The Truth In Your Skin - 6
THE TATTOO AU CONTINUES!
It’s on ao3 from chapter one right heeeere.
Explicit rating because it’s got some dark dark backstory, hurt/comfort, and, gods willing, there will eventually be smut.
But this chapter is SOFT and so flirty! <3
-
Darlin parked behind the building and entered through the back. They were early, so they were more than surprised to hear music already playing in the main room. David or Ash were usually down by now, doing paperwork and opening the shop, but they didn’t usually turn on the music until they unlocked the front doors.
Darlin glanced at their phone, suddenly worried they were late. No. Still fifteen minutes until the doors opened.
“It looks fantastic!” someone said.
Darlin pocketed their phone and their keys and came slowly around to the doorway from the little break room into the main room. David was standing by his station while someone stood at the big mirrors, looking at a tattoo on the side of their neck. Another guy stood off to the side, smiling at the person in front of the mirror like they were his whole world.
“It looks really good,” he said.
Darlin was about to duck back into the breakroom and just wait but they felt the eyes of the person land on them in the mirror. Yep. Caught. Nothing to do about that but lean in. Darlin walked to their station like this was totally normal, shrugging out of their jacket and setting it on the hook on the wall.
“What do you think?” the person said over the music, turning and taking a handful of steps up to Darlin.
David blinked and the other guy looked surprised. Not by Darlin, but by this person’s reaction?
Darlin turned toward them, ready to get a look at David’s work.
The stranger’s expression of sheer joy fell for a split second when their gaze flicked over Darlin’s face—over the lip and the scar on their temple. But before Darlin could cringe or look away first, the stranger was smiling again, something softer about it. They turned their head to the side, tipping their face back to show off the new ink.
Darlin leaned in to study it. It was a moth, with vibrant colors and two big yellow dots like eyes on the back of those wings. A lot of black line work and curves. If Darlin hadn’t seen cover up work before, and specifically seen David do them before, and the light weren’t so good, they would never have seen the scars beneath. “That’s gorgeous.”
The stranger grinned, bouncing once before turning and running to the guy they had come with, throwing themselves into his waiting arms.
Darlin watched the three of them shuffle out into the front room, talking the whole way. Darlin would start the coffee machine at this point but they felt like they should wait and apologize first. Obviously David had been doing a private session and they should have known better than to just roll in whenever the fuck they wanted.
They were glad they had though, just to see his work. It was faultless. They could see the craft and pride his put into each piece.
They straightened when he came back in, lowering the music down to a murmur.
“I’m sorry,” Darlin said. No reason to beat around the bush. They liked their job. They liked the people they worked with. They didn’t think he’d give them the boot for this but they weren’t going to let it slide onto a list of grievances either. “I wasn’t thinking.”
“You’re fine,” David said, going to his station to clean up.
Darlin hesitated. “Do you do a lot of private session for cover ups?”
David shrugged those big shoulders of his. “Some.” His hair was pulled back into a messy tie and his t-shirt was tight across his back. Darlin was surprised to realize they were staring while he wasn’t looking. Sometimes they worried their survival instincts were shot. He was the largest guy they knew and their boss. Probably not a great choice for ogling. But if they’d met him a couple years ago? Before all that shit with Quinn?
They shied away from thinking about it. It couldn’t lead anywhere good.
“It was really good work.”
David looked up and their eyes met. Darlin felt a small rush, realizing only then how rarely they actually made eye contact. “Thank you.”
Darlin felt heat rising to their face. What the fuck was that about? They nodded and then ducked away to the breakroom to start the coffee machine. “So, is Asher still waiting for that guy to call?” they said, wanting suddenly to fill the quiet.
David was smiling when he came to the back, tossing a bunch of paper towels into the trash followed by his gloves. “Yeah. I think he will. They’re both just…tongue-tied?”
Darlin turned to lean back against the counter, watching David wash his hands while the coffee percolated between them. “I don’t know. I get why Asher didn’t ask him out while he’s working, but why wouldn’t the big guy say something if he was interested?”
“Maybe for the same reason? Didn’t want to make it awkward? Or their both oblivious?” He opened the cupboard and passed Darlin a coffee cup before pulling out a second for himself.
Oblivious. Right. They talked shop while they waited for coffee. Sometimes it was so easy to be around David that they forgot they’d only known him for a half year. Other times they felt tongue-tied themselves…and warm. He flustered them.
