"Derek, why do you have a blow torch?"

The Alpha just looked at him and Stiles chuckled nervously. "Okay, I guess I'll just use my imagination." His dark brows furrow for a moment before he looks back at the older man. "Oh geez dude, that's gross!"

"Stiles."

One word but laced with enough growly emotion for the teen to understand shut up before I rip your throat out with my teeth and why do I put up with you?

Scott looked between the two and cocked his head as if trying to understand the subtext of their conversation. Stiles shook himself free of the hazel-blue-green gaze and turned to his best friend.

"Are you sure, Scott? I mean, he's going to use a freaking blowtorch on you. It was bad enough with the tattooing needle."

Okay, bad for Stiles and not Scott, but still. A freaking blowtorch!

"Open wound," Scott intoned quietly, his brown eyes wet with the emotions roused by his speech about Allison.

Stiles sighed with resignation and clamped his hands down around Scott's broad shoulders. They'd spent time hanging out at the beginning of the summer, then Scott started disappearing again, and Stiles had thought it was the beta's ex-girlfriend until one day he ran into Melissa and she waxed poetically about Scott's renewed dedication to the upcoming Junior year. Stiles still felt lonely without his best friend but couldn't begrudge him time spent studying. Boredom usually led to Stiles getting into trouble, but without his usual compadre of terror, he'd found himself at Deaton's regularly, though never when Scott was working. He was honing his believing craft, as absurd as he still found it sometimes. The vet - who was clearly more than just a mere animal doctor no matter what the man said - had him focusing his will on inanimate objects with his entire concentration. At first it was hard for Stiles to keep focused on one object without scattering his mind into a million different directions until one day he stared at this weird looking statue for over three hours, though it only felt like minutes to him.

"Ready?"

"Do it."

"Not you, Scott. Are you ready, Stiles?"

Derek raised a dark brow and Stiles nodded hesitantly.

The smell of burning flesh was oddly sweet, which made Stiles blanch the minute he thought it. To avoid thinking about what exactly was happening, and to keep Scott in the seat where he was starting to change, Stiles narrowed his attention to just one thing: Scott's tattoo, the two simple bands wrapped around his upper arm. For Stiles, however, it wasn't just about Allison and the ruptured relationship with her, but also a symbol of the cyclical nature of his friendship with Scott. Stiles hadn't fully supported the idea to begin with, and even now thought it was silly to tattoo such a permanent mark for such an impermanent reason, but he did as he always would and stood by (or behind really) Scott regardless of his own personal feelings.

"Stiles! Stiles! Let go of him!"

The urgency in Derek's voice cut through the white noise in Stiles' head and he snapped back to the moment.

"Wha-?" His voice was scratchy as if he'd been screaming.

"You've done enough."

Stiles looked down and only saw Scott slumped backward, head lolling on the chair passed out. He didn't understand what Derek meant at first until he saw gold twining around Scott's upper arm, highlighting the thick black bands seared into the flesh.

"What did you do this summer?"

There was dark suspicion mixed with incredulity and Stiles stifled a giggle as he was suddenly reminded of the first day of fourth grade when they were told to stand up at the front of the class to tell everyone their favorite memory about how they spent their summer.

"Uh, you know, video games, Netflix, Wiki. The usual."

"That," Derek pointed at the fading glow, " -is not "usual" with you."

Red eyes and a mouthful of large teeth convinced Stiles to speak even though Derek never moved. Apparently he had his own Pavlovian responses.

"Dr. Deaton had me working on my Sparkitude through focus." Stiles shrugged, hands tucked into the pockets of his favorite slouchy jeans. "I was just thinking about how much Scott wanted this stupid thing."

"And the magic flowing from your hand?"

"Dude, I dunno! Last time I was at Deaton's office, he gave me a paintbrush and some watercolors to use to practice some sigils from this weird animal statue thing."

And he was being truthful. There was nothing magical about what he did - at least he didn't think so. Maybe he should've questioned the vet a little closer about what was in the paint he used. Of course, Deaton never said for him to use it on himself, but he didn't have any paper and it just seemed simpler. When he'd returned for his next lesson and replicated the marks perfectly, he hadn't thought to mention his skin was the canvas he practiced on.

"It's gone," Derek breathed, his nostrils flared open as if he were scenting. And he was, Stiles realized, when the Alpha leaned forward and brushed his nose against Scott's arm and then started to push up Stiles' long sleeve plaid over shirt. He shifted away from the touch, but stilled when a clawed hand gently grasped his wrist. The threat was subtle and completely unnecessary in Stiles' humble opinion, even as he gracelessly submitted to the inspection, stripping his shirt off so Derek could look at him.

The gold had faded from Scott's skin, yet Stiles' bared arms were gilded with random squiggles until he looked a little deeper and saw the three sigil patterns he was taught last week. The glow remained for another minute, seemingly pulsing to Stiles' heart beat, before finally vanishing.

"Yeah, that's normal for you."

Derek's deadpan expression was at complete odds with the turmoil evident in his shaky voice, though Stiles didn't know him well enough to decipher exactly what the wolf was suppressing.

"It's still just me, you know, Stiles Stilinski, awesomest Robin to ever Robin."

"If you're a threat to my pack -"

"Seriously? That's what you're going with? Gee-zus, Derek! I'm not out to harm your stupid packmates. You've done enough of it on your own s'oz not like you need my help mucking it up."

Stiles winced as soon as the words were out, especially when Derek towered over him and dragged him out from behind Scott. The boarded window was just as painful as one could expect with a two-by-four lodged into a rib or a heavy wolf leaning against the soreness to make a point.

"Too soon?"

"You need to stay out of this, and Scott too. The pack of Alphas are out for blood and they won't care who's collateral damage. You thought Peter was bad? Think of him at his worst and then add four more. Maybe then you'll understand why you and your punk-ass beta friend need to stand clear of this. Stop fiddling with forces beyond your comprehension."

Regardless of what Derek might think, Stiles hadn't gone into training with Deaton because of the werewolves – okay not the only reason. He'd wanted to learn more, to feel the same sense of accomplishment as the night outside the nightclub when he completed the circle with his will; it was hard being an outcast of the outcasts, especially when Scott's place beside him felt vacant of late. It might make him more Sith than Jedi, but Stiles liked the feeling of being successful in his field of interest, even if the most it amounted to was a few parlor tricks consisting of using magic dust and sealing tattoos into werewolf flesh.

"He'll be waking soon and I want you two to leave without looking back once. There is a time and a place for heroics and right now isn't one of those times."

Derek stepped back, the world readjusting to normal perimeters, and Stiles grimaced and aborted several different comments, honestly surprised at his own tact. Ultimately, this wasn't Derek's decision because he wasn't either Stiles' or Scott's Alpha, but he had enough self-preservation to resist telling him that. It was interesting, however, that Derek referred to Scott as a "Beta" when a few months ago he was courting him like he was another Alpha. Had something changed in the past few months to demote Scott from leading Team Human with Wolvish Tendencies (their title was a work in progress)?

A mystery he'd have to tackle another time because Scott sat up with a gasp. "It worked!"

A/N: First off - why the heck does Derek carry around a portable blow torch? That haunted me for the rest of the episode, which is a funny thing to focus on, but hey that's my mind for you. The blow torch is actually what sparked (heh heh) this little story. And secondly, Tyler Posey is not the best (or the worst) TV actor I've ever seen, and some of his acting on the show is truly train wreck about to happen, but I admit his speech about his tattoo was very sincere, which leads me to believe there is a grain of truth written into the script. I give him a solid B minus for the episode (it might've been higher, but the whole reading "White Fang" while doing one-armed pull ups was just lame).