles couldn't afford to give either of them a chance to breath. They could both feel Derek's desperation, could almost taste his fear as he got closer to them, but they didn't have time to wait for him anymore than they could the rest of the cavalry.

Stiles staggered to his feet just as Parrish tore through a hunter's chest with his talons. The woman crumpled to the floor in a bloody heap, giving another hunter the chance to get off a shot, but Parrish didn't so much as flinch when the bullet tore through his vibrant, flame-colored plumage.

Stiles weakly threw himself into the fray, a snarl shredding his chest on the way up. Blood flecked out into the air with the sound, telling Stiles he was in serious trouble if he didn't heal soon. And, he wasn't healing, that much he knew for sure. The wolfsbane burning in the back of his throat prevented his body from knitting itself back together, from pushing out the poison. Even as Stiles ripped the throat out of a young hunter who leveled their gun at his head, he could feel himself dying.

There was more than wolfsbane in the bullet lodged in his chest, he could taste it. Iron and silver flooded Stiles with heat, made him feel as though he were trapped in the bowels of hell, but there was something else, too. Something that made Stiles' head feel like someone was jamming an icepick through his temples and scrambling his brain.

Stiles collapsed, his strength gone and the fight bleeding out of him faster than his actual blood. His sight was slowly going dark as his body convulsed. He tried to claw his way back out, struggled to free himself from the flames clawing him apart at the seams, reducing him to nothing but ash, but no matter how much he fought it, he couldn't throw it off.

Everything was too heavy, too consumed by flames. Stiles couldn't see, couldn't feel anything but the pain as he drowned in it, was swallowed by it. His wolf howled and whimpered, and Stiles was probably crying but surely his tears evaporated before they could even attempt to douse the flames.

"Stiles!"

Stiles knew the voice belonged to Derek, instinctively tried to turn toward it, to respond. He tried to call back, to scream and plead, to apologize and beg for the pain to stop. He tried to reach out, to tell Derek he was sorry, that he was so, so sorry.

Because this- This burning from the inside out, this fire that scorched and ravaged and decimated him; Derek had to be feeling it, too.

And that was somehow worse than anything Stiles had ever done. Of all the lies he'd told, all the mistakes he'd made and the lives he'd taken, putting Derek through this, again, was by far the most unforgivable sin Stiles could ever have committed.

How awful for him to have dragged Derek into the flames, to have delivered him right into their clutches. What kind of mate was he, putting Derek through that, knowing what happened to his family. What kind of pitiful, horribly selfish mate would even risk that, knowing or unknowingly?

"Stiles! Come on, Stiles, don't do this to me. I need you, damn it. Don't you fucking dare leave me."

Stiles could tell Derek was crying, couldn't do anything to stop it. Apologies died in his throat, soaked in fire and poison, too heavily saturated to pour from his lips the way he begged them to.

When everything faded from blue to black, even Derek's voice could no longer anchor him. It was a downward spiral into nothingness, a too quick descent into hollow space that left Stiles terrified.

Suffocating and burning alive, he couldn't even pretend to be anything but thankful when silence reigned and darkness swallowed him whole.