David was the definition of steady. And hot. They’d thought when they first saw that piercing in his lip, the same as the ring they used to have in their own, that they wouldn’t be able to look at his mouth without feeling sick. How wrong they had been. They had to make an effort not to stare, especially when he rolled his tongue against the metal, or clicked it against his teeth when he was annoyed.
And his art. They could watch him work all day. Sometimes they felt like they had, just grateful no one had caught them.
“I like your work. Do you think you could do a tattoo for me sometime?” The words jumped out of them before they realized what they were saying.
He’d just filled their coffee cup and paused to stare back at them.
Darlin felt heat climbing to their face. Whatever he said, they could shrug it off. Even if he said yes, even if it came to it, they could just get something small, something simple. He didn’t know they meant a cover up. They’d barely let themselves think of it before it came out of their damn mouth. They could get something else. Still, the idea of letting someone see it let alone put a needle to them… No, not just someone. David Shaw.
-
The question had come out so smoothly, but he’d seen the instant surprise in their face once the words were spoken. It hung there between them. He wanted to ask questions. What kind of tattoo? They had just been talking about cover up work. He poured his coffee after theirs. “Sure. Anytime.” And he meant it. David would wake up at five in the morning and run a marathon to get to them if it meant he could lay his ink on their skin. The idea that they wanted it there, next to all their own work, could give him enough strength to move mountains.
He put the coffeepot back in the machine. “Got any ideas in mind?” He made it sound casual.
Darlin relaxed a fraction and sipped their coffee. “Some. I don’t know…”
David nodded, glancing at their arm and their work. “You’ve got a theme going.” Watercolors, bright and delicate.
Darlin looked at their arm, a flash of pleasure at the sight of their own work clouded over by something akin to heartbreak. They nodded and looked away, toward the main room and their stations. “It’d need to be pretty big. Heavy line work, maybe?” They laughed but it was really just a mimic on a hard exhale. “Might just get a big black rectangle and call it done. I guess that wouldn’t really be great use of your time though.”
David thought about that. He had seen the rough edges of black lines peeking out from under their shirt that night at the Christmas party. Maybe they regretted that one? There had been something in the way they said all their tattoos were their own and then had to correct it and say they weren’t the other day. He’d never thought those rough unfinished lines were done by their hand. So, maybe they got it when they were younger? Maybe they got it for someone? Quinn? He pushed the name away as soon as it popped into his head. Darlin had never told him, so he didn’t know it. He wouldn’t know it until they decided to share it, if they ever did.
“You want to cover up an old tattoo?” he asked.
Darlin looked at him, blinking and then smiling slowly like he’d said something so obviously funny. Their eyes misted over. “Yeah. I guess I do.”
The back door opened hard enough to smack the wall. Neither of them jumped because that was how Asher entered the building in the morning. He groaned like it was early when it was actually noon.
Darlin pushed off the counter and headed through the archway, toward their station. They were still smiling though.
David watched them go, wondering if they really meant it. If they really wanted him to cover something up for them, or if it was just an idea they were playing with. He’d let them work that out and bring it up again when they were ready.
“How’d your private booking go?” Asher asked, pulling his creamer from the refrigerator.
“It went great,” David said, still watching Darlin set up their space. They’d really become a part of the shop. Milo and Sweetheart came in the front, laughing and arguing and immediately folding Darlin into their conversation.
“I’m going out with some friends tonight. You sure you don’t want to come with?” Asher asked, stealing the cup right out of his hands and adding creamer to it before David could get it back.
He pretended to be annoyed, grumbling and taking out a new cup. “No, I’ll stay in tonight.”
Asher nodded slowly and then bumped the toe of his sneaker to David’s boot. “What if I get Darlin to go? Should I ask you again then?”
David glanced back at the main room and Darlin. They said something that had Milo laughing so hard he was doubling over. “Yeah. Ask me again if that happens.”
Asher grinned and patted David’s back before marching out into the main room with his stolen coffee in hand.
-
Asher had gone to the club with Gavin and a few of his friends, but lost track of most of them on the dancefloor, which was fine because he definitely found someone else to hang out with.
The stranger was hot, in that brooding douchebag don’t take him home to momma/David sort of way.
