The buzz was comforting now. A steady hum that was as sweet as the sting it brought. At first, it hurt; it hurt more acutely than anything he'd ever felt because of what it meant. What it would always mean. Now, well...now it meant protection, safety.
There was a little tickle of something wet sliding down his shoulder and back as the sweet bite of pain ran a particularly thick line. He felt it skate down across his scapula, a couple ribs and down the long line of his back until it was captured and wiped away by a rough but delicate hand. Bourbon eyes swept over the mirror in front of him, cataloguing the middle aged woman that sat at his shoulder, her hands steady and sure and strong.
"You need a break, kid?" she asked, settling back for a moment on her stool, eyes roaming her work like a proud parent. She should be proud. She'd been the cause of ever good night of sleep he'd gotten since he was seventeen.
"No," he said, easing into the pain again as the buzz set up once more. He watched each swipe of darkness spread over pale skin with scrutiny. He'd learned early that even a small miss step, even a slight swipe of ink out of line, and it would mean nothing. It was why he paid for the best. It was why he drove four hours one way for a woman that would use his ink because she knew it wasn't just for aesthetics. She was good at what she did, and he was good at what he did. Good at a few things.
The needle buzzed against his skin, and he smiled as another arch came into existence.
-The Buzz Beneath My Skin-
Stiles was smiling again. It had been a year since she'd seen it, since someone had made a quip and Stiles' mouth quirked up into a smile. She didn't even realize how long it had been until she saw it again. It was the summer after their senior year, and not a single one of them had anything more pressing than college applications to worry about. They'd been spending their days and most nights lounging on the shore of a small pond in the Hale reserve. Jackson had come back, and Lydia had spent the first three weeks ignoring him and the last two disappearing into the woods with him.
She'd been distracted, so she can't say exactly when his smiles came back, but she could pinpoint the first time she saw one.
"Scott, Scott, no!" Kira shouted. She'd been thrown over his shoulder as he ran toward the pond. "Scott, if you so much as-"
The splash cut her off, and they both came up sputtering, play fighting to the amusement of the rest of them. Even Jackson and Derek watched them with soft eyes. It was a good thing, seeing Scott as soft-edged as he used to be before Allison. Stiles apparently thought so too, because he had a smile so gentle that Lydia thought it might disappear in a moment. And it should have, because in the next, Kira and Scott were standing in knee deep water.
"In what world could a fox ever beat a wolf?" Scott said, voice amused as they play fought in the water. Lydia only caught it because she'd been so very careful in the last few years, had seen the tightening to Stiles' entire body when the word fox was brought up, even casually. Except, Stiles was still smiling, loose limbed and relaxed in his long sleeve Iron Man t-shirt and long jean shorts. Sweat beaded up on his temples and run down the back of his neck, but he looked just as comfortable as if he'd been in swim shorts like the rest of them.
Lydia's careful gaze ran him from head to toe, startling at the ease she saw there, the confidence in himself, the comfort in his own skin, that she had never seen on him before. He'd grown in the last few years, gone from awkward and uncomfortable to someone that could lounge on a rocky sand slope while his friends teased and poked at each other while unintentionally prodding an aching scar. Except, it didn't look like it hurt anymore, not from the easy smile or the eye roll that followed when Kira took Scott down with a leg sweep.
It was only after Scott had recovered and was using his strength to hold Kira well over his head that Stiles reacted, and I a very pre-nogitsune Stiles way. In the space between two heart beats, she was watching him stand, strip his shirt over his head, and launch himself at the pair. At first, she didn't realize what the dark markings down his back and shoulders were. It could have been another one of his super hero tank tops until he was colliding with Scott's legs and sending all three of them into the water. When the black lines and swirls didn't move or slosh with water, she realized what they were. So did the rest of the pack.
"When'd you drown in ink, Stilinski?" Jackson asked. There was none of the bite that might have been there a few years ago, but it was meant to sound like there was. Lydia had known Jackson before though, knew his tones and his facial expressions. She knew his concern, his sharp eyes.
It took several long minutes of rough housing for Scott to recognize what the rest of them were staring at, to register the words, and in the next, he was holding Stiles out at arms length, inspecting with critical eyes.
"When did you get these?" Scott asked, fingers running up and down the latest piece at his shoulder that ran down to his mid upper arm. Stiles glanced at it half-heartedly and shrugged. Scott followed the rest across his back with a quick circle and confused eyes.
"That's a lot of ink," Erica said with a low whistle. "You've been working on that for a few months."
"A couple years," Stiles amended easily. He rubbed his thumb against a symbol buried in tribal swirls. He ignored the odd glances and lunged at Scott again, who simply laughed and pulled Kira down with them.
