His ears were ringing from all the screams and growls and shrieks, but Derek's voice cut through all of them, helping to focus and push another – this time smaller – amount of energy into the thread. A glowing hand reached out into the air in front of him and curled around it for one last tug.

He was already bravely stepping in front of Derek to face the horde of monsters snarling and jumping towards them (a picture that burned into his mind) when the soul finally passed through the portal. Stiles' hands were held out in front of him in an instant, glowing as if he had reached into melted gold or something of sorts, the veins throbbing brightly in the same color, reaching up to his elbows now.

As the soul floated past his shoulder, his chanting switched from the calmer, gentle urging one to a strict demanding tone. It wasn't hard to guess that he was commanding the portal to close properly while disintegrating their bond to it.

A skeleton-like demon's clawed hand just got burned by one of the protecting runes and it jumped back shrieking when the portal finally collapsed into itself and closed, abruptly cutting off the ear-splitting sounds. Stiles' ears kept ringing in the sudden silence, the scent of smoke and sulfur and rotting lingering in the air as he was panting and shaking, eyes wide.

They did it! It was unbelievable, but they did it!

He turned around with wide glowing eyes, mouth hanging open as he was trying to get enough air into his lungs without coughing. His gaze was right away drawn to the calmly floating white orb in the air between them, the traces of his magic still floating around it protectively.

Then his eyes darted to Derek's a little baffled. "We did it!!" he voiced his thought hoarsely. "What… what now?"

The deafening roars of Hell were cut off suddenly, so sudden that Derek’s ears were still ringing with the aftershock of all the violence of sounds. Sweltering heat lingered around them for a moment before the cold winter wind from California blew it away, cooling the sweat on their heated skin in a cool shiver. Derek's shirt still clung to him, making goose bumps appear all over. Well, at least he didn't have to get back to Hell. That was something. Taking back his soul from Hell wasn't the same as getting stuck there with his actual body. Both were dangerous to his mental health but only one of them was dangerous to his actual body. Even a werewolf's healing wouldn't be able to stand up to the torture for years on end. It would slow down; it would be painful and could even cause permanent damage if he had been down there long enough. And he knew all that from personal experience.

Derek's eyes went to his mate immediately, checking him over for any signs of collapsing because that must have been one immense strain on the human body. Stiles was drenched in sweat as well, a little too pale for the wolf's liking, with his cheeks flushed from exertion. The eyes were still looking like Stiles had swallowed fire and was burning from the inside out because the magic hadn't settled, or what was left of it anyways. He was worse for wear but not as much as Derek had feared, though, he wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not. If this kind of ritual didn't strain him as much, then how much power was really in there? A whole lot. And then some.

Pale green eyes were drawn to his soul. It hovered there, trapped by magic so it wouldn't drift off. He had always imagined it to be ugly, to look like everything he hated about himself. A ball of wood and stone and misery. Nothing about it told the story of the time in Hell, gave no indication what he was in for. Derek knew though. That small orb was going to be the cause of perhaps a lifetime of insanity if he couldn't get it under control, if he couldn't handle what it had been through.

"Now you have to seal it inside of me." It was probably going to be instant, the memories flooding him the moment that soul was put back where it belonged. "Look Stiles... I know you think that what I feel for you is a mirror of your feelings for me. But you fueled it, you didn't start it. And though I was starting to feel less and less, I have to say it. Because we both know Eichen House might not be a bad place for me very soon. And I need you to know that I will fight it, I will do my best to claw my way out of the damaged parts, if you give me time. I've never had anybody move for me, give up his career and home for me to willingly spend the rest of their life with me. You've shown me what it's like to enjoy sex, you've given that joy up for a while for my rut and now you're giving me my soul back and going to take care of our kid and me. You've given me so much and...” His voice broke, he probably had never talked as much as he did now. This was usually Stiles' territory, the long rants. "I love you."

There was a never before felt kind of tiredness in Stiles' bones, the magic still shimmering in every pore, but at the same time he was buzzing with relief and adrenaline. His mind was firing off thoughts faster than usual, trying to comprehend what just went down. The stench, the sounds, the sights and what they accomplished to do! Each of the books they studied with Deaton, each legend and tale (and even modern movies) had said how difficult and nearly impossible it is to open a portal to a dimension like Hell. And now there they were... They did just that and now had Derek's soul!

Stiles wanted to babble all these thoughts out, disbelief still written all over his face. But there was also satisfaction and relief there. It was as if at least a little weight was taken off his being, even if he knew that the hardships were far from over.