They swayed, bumping and grinding their way through songs until the stranger was practically plastered against Asher’s back, hands on his hips and thighs, squeezing. Asher leaned his head back onto the guy’s shoulder, considering going home with him, or maybe just to his car…
The guy’s mouth brushed his neck, up to his ear. He pressed his erection against Asher’s ass almost insistently, like he was showing it off or maybe getting to the point?
Asher turned around but threw an arm over the stranger’s shoulders, not completely rejecting him yet.
The guy raised an eyebrow. “Don’t tell me you’re a tease,” he said just over the music.
Asher grinned. He wasn’t, but he knew instantly that he wasn’t going to give this guy anything either. “Yep. Total tease. My boyfriend just likes to watch me flirt with other people. Gets him going. But I promise to at least think about you for a couple seconds while he’s railing me tonight.” Asher winked, pushed away from the guy, and walked away before he could figure out if he was lying or not.
Asher cut a line for the bar but by the time he reached it, he wasn’t sure he even wanted another drink. He wasn’t feeling it tonight. His thoughts were elsewhere, on that back tattoo he did more than a week ago.
As if summoned, Asher spotted Huxley around the other side of the curved bar. He straightened, mind rebooting, but Huxley was already peeling off from his friends and coming over before Asher could think what he should do.
He leaned against the bar, watching how easily Huxley wove through the crowd to stand in front of him. His hair was pulled back and his gray shirt was just thin enough that his ink showed through when the lights hit him. “Hey.”
Asher smiled. “Hey.”
They stood close, the club too loud to talk with any distance between them.
They both tried to suppress goofy smiles.
“I was going to call,” Huxley said, his arm on the bar, just barely touching Asher’s side.
This close, Asher could smell Huxley’s bodywash. He was familiar with it from all those hours spend against his back, working on his tattoo. “But you didn’t.” There was no malice in his words, but there was a question.
Huxley blushed, looking down for a second before meeting his eyes again. “Yeah. I wanted to ask you out but I wasn’t sure… I didn’t want to ask you at your workplace… Like, what if that put you on the spot or you felt pressured to go along with it? I don’t know, man. I wasn’t sure if I was overstepping and like, even if you just wanted to hang out as friends, that’d be cool. But if you didn’t, that would be okay too. You do amazing work and how I feel about that has nothing to do with your answer, you know?”
Asher had leaned closer while he spoke, his hip almost touching Huxley’s, sheer inches between them and his head tipped so that his ear was angled toward that mouth. He didn’t want to miss a fucking word, or misunderstand them. But he couldn’t be misunderstanding this.
Asher grinned, relaxing fractions as it sank in. “I was thinking the same thing. I mean, the other way around though. I wanted to ask you out but I didn’t want to be unprofessional or make you uncomfortable or anything!”
Huxley beamed and it was possibly the most beautiful thing Asher had ever seen. “Really?”
“Really.”
Huxley’s fingertips brushed the back of Asher’s arm, such a small touched but the contact was exhilarating.
“So, you’ll call me?”
Huxley laughed, blush returning. “Definitely.” He took out his phone and Asher watched him send off a text. He felt his phone vibrate in his back pocket when it landed. “Now you’ve got my number too. Totally not a work thing.”
Asher leaned in to say something that he hoped would be flirty, when he spotted the stranger from the dance floor cutting a line straight toward them.
Oh fuck.
The guy grinned but it was toothier than he remembered it being. It was malicious. Asher couldn’t help but wonder if Milo would have flagged this guy the second he spotted him, using his douchebag intuition. Probably.
Huxley somehow noticed the shift in Asher’s reaction and before Asher could think of how to stop him, he’d glanced over to watch the guy close in on them.
Nononono.
“So…Is this the boyfriend?” the stranger nearly shouted over the music.
Asher’s brain stuttered. Heat rushed his face. What if this mess ruined whatever shot he might have had with Huxley? Asher was definitely more trouble than he was worth, but he had hoped to hide that. He leaned away from the bar, straightening and about to step between Huxley and the stranger. He’d tell him the truth. No, Hux wasn’t his boyfriend. There wasn’t a boyfriend. He was just messing around and making up an excuse not to stay on the floor with the guy.
But before he could do any of that, Huxley’s hand slid gently from his arm to his back as he turned, looking straight at the other man. “Yeah. And you are?”