-The Buzz Beneath My Skin-
Stiles stared in the mirror, eyes sweeping over the symbols down the front of his shoulder and bicep. He traced them with careful fingers before nodding. He eyed the careful sketch in his hand before moving to the next shape. He'd done this three times since it had healed, and each time, the carful shapes matched up with his demand. Once or twice more and he might believe it.
"They didn't change from yesterday." Derek's voice startled him, and he nearly dropped the sketch pad. The wolf's eyes met his in the mirror, and Stiles rolled his eyes at him.
"I know," he said simply. "That's the point."
"The point of what?" Sharp eyes swept up over the marks, narrowing at a couple of the markings. "I know some of those."
"You should," Stiles said with a nod. He tapped the largest of his newer addition. It was, like all the rest, infused with magic because of the ink. He'd mixed the herbs and powders himself, and Deaton had infused it with magic. The symbols were a catalyst for that magic, and their power had been more for comfort than use. Stiles was alright with that. "This one's for your particular breed of supernatural." Bright blue eyes shined at him in the mirror.
"You're immune," Derek said simply, fixing it with a dark glare. "That's...what happens if you need..."
"If I'm dying, I give you permission to tear it off of my skin," Stiles said with a wry smile. "Until then though, I'd like to remain myself." They stared each other down in the mirror. It was easier that way, with the pane of glass between them, offering the illusion of distance. Derek's quick hand reached over Stiles' shoulder and snatched the sketchbook. By the time Stiles realized he was leaving with it, the wolf was already out the window.
-The Buzz Beneath My Skin-
Stiles saw the sketchbook four times in the next week, each time in new hands.
The first time, Erica had it, leaned close and studying something with careful eyes. She spirited it away inside her purse before Stiles could snatch it back. Kira may or may not had tripped him in the process as she skipped after her. They ignored his shouted protest as they slipped into Kira's mom's car.
The next was Boyd and Scott, huddled together and muttered over it. They didn't even bother to hide that they had it, Scott going so far as to smile at him impishly before ducking back over it. When Stiles had objected the greasy pizza sitting a few inches away from it and tried to capture it back, Boyd had stood, pushed him back with careful hands and a firm sobriety to his face while Scott shrugged on a jacket and disappeared out the back of the pizzeria.
Lydia didn't take any of his shit the third time. She was sitting in the library with Jackson who for once didn't spare Stiles a glare. He simply pushed the chair he'd had his legs throw up on toward Stiles and propped his legs up on the table instead. It took a while for Stiles to recognize the book in front of her as she took neat notes long the blank spaces, flipping between it and a page in another book hidden beneath it, not stopping long enough on either for him to see anything. He made a token protest, but the no-nonsense look she fixed him with quieted him. Jackson only scoffed and gave Stiles a commiserating look that made him almost uncomfortable.
The last time, it was Isaac, and he had pushed Stiles into a bathroom, stripped him of his shirt without comment, and mapped out the tattoos across his right shoulder, upper back and down his bicep. He'd poked and prodded, sweeping his fingers over the tattoos and empty spaces of skin. As if that wasn't odd enough he'd turned Stiles around with a frown, stared at him a long moment before bracing a hand against the junction of neck and shoulder and tugged him into a hug. The quick affection was gone in an instant, and so was Isaac.
He didn't see the sketchbook again.
-The Buzz Beneath My Skin-
"Scott, they aren't just tattoos okay? You're my brother, and freaking love you, but-" Scott leveled his palm across Stiles' mouth. He nodded to Jackson and Isaac, who had manhandled him into his usual tattoo shop. His artist waved them back to the chair and let them shove him into it. She accepted a bottle of ink from Lydia without question, and before the familiar buzz of the needle took up again, Scott was in front of Stiles, offering him big puppy eyes.
"Trust me," Scott said. "If you never trust me again after this, that's fine, but trust me now." It was such an open, honest look that Stiles nodded. He heard Kira and Erica muttering in the corner, and if that wasn't unsettling the way Derek presided from the doorway was. Stiles stripped his shirt easily, settled across the chair and dropped his head. The hum of the needle lit under his skin, and in a moment, that sweet familiar stinging sung through his body.
He sat there longer than he had for any of the other pieces, feeling it stretch out in a sketch across his entire left shoulder, across the top and over the front just far enough that it skimmed his collar bone. Shortly after it dipped down to his midback, spreading as far as his spine. Her movements became more careful there as she neared his other tattoos, but deft fingers continued only superficial sketching, making the framework for something massive. If Scott wasn't still staring at him, he might have said fuck it at that point.