But all his words about stealing from Hell and seeing those monstrosities have died on his lips. Both from imagining that Derek had to endure the intense heat, the smells, the sounds and the torture for three years in that awful place; and from what he began talking about.

Stiles' amber eyes drifted back from the innocent-looking orb to his mate. A whole other bunch of thoughts started stumbling over each as he listened. Like... yes, he did kinda think that at least a part of what Derek felt for him were his own feelings reflecting through the bond. Or that he was never going to allow him step a foot into that god-awful Eichen House. The memory of it sent a shiver down his spine. And of course he knew Derek was going to fight. He was a born survivor, who'd never give up. Especially if there was an important goal for him to reach. In this case Stiles and their daughter. It was the first time Derek called Beth like that and it melted Stiles' heart so much that what the wolf said next left his mouth hanging open and his eyes wide.

Did Derek Hale just confess his love for him in words?!

Apparently, because the light blush on the high cheekbones were just as telltale as the look Derek gave him and what he felt through their bond.

And then all of a sudden the brightest smile lit up Stiles' face which has been carrying some kind of gloom on it ever since the rut. But that seemed to completely dissolve with that smile, the last remaining walls melting away between them and the next moment he found himself right in front of Derek. Pale hands with amber veins reached up to caress the bearded face, the glowing eyes finding his wolf's as that warmth, which Stiles associated with love, flooded him, making his heart skip a few beats just to try and compensate it with a few quicker ones afterwards.

"Derek..." he whispered, voice hoarse and eyes welling up with a few happy tears. "I love you too. So much..." His voice and words failed him to elaborate, but there was no real need for that anyways. Derek knew it already. But it was... so different to finally say it out loud. It gave their feelings for each other more weight. Made it even more real...

His kiss was sudden and desperate and sloppy, but full of his deep love for this man. His man. The only person he ever really wanted since he was a teen. His soul mate.

There had been so many times where Derek had wanted to say it, but hadn't been ready to say it. He wasn't the type of guy who said it often but when he did it, he meant it. There weren't many he had actually said it to and they had all been family, Stiles was different. Stiles was his life and he had to have said it at least once before that hovering orb was going to be shoved back into his body. Seeing his mate's reaction made it even more worth it. That disbelief, the wide eyes and then that incredibly bright smile which only made him seem like he was even more on fire.

Warm hands grabbed his face, the magic humming underneath the skin, thumbs caressing at his beard. The words were said back, as Derek had known it would happen because Stiles had been on the verge of saying it so often. The wolf had sensed it, hadn't pressured because they both knew all too well how fragile love was, how acknowledging out loud made it all the different. There was no doubt that Stiles loved him, but now.... The heart didn't lie, the words rang as true as Derek's.

With a sound of surprise at the sudden and desperate kiss, Derek returned it just as fervently because there might be some time before they would do it again. It shouldn't be a goodbye kiss, he didn't mean for it to feel like one even though it kind of was. A mental goodbye, for a while. Only for a while, not forever. They were going to beat this, like all previous trauma. They were going to adjust and deal with it. After all this time of pining after somebody he didn't think he'd have, it would be stupid to give up just when he finally did have him.

Derek's thumbs caressed the pale cheeks while they kissed, clutching at Stiles' face for that one last taste. The release of their lips were slow, and he licked them to savor every last taste.

"Okay... Now I'm ready."

That was a real kiss. A real deep kiss Stiles didn't fully realize how much he's been longing for in the last couple of weeks. It was the fuel his heart and soul needed to be able to do the next step. He gazed into Derek's eyes for a long time, lips moist and red and slightly open after the kiss. He could still taste the 'goodbye' on his tongue, but it wasn't a final one. He knew it. It was temporary, but he drank in every detail of the familiar face, the warm and then determined look in Derek's green eyes as they both savored the moment a little bit longer.

"We can do this..." he said out their thought and slowly nodded. "Alright. Alright. Take off your shirt." Pulling back to an arm's length from Derek was hard, but this was the moment they've been working towards since that fateful first day of Stiles' visit at the Stilinski home. When he'd learned about Derek's captivity and torture in Hell. When he had promised the wolf that he was going to find a way to get his soul back. And now...

Stiles' kept his eyes on Derek, one hand sliding onto a naked shoulder to steady it, the other blindly reaching out to the side. He felt exactly where the orb was. His palm and then whole hand got covered in that amber light again and the orb floated right over Stiles' palm, some more of his magic swirling around it to steady it.

