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The tattoo parlor looks the same a few months later, when Stiles walks in. He told Scott that he needs to go in for a retouch again, because the lines are already fading a little, the top layer peeled off as he’d expected. It wasn’t a lie, but the moment Stiles is inside and glances at the sketches on the walls, he knows that getting the initials darkened is not the only thing that will happen.
---
Just before he got the first ink, he talked to Deaton about tattoos, about their meanings and how they worked on werewolves, because Stiles was wondering about them since Derek helped Scott get the bands around his arm. Deaton told him a little about the healing process, about the reasons why the werewolves' bodies reject ink and how the blowtorch makes it possible to leave permanent marks. Not that Stiles particularly wanted to get an anatomy lesson and a detailed description of that process, but he got it regardless.
What he did ask about was Derek’s tattoo and mostly its significance when it came to pack. He knew that with them all -- including in a strange and unexplainable way, Stiles -- being Scott’s pack, the triskele didn’t carry the meaning that Stiles assigned to it at first. What he didn’t expect was Deaton’s explanation that it was never a pack symbol at all, that the tattoo was a personal matter to Derek because of the sign’s meaning. The three swirls, with their multiple possible meanings, were a mystery to everyone besides Derek, now that most of his family wasn’t around to ask. Stiles debated for a while that he could try asking Peter, but somehow he didn’t think that was where he’d find answers. Derek was always very vague about the reasons for his tattoo, as Stiles found out.
---
“Is there a particular reason why you have yours?” Stiles had asked a long time ago.
It had been somewhere between holding down Scott and trying to not freak out at the blowtorch. Derek had paused the burning for a while and Scott had been mostly out of it at that point.
“Not really,” Derek had said, and after a moment of thought, had explained about the generic past-present-future and life-death-rebirth meanings.
---
Stiles knew, when he was talking to Deaton, that there was more than a random and impersonal meaning to Derek’s ink, but he found no answers. All the rest of the pack got their own marks since, even Jackson ended up with one when he visited for the holidays, more reminiscent of the Kanima skin than the simplicity of Derek’s ink. Isaac’s had -- unsurprisingly -- arrowheads at the tips, and Scott got a little too emotional about it for days after. Kira, on the other hand, went with the softest-looking of them all, her triskele combined with dragons that bore a slight resemblance to a wolf, a fox and a coyote. Lydia was the one who hesitated the longest, fussing about the specific design of her ink, insisting that if it was permanent, it had to be perfect. To no one’s surprise, it was hers that ended up the most elaborate, most detailed and most obviously personal. There wasn’t a person who would’ve asked Lydia for the significance, because all those who knew her understood.
It wasn’t that Stiles didn’t want to get what they began calling “pack ink”. It wasn’t that he didn’t feel like part of the pack, because in a complicated but yet unquestionable way he had been pack before Scott slipped into the role of their Alpha. Stiles just wasn’t completely sure what exactly his role was, and if there was one for him.
“You’re Stiles,” Scott told him just that morning, when the question came up again. “You’re my best friend, you’re Deaton’s apprentice, you’re our brains along with Lydia, you’re the link to Chris and your Dad.”
---
They’re the words that Stiles is mulling over now in the tattoo parlour, looking over intricate details of bands for arms and tramp stamps that he’s not even close to contemplating for real. It’s what he’s thinking of when his eyes land on sketches of branches all too reminiscent of the Nemeton, photos of freshly inked elaborate ribbons. He knows, not only from Scott’s words, that he’s a link between a lot of things. Stiles is pack, but he’s human and also has a touch of magic in him. He is alive, but he carries a touch of death from the loss he’s suffered and somewhere in the whole Nogitsune chaos, he was reborn.
“Three,” he whispers when his eyes land on a design that’s eerily familiar.
It’s the image that’s burning his eyes when the rough-looking guy who runs the place emerges from behind the curtain at the back and looks at Stiles questioningly.
“You here for the retouch, kid?” The man asks, and heads to the appointments book on the counter.
Stiles nods, but his eyes are still locked on the picture in the corner of the design wall.
“Actually,” he says hesitantly then, nodding towards the photo, “do you think you could do another one for me?”
“Sure, it’s quiet today, I have nothing for a while,” the guy tells him, his eyebrow quirked up with curiosity. “Got the feel for it the last time, did you? It’s common, to want to get more once you’ve been under the needle. But I don’t really cater to rash decisions or random whims, so only if you’re sure.”
“I am,” Stiles says with more firmness to his voice this time. “It’s something that would mean a lot, not just a random scribble.”
He points to the photo in the corner and the guy nods.
“I’ve never actually inked that one, you know,” he explains as he pulls the photo off the wall,”someone brought it in a long time ago, but they never went through with it in the end. I took a photo of the sketch at the time for inspiration.”
Stiles lets that sink in, and wonders if there is a reason; if he perhaps knows the person who came in with the request and then chickened out. Instinct tells him that there is something more to the story than he’s getting, but he’s also sure that the tattooist won’t know the back-story.