It had been two hours and was sorely pushing his endurance for pain when she stopped sketching and started on the little details of the thing, the shading ad the specific lines. A cool and firm hand wiped the blood from rolling down his low back, and Stiles sighed at the contact as the cool cloth came up over the work. The stinging had been replaced with a superficial ache that set his teeth on edge.
"Need a break, kid?" she asked. Stiles huffed out a breath through his nose and was halfway into a nod when a warm hand closed against the back of his neck and his pain was gone. The nod was aborted, and he sighed.
"I'm going to kiss whoever that is," Stiles muttered under his breath, and the chuckles that went through the wolves were unnerving but only for a few moments.
Six hours later, he was sore and aching as he stood up. The hand fell from against his neck, and his breath caught only for a moment before he laughed, shook his head and planted a smacking, obnoxious kiss against Derek Hale's cheek.
-The Buzz Beneath My Skin-
The first few days, Stiles was just uncomfortable. The faint buzzing to his skin he attributed to the length of the process, the detail to the creation that they had all declared off limits to his eyes and had threatened him with Lydia should he peak before they deemed it ready. In the week that followed, he was more and more uncomfortable with the almost pleasant singing in his back and shoulder. The pain had faded away until only a warm, comfortable hum was left beneath his skin.
It had irked him to the point where he'd sent out a group text message demanding their presence at his house in an hour or the bandage was coming off with or without them. It only took Lydia twenty minutes to be at his doorstep, feigning disinterest and snapping him on the shoulder with her clutch.
"You'll feel bad for acting like a child when this is all said and done," she said simply. He almost did, in that moment, but in the next, she was letting herself into his kitchen and helping herself to the chocolate fudge he kept hidden there just for her visits.
She was right though, in the end.
Scott ripped off the bandage with a child like excitement, eyes eagerly watching Stiles as he stood in front of his mirror. At first, all Stiles could really focus on was the freedom to scratch. The tattoo was well on its way to healed, and the process of flesh knitting together had always been the worst part for Stiles. All that careful scraping of nails just around the parts that truly needed it. Not ever touching for fear of ripping open a partially healed bit of flesh and ruining the lines, the art the power buried beneath it all.
"Why does it look like there's a wolf on my shoulder?" Stiles asked before his lips could catch up to him. Because there was. Its expressive, focused eyes were staring up at him from his back when he looked at it over his shoulder. Dark eyes, colored in and...He stared at them for a long moment before he saw the rest. It was a wolf, but it wasn't a wolf. The fangs were bared in a snarl, ears perked up and sharp, on edge. One leg was brought up, the claws cutting lines down his back, just to the left of his spine. It was a beautiful piece, straight forward and gorgeous, but it was hardly..
Except, when Stiles focused, there was something deeper to it, something hidden in the twist of fur and lines.
The easiest to place was in the marks that the creature looked to be tearing into his flesh. There, between the tattoo of parted skin, were dark, glinting eyes that Stiles had only ever seen in the mirror, lined by fatigue and pain and something mocking. Shadows fell across them, and when he looked-because how could he recognize those eyes and not look-a shadowed line ran from the corner of one downward, like cracking glass. Like...
A sharp intake of breath rocked through him, and for a moment, he wanted it gone, almost took his own blunt nails and ripped at his flesh until it was just muscle there. If he started though, he was sure he'd never stop, sure that he'd dig and dig until he either found those mocking, smiling eyes or until all that was left was bone. The urge faded, but only because the rising burn of anger took over. Anger that flooded hot and deep, sharp edged and ready to tear into the first person to draw its attention.
There was a little, distressed noise from his left, where Scott stood, and that was all that it took.
"What did you do?" he asked, voice soft but rising. He turned to Scott, to that awkward, kicked puppy look and shoved. It wasn't Stiles' human strength that sent him stumbling backward but the dejection in each line of him. "What did you do?" Stiles shoved again and again until Scott's back was to his closed bedroom door. He almost wanted to shove again, see if some of the power of that had been in the nogitsune before was bleeding back into him, through that memory on his back.
He'd found an out, a release, something to make him comfortable enough to sleep through the night, and they'd...they'd stolen it.
"Stiles, we didn't-what are you-stop it!" Scott was shouting now, gripping at Stiles' hands, and it was only that action that made him realize that he was ripping at the skin on his shoulder.