Asher’s brain was vibrating out of his skull. Huxley still sounded friendly, but it wasn’t the same light tone he’d gotten used to in the shop. There was something detached there. This was a politeness that smacked of warning, a politeness that wasn’t warm or interested in the least.
The stranger grinned, crossing his arms against his chest and cocking his hip. “Just the guy he was grinding against five minutes ago.”
Asher’s stomach dropped. Well. This night sucked.
But then Huxley’s broad hand was sliding along his lower back and folding over his hip, casually hugging him into his side like they’d done it a thousand times before. “Yeah. I saw. It was hot.”
Asher’s pulse slammed. What the fuck was happening?
The stranger seemed to be just as confused. Clearly, he had either expected the boyfriend line to be bullshit, which it was, or he had hoped to get Asher in trouble. Finally he curled his lip, muttered a swear, and stormed off.
They stayed like that for a while longer. Huxley’s hand was big and it was still curled around his hip, thumb resting against the hem of his jeans, one slight shift away from being under his shirt and brushing skin. And then it was gone.
“I’m sorry if I overstepped, dude. You got real tense when he came over and then he mentioned a boyfriend so I just…”
“No! Oh my god, no. You were great. I’m so sorry I got you in that situation.”
“Don’t worry about it. You did look good on the dancefloor with him but I can’t really say that I’m sorry you bailed on him. He seems like an asshole and…well…” His blush was back. “It meant I got to talk to you.” Huxley smiled and it was just as warm and welcoming as it had been before. Asher hadn’t realized until that moment that the kindness with which this guy had always treated him wasn’t necessarily the same way he treated everyone. Asher couldn’t imagine Huxley being cruel to anyone, but this warmth wasn’t on tap for everyone either.
The crowd Huxley had been with called out to him, waving him to follow as they were heading out.
“Oh, shit, you can go, dude. I’ll text you,” Asher hurried to offer.
Huxley laughed like that was a joke. “Yeah. No. I mean, if you don’t mind hanging out, I’d rather chill with you. They’re my teammates but they’re just going to keep bar crawling until they all find someone to spend the night with, or get so drunk we put them in cabs and send them home.”
Asher remembered Huxley mentioning his team before. He’d moved to Dahlia for hockey, traded or something to the team. He played professionally and if Asher knew anything about any sport, he’d know the team by more than their logo all over the city. “Really? You don’t have to,” Asher said, but he could feel his smile getting out of his control.
Huxley mirrored it. “Yeah. Do you want to stay here or go someplace else?”
Asher’s heart jerked in his chest and he wasn’t sure how to feel about that. Yes, he absolutely wanted to jump into bed with this man, but he’d also wanted this to be…more. More than a one-night stand. More than friends with benefits. But Asher wasn’t really good at more. What the fuck did he know about that? “We can get out here,” Asher agreed over the music, heart slamming his ribs. Nervous, excited, and somehow disappointed at the same time.
It was like something he thought would be the best meal of his life had a sour note to it.
Why had he put that much pressure on it, anyway?
They were just people.
And Jesus, the best relationship he knew was Milo and Sweetheart and they were still pretending to be friends with benefits. Maybe that was how it was done!
Huxley smiled and caught his hand, gently leading the way through the crowd, toward the exit.
The sidewalk outside was cool and dark, the music instantly quieter and the sounds of the city replacing that near-deafening throb.
Asher anticipated those big hands on him again. He craved it as much as he hoped they wouldn’t.
Why was he so conflicted?
He’d never been conflicted.
He either wanted to mess around with a person or he didn’t.
And he definitely wanted Huxley.
“I found this great diner around here last week,” he said, still holding Asher’s hand and walking them down the street. “Do you have any food allergies?”
Asher blinked at him, exhaled a relief he wasn’t ready to analyze, and squeezed Huxley’s hand. “No. I’m a garbage can, man. I’ll swallow anything.”
Huxley’s head snapped to the side to look at him, eyes wide for a second as he tried to determine if it was meant to sound as dirty as it did.
Asher grinned and winked.
Huxley exhaled a laugh and let go of Asher’s hand long enough to drape that arm across his shoulders. “Fuck, dude. It’s a good thing you didn’t say stuff like that when I was on your table…”
“Why? You would have bolted?”
Huxley laughed. “No, I would have sprung an erection and embarrassed myself.”
Asher laughed too. “You shouldn’t have admitted that. Now I’m going to order a hotdog and try to get a reaction out of you.”