"I'll try to be as gentle as I can," he promised. If he allowed doubt into his thoughts or stopped for a moment to think through the situation, he wouldn't have been able to do this. Because he didn't exactly know what he was doing or how he should proceed. He couldn't have explained it. He just... instinctively knew. Or perhaps his magic knew and Stiles had learned a while back that he could trust it, and he could trust his instincts even more.

The Spark was ignited in him and all of a sudden the air and energies shifted around them.

Strange foreign words rolled off his tongue on an unknown language. He never practiced or heard of the words before, but he spoke them with certainty, to which more magic began flowing between their bodies and wide-open bonds, the shimmering of the orb getting stronger, as if being fueled or awakened.

"Be whole again, my love..." Stiles whispered and with that his hand moved forward fast as if wanting to punch Derek in the chest. Which he practically did, releasing the orb in the last moment, his glowing palm slapping against the other man's sternum.

From seemingly thin air, the sacrificial blade appeared in his other hand. His magic was the only thing keeping the soul inside again as it was struggling to find a way to its other half, as if sensing that it was right there. More words spilled from Stiles' mouth, fire dancing in his eyes as he slowly pulled back the amber threads from around the half which he's been helping to keep safe and more or less stable since their mating. It seemed that the other half only waited for that, because it moved in to merge together.

Stiles used that moment to lift his hand and carve a sealing rune into Derek's skin right where the druid's hand was just a moment ago.

"I seal you to where you belong by magic and blood. Be one whole again and may you find peace with time," he said in English this time, but there was just as much (if not more) power behind his words.

There was nothing gentle about getting his soul back, no matter how hard Stiles tried to make the transition as smooth as possible. To the wolf, it felt like a fist punched through his sternum, breaking apart his ribs to get to that part of him which had been without its other half for so long. Suffering in silence, his body shivered violently, swallowing the scream wanting to erupt by clenching his teeth tightly together. It felt like he had been cut open so somebody could play with his insides, tugging at threads and placing something inside him which felt diseased, infected. And that something became part of him with a snap, sealed inside by blood and magic.

The moment Stiles was done with the rune, Derek crumbled like a puppet with its strings cut, collapsing on the concrete floor of the parking lot with a loud thud. It didn't feel like being whole again, it felt like somebody had shoved their claws into the back of his neck and forced all these memories on him which shouldn't be his. But they were his. Decades of memories his soul had suffered through coursing through his head, fusing with his body and the leftover piece of soul. It must be what going insane felt like, this pressure building inside of him because he couldn't comprehend everything, he couldn't handle that much torture all at once.

“Hello puppy, are you lost? Are you looking for a new home?” Lucifer whispered with glee as he found Derek, knowing full well the gem the werewolf presented to him. A werewolf in Hell! One with connections to so many Lucifer would love to hurt and now he could. By hurting this one. “You’re mine now, all mine. My new personal pet. We’re going to have so much fun.”

So much fun to be broken over and over again, until Derek had forgotten what had been real, until nothing made sense anymore and even focusing on surviving had been a lost strength. All alone, forgotten, kept hidden so Lucifer could play.

“Fearless Child,
Broken Boy,
Tell me what it’s like to burn.”

Harsh whispers in his ear even when he wasn't sleeping. Warm breath against the nape of his neck. The feeling of glee while he screamed and screamed.

Nobody had ever heard him, or hadn't cared to shiver from the lonely howls of his pain. They had drowned in the misery of others, the echoes swallowed up in the vastness of despair.

How Lucifer had toyed, had played, had broken. Until he felt like pieces of raw meat stitched together by congealed blood. Torn apart.

“Burn.”

Derek screamed, clutching at his head to make it stop, to make everything stop. He wanted to claw at his eyes, he wanted to be blind and deaf and alone. Screams turned into howls of pain and despair, echoed around the empty parking lot.

Stiles knew it was going to be difficult. For both of them. But he wasn't – couldn't have – prepared for this... The moment the rune was done and Derek went down hard on the concrete floor, the blade dropped from his glowing hand and he crouched over Derek, back curling forward as if wanting to protect his mate, but it was from the immense pain that kept flowing through their open bonds.

Stiles was screaming along with Derek. It was so overwhelming! Such a destructive force! He saw them. Saw the memories, heard the voices as if they were his own memories. But he kept their connection open to share the pain, share the burden. For better or worse. He wasn't going to leave Derek alone to suffer through this. He had to... he had to...