"Why would you do that?" he heard himself whisper. "Why would you put it on my skin? Why would you..." He never finished the though, because in the next moment, he was pressed back against a wall, sinking down to the floor in a panic. The words ran a loop in his mind. He didn't hear the shifting around him. He didn't hear Kira's little sobbing breaths or Isaac shifting uncomfortably. He didn't hear Jackson's silence or Boyd's little soothing noises as he held Erica.
He didn't see Derek squat down in front of him with Scott. He didn't see Lydia's frown, the way her eyes were bright with realization. He couldn't, because he was still looking into his own eyes, standing in front of a mirror and hating himself. Like he'd done for months, for nearly a year. Like he'd finally stopped after the first tattoo, after he knew it couldn't come back.
It couldn't come back.
It can't come back.
It's not here.
It's gone.
"It's gone, Stiles." Derek's voice was soft, hushed and laced with something that Stiles hadn't heard before. He repeated it twice more before the angry whiskey brown eyes in his field of vision faded away to concerned green. "Stiles?" Derek asked, giving him a little shake. He was holding his shoulder, where it met his neck, and Stiles startled at the contact.
"I made it go away, and you..." He couldn't finish the words.
"Look at the rest of it," Derek commanded, and just like that, Stiles was. The little hand mirror he held had come from Lydia's purse. Stiles had seen it often enough that he recognized it. There, in the little reflective window, was the front of the thing they'd put to his skin. It was the back of the animal's neck, hackles raised, but with such a small focus, Stiles couldn't see that. Instead, the details stood out. The individual tufts of fur. The words hidden in them.
It took a few long seconds before Stiles could see the words: I am. Derek must have seen the realization cross his face, because that little mirror was tilting, following the hidden words. The breath left him in a little whoosh.
I am the divine move.
"Say it," Derek said firmly.
"I am the divine move," Stiles read the words as the little mirror ran over them again. This time, it was impossible to miss them as he had at first. Other little things rose up out of the twists and knots of fur. Sigils, his mind realized, some that were already inked into his skin, others were new, things he'd seen and had planned for the future, some he'd never laid eyes on before. The mirror was too small in that moment, too little to see, and Stiles used Scott's shoulder to lever himself to his feet and stumble in front of his full length mirror.
The wolf was snarling down at those eyes, that cracked face, and there were little things hiding there as well. Lydia's name in clean script along its exposed tongue, hidden in the shading. A J lined one of the teeth, meaningless unless you knew the pack. Boyd ran the length of a jowl. Scott's name hid in the blood and hair along a claw with Isaac running not far away in another. Erica was bold, now that he was looking for it, along the shell of an ear. Kira hid in the other, more well mixed in with the hair.
His breath caught along the neck of the creature, at the longer name inked there. His hand came up, twisted awkwardly behind his back and ran along the cursive A as it ran into a series of loops.
Allison.
Tears welled in his eyes as he ran the pad of his finger awkwardly down the name. He realized after a long study of it that he hadn't spoke in several minutes.
"Thank you," the words left his lips in an exhale. They felt too heavy otherwise. The silence around him cracked. Scott let out a whoosh of anxiety. Lydia chuckled under her breath. Stiles wrapped them all up in turn, crushing them to his naked chest no matter the protest. Even Jackson, who's name was only his initial, went with little muffled annoyance.
-The Buzz Beneath My Skin-
It was two weeks later and Stiles still couldn't stop finding little things in the tattoo that made him smile when he looked them up. Lydia had given him a list of ingredients in the ink, and upon prodding, Isaac had admitted to the list of runes and sigils he'd hidden in the piece. It had taken Stiles several long choked up minutes to get over the fact that Isaac had drawn the whole thing, hidden in the little things that kept coming to light.
He was sitting in his room, using a digital camera to take photos and inspect them under the zoom function. He'd just gotten a good shot of the wolf's eyes. It took him several long minutes of study before he realized what he was looking at. There, in the left eye, spun a little triskellion. In the other, hidden in a shadow along the eye, was a D.
"Found you," he muttered quietly, a smile on his lips. At first, he didn't even notice their resident soul wolf was missing from his skin. After, it had bothered him enough to ask. Derek had brushed him off while Isaac and Lydia had only laughed and said he was there, if you looked.
If Stiles slept better at night, he wouldn't admit that it was because the wolf, the Pack, would rip anything out of him that dared try to take him over. Or because Lydia's scream was on his tongue, because Jackson and Boyd's teeth, Isaac and Scott's claws would defend him. Because Kira and Erica would hear a threat coming. Because Allison had his back, even after everything. Because Derek would see it, because he watched, because everyone in a pack was important.
Yeah, if Stiles slept better, it was because of his pillow. Maybe a few other things. Maybe the buzz beneath his skin that could be nothing less than the Pack.