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Life in tattoos

Derek was five when his first tattoo burned its way into being on his back, three thick black lines in a triskelion on his back. His parents were worried about what it could be but Derek didn't care, he was instantly the coolest kid in school because he was the only one to have a tattoo yet. He didn't know it then, no one did, but that would be the one tattoo to never fade from his skin.

Derek was ten when his next one appeared. It woke him up with the burning on his arm and his mom had to come in to comfort him as the tree branch stretched up from the inside of his left wrist to his inner elbow. Three days later he met his future best friend in the entire world, Camden Lahey, and the two of them hit it off. Neither knew it then but they would one day be each other's best man at their weddings.

Derek was seventeen when the bright blue eye appeared on the back of his right hand. It started burning into his skin in the middle of math class and he hadn't been able to hold back his scream and tears streamed down his face. No one laughed at him or made fun of him. They all knew what a tattoo with that painful of an entrance means. Someone Derek loves was going to die. And sure enough, one week later his girlfriend Paige was found murdered in an abandoned car at the gas station. When the police tracked down the killer, Derek knew before even seeing him that his eyes were blue. And they were. His tattoo had been right. Derek didn't know it then but one day that eye would fade and Derek would be able to look at it without his heart breaking in his chest. For now though, it was bright and solid and hurt him with every glance.

Derek was nineteen and in his freshmen biochemistry seminar when his next one appeared, flames burning their way from his right shoulder all the way down to his wrist. He got the call two days later that his family's home had been set on fire. No one was killed and there was only minor smoke inhalation among those that had been inside at the time. He had to go to the police station when he got into town and give a statement about possible suspects behind the probable arson. It was the first time he's even seen the Sheriff's son, a skinny boy with a brown buzzcut, whiskey eyes, and more energy than anyone Derek had ever met before. His name was Stiles. Derek didn't know it then but that boy was going to be a big part of his life.

Three years later Derek returned to Beacon Hills with another tattoo. This one was a wolf on the back of his right shoulder, standing strong and staring out at the viewer with a protective glare and bright red eyes. If you looked close you could see a figure in a red hoodie between the wolf's paws. Derek didn't know it then but that tattoo was the symbol of the new life ahead of him as he took over the wolf sanctuary his parents had run for decades to allow them the chance to retire peacefully to the big house in the woods. A week later a small group of seniors at Beacon Hills High School came out to the sanctuary to do hands-on research about wolves and their habits for a school project. The Sheriff's son, Stiles, was among them as well as Camden's younger brother, Isaac.

Six months later found Derek explaining the tattoos that covered his arms to the whiskey-eyed boy that had found that being near wolves helped to calm him down enough to do his homework. Either the wolves or Derek. In return Stiles told the story of the star-filled sky that scrawled up his left arm and the bright star right on his wrist, from when his mom died and he had to learn to find his own way through the world as his dad turned to whiskey to grieve and Stiles was left with only the stars to guide him. Stiles was the one to point out that the bright blue eye had faded into greys and that the bright flames had grown down to curl around it, covering the upper edge just a little. Derek didn't know how to feel about that but he knew that he didn't feel pain. He couldn't remember when it stopped hurting.

A month later Derek was woken in the middle of the night by a call from Camden, begging him to come over and help with the tattoo burning into his side. Derek didn't hesitate in throwing on his shoes and rushing over. Camden was on the floor in his kitchen when Derek got there, pressing his burning side against the cold tiles. Derek couldn't hold back his laugh as he went to the fridge to get a bag of frozen peas out for Camden to put on his side. Two days later Camden met a girl named Victoria and they fell in love at first sight. They didn't know it then but Victoria's favorite drink was tea, a cup of which now sat constantly steaming on Camden's side.

A month after that, Stiles graduated high school and turned 18 on the same day. Derek went to the ceremony, having become friends with Stiles and his odd bunch of friends. Derek cheered for all of them as they crossed the stage and when he went to find Stiles afterwards to say congradulations he found the boy and then immediately had an armful and a faceful of him as Stiles pressed his lips against Derek's. Derek was surprised but he answered in kind with just as much love, having fallen hard for the spastic boy who loved wolves almost as much as Derek did. They hadn't known it then but both of them had been waiting for the day Stiles turned eighteen and the Sheriff no longer had a reason to arrest Derek if they got together.

It was nearly two years before another tattoo appeared on Derek's skin. The eye tattoo on his hand grew grey and the bright flames of Derek's family claimed the skin on Derek's hand, covering the formerly blue eye and removing the last pain from Paige's death from Derek's life. He still missed her and he still mourned her but it didn't hurt so much anymore. Derek was forever grateful to his sister Cora for taking care of the sanctuary for him while Derek moved to Berkeley to live near Stiles while the other boy pursued his double major in criminal justice and veterinary care with an emphasis on wild animals, like wolves. The wolf on Derek's back stopped standing guard over the figure in red and instead curled up around the boy, both human and wolf sleeping peacefully in each other's warmth. Derek got trace the vines that snaked down Stiles's back and right arm every night when they laid in bed and Stiles loved watching the flames flicker across Derek's skin. It was the night Derek asked Stiles to marry him, Stiles's junior year of college, when the Celtic knots burned into being as rings on their left hands, tying them together without even being married yet. They didn't know it then but neither one of them would hardly ever wear their wedding rings, much preferring to show off the natural rings they had as a sign of their love.

And the triskelion? Well that's the one tattoo of Derek's that doesn't fade. It stays dark black against his skin where it sits next to the wolf and seventy years in the future, when Derek holds Stiles's hands at his bedside as Stiles takes his last breath Derek will feel both tattoos moving as the wolf stands up for the first time since they started dating and the black triskelion fades away to a thin outline that remains as a memory of what was once there. No one but Derek knew it but that tattoo came into being when Stiles did, and it left right alongside him.

By; Angelwithwingsoffire