Thinking became near impossible from the onslaught of the decades long, endless memories of torture, of loneliness, of pain. And he screamed and cried with Derek. If he thought that being possessed by the Nogitsune was bad then he was wrong. This was so, so much worse. His body convulsed with the mental pain and his control got obliterated by it.

The magic roared up in him, exploding around them in an agitated whirlwind and the amber mist-like glow was nowhere to be seen. It was a ring of fire circling them, burning, roaring, feeding from them, from the pain and agitation the mated pair was going through.

Stiles' whole body was glowing, his aura on fire, fingers curling into claws, ready to tear into himself or Derek or anything, but with the last string of consciousness he kept himself from doing that.

“Once you seal his soul back into him it is likely you’ll lose control too from what that piece of soul had to go through. You have to keep at least a sliver of control. The only way to make it stop is to give him this potion.”

“What will it do?” Stiles asked Deaton with doubt in his eyes.

“Knock him out. Take the edge off the merging of his soul. Once he wakes up, it will hopefully be a bit more bearable for him.”

“I see…” Stiles swallowed hard.

“It will affect you too.”

“I don’t care. I’ll do what I have to… to help him through this.”

“I know. Still… be careful. This can drive both of you insane. You have to hang onto your sanity even more than Derek.”

Stiles stared at the druid and nodded, taking the small glass vial with the purple liquid in it.

Numb fingers moved towards his pocket as he bit his bottom lip until it started bleeding with the effort to cut off his own screams. He could barely see from the streaming tears, hand shaking violently, he wrapped his fingers tightly around the vial not to drop it. Uncorking it was a task on its own as he kept sobbing, mouth filled with the taste of blood, but he didn't care.

Stiles forced himself to reach under Derek's head. "Derek! DEREK! DRINK!" he shouted at his mate with not just his voice but his whole being, the command burning itself through the bonds, sizzling with fire as he blinked the tears away and forced the potion down on the wolf's throat to make it stop. To make all of it fucking stop!

Derek was too far gone to know what his mate had done. He had never been aware that this would harm his mate as well. He never would have wanted his soul back if it was going to draw Stiles in as well because it wasn't a price he wanted to pay. He took the soul back for Stiles, not to harm him. Not to share his misery like this, this would have never been something he agreed to. Perhaps that's why Deaton and Stiles neglected to tell the wolf what this ritual would entail.

But as it was, he didn't hear the human's screams, he didn't feel the pain echoed, only felt the hand cupping his face and he didn't want to. Didn't want to drink from the bottle which smelled like purple wolfsbane, he didn't want to sleep and be even more at the mercy of his mind.

"No, no, no."

It was useless, though, the command to drink forced itself in his head and his shields had been shot, his mental capacity to fight it gone. Spluttering, he drank from the vile potion as it was forced on him, some of it leaking along his chin but there was enough inside of him to do its work rapidly. Swallowing thickly, he felt his body give into the lethargy claiming it, the darkness clouded his vision, his wide terrified eyes dulled to a dazed stare until the eyelids fell shut.

He didn't want to sleep.

Sleep he did, though, body spread out, lax and useless. It was like forcing a dog to sleep through fireworks with medication. The body would sleep but the mind heard it all and silently suffered through it.

Stiles was panting through his mouth, nose too much clogged from the crying as he watched Derek starting to relax and fall asleep as the potion began working.

A deep, dream and thoughtless sleep… That's what Deaton had promised and Stiles was praying to the Universe that it was going to be true, because what just went down since he sealed the soul into Derek, it was too intense... too much... So fucking too much!

Even as Derek's body relaxed on the floor, Stiles could see claws digging into his mate's stomach to gut him, just to be healed the next day and be flayed alive. These were echoes of Derek's memories. Of his soul's memories that will haunt him for years, he knew. And this was the time to let it all out before he had to be strong for his mate. So he sobbed and let himself break down against Derek's chest, his body and mind and soul hurting from both the physical exhaustion and the mental torture they were going through.

The magic slowly calmed down, the fire evaporating from around them as Stiles' hands were holding onto Derek's shoulders as if his life depended on it. Then after a while he finally took a deep breath and wiped his eyes with his sleeve. He... he had to calm down and get past this. He had to be strong for both of them.

So with another deep breath and a few sniffs, he slid an arm under Derek and somehow managed to drag the heavy muscular body with him towards the elevator. His only goal was to maneuver Derek into bed and pass out right next to him from the strain they both went through. In Stiles' case, magic-wise. In Derek's... with everything.

Next part

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