For a second, Stiles wonders if it would be worth asking Derek, but then he tries to shake that thought off. He can’t do that completely, not when the design is what it is, when it makes his mind focus on Derek so much that Stiles ends up shaking his head just to get back to reality. He allows himself, for a moment, to wonder if it is the same one, but then almost laughs at the idea. What are the chances that at some point in the past, Derek -- a born were, so likely aware that a regular tattoo would just heal the way Scott’s did -- had come to this tattoo parlour of all the ones in California, and had left a photo of the sketch behind?
“None,” Stiles mumbles to himself as he follows the tattooist into the back room.
“You okay, man?”
Stiles can feel the questioning gaze on him before he looks up from his feet to the guy who is already setting up his equipment.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” Stiles says quickly. “I talk a lot, so talking to myself is a thing that happens. I’m good though, really.”
“Dude, if I didn’t remember you from the last time, I’d seriously question your judgment on this,” the guy nods towards the sketch that he’s now transferring onto a stencil paper. “But you don’t look like you’re regretting the first one, so I’ll let it slide. Do bring someone else if you go for another one after this, though.”
“I wasn’t planning on getting more, actually,” Stiles admits. “At least not today.”
“We can set up an appointment for later, if you want,” the tattooist pauses his sketching and looks at Stiles.
“No, I’m sure, I’m here,” Stiles says with a shrug that he hopes looks nonchalant. “What’s the point in waiting when I know I’ll get it anyway?”
“Okay. Now, where do you want this one? We’ll do the new one first and I’ll retouch the initials one after.”
Stiles thinks for a moment, at first considering to put the tattoo on his back, right between his shoulder blades. But then he considers the pain of getting anything inked on his spine and shakes it off.
“I want to see it, so…” he says out loud.
“Do you want others to see it, or is this for you?”
“Me,” Stiles answers without hesitation. “Just me,” he adds more quietly.
Before the tattooist can suggest a spot, Stiles glances at the photo on the sketching table and freezes. There are initials scribbled in the corner and his mind spins at the possibility that the “DH” that he sees has a link to Derek. It would be a hell of a coincidence, though, and Stiles isn’t one to believe in those.
“How about your hip?” The tattoo artist says and pulls Stiles out of his thoughts. “I can make it small enough so it won’t be too obvious, and it’s a good spot to hide if you don’t want anyone to see.”
“That sounds perfect,” Stiles nods. “Actually, can you…?”
He pauses, because the thought he has came from seemingly nothing at all, but it feels like something he should do.
“Could you flip it horizontally? So it’s a mirror image of the sketch?”
As he says the words out loud, he feels a calm settle in his chest, easing away the anxiety that was building from preparing himself for the needle. It feels like something slips right into place when he sees the tattooist flip the tracing paper and redraw the design on the other side like Stiles asked.
“Sure, man,” the guy nods.
The movements of his hand speed up as he sketches out the three loops of the triskele. The design is no longer looking as familiar as the original drawing did, but there’s still a feeling of connection that Stiles can’t shake. When the tattoo is traced onto his skin, Stiles’ mind almost spins out of control. His blood is buzzing like it’s reacting to the touch and to the symbol on his body, and it reminds him of the feeling he gets whenever he works with Deaton on his Spark. The sensation stays with him when he lies down on the chair and all through the process of the tattoo being done.
But from the moment the needle first touches his skin, there’s another thought in his mind. Derek. He tries to bring up the rational part of his brain, the one that told him that the chances of the sketch being Derek’s are slim, but the Spark in him seems to think otherwise. Once he succumbs to the buzzing sounds of the needle, Stiles can almost feel the connection between him and Derek, the one that he’s been trying hard not to overanalyze.
“This one seems to settle better than the first one already,” the tattoo artist breaks the monotone sounds of the needle’s buzz. “You seem to be handling this one better.”
“Less of a ticklish spot, I guess,” Stiles says with a shrug in a momentary lull of the process.
The tattoo is finished before Stiles can get his mind around the words spoken. Or around what has been happening while the ink was flowing into his skin. His blood is still vibrating with the warmth that seeped into it during the tattooing process and he could swear that he feels it already healing, faster than it should considering he’s still human. He is able to direct and control magic, but he doesn’t carry it, he never did. Right there, as the artist cleans up the surface of Stiles’ skin, it doesn’t feel like it, it seems more like the magic that Stiles was always only aware of and able to aim at whatever was needed has embedded itself under his skin along with the tattoo.
“Want to look?”
The question brings Stiles back to reality and he nods, then looks down to the mirror that is held up to his hip. The tattoo is fresh, but his skin isn’t as irritated as it was after the first one, the black ink striking against the paleness surrounding it.
“Okay, lay back again, and I’ll touch up the other one,” the tattoo guy directs. “Shouldn’t take more than a few minutes.”
Stiles follows the order and relaxes, his mind drifting a little to the triskele, and his blood thrumming with what now feels like a direct connection to the pack. To Derek. He felt them before, less than the wolves would obviously, but now, now he’s hearing a thumping of a heartbeat that’s most definitely not his own. As the tattoo gun’s buzzing sounds around him, he can’t help think that the new tattoo feels a little like magic.