Tattoo - 1. Tattoo

You could have heard a pin drop in the bar. Like the scene of a play, all the patrons were turned, staring, as vodka dripped from Dalton’s hair and soaked into his black shirt. It was a long moment until his hind-brain caught up with what had just unfolded.

Say something!

“Umm...”

The sound of the door opening again brok­e the silence, and normality resumed. Everyone snapped back to their drinks, their companions, and Dalton, knowing everyone’s conversation was going to become speculation about what had just happened behind the bar, fled into the storeroom. It was incredibly unprofessional to leave the bar unattended, and Dalton hoped nothing untoward would happen as he stripped off his soaked shirt, found a promotional t-shirt which had been left by one of the breweries and used a freshly laundered bar towel to dry his hair.

The image of Jaxon walking out the door without looking back was burned into his mind, blocking out the storeroom shelves, the boxes and bottles of alcohol, cleaning supplies, the chest freezers full of ice and frozen shot glasses. The sensible rational part of his mind told him he was going to have to get back out there, clean up the glass and spilt drink on the floor, and start serving customers again, but the rest of his mind reeled.

Where am I going to sleep tonight?

Dalton had never been more thankful not to be on a late shift. He worked like an automaton until his relief arrived in the form of Jersey and Rich who had come to work the late shift, and both gave him odd looks and Jersey frowned, perfect red lips opening to ask where Jaxon was before the look on his face stopped her. Every time the door has opened, Dalton had flinched and glanced up, half hoping and half dreading it was Jaxon back.

Maybe he would apologise, his brain sighed wistfully. Or perhaps he’d come storming in and demand his house key back.

Eventually he left without explaining anything, and Dalton wished the other two a nice evening on his way out of the bar and into the riot of colour and noise that was the West End at twilight. It was not quite dark, the heat and light of the scorching summer sun still reflecting from the pavement and the sheet glass of store fronts. The streets thronged, mostly with people coming out for the evening, or those who had seen matinee performances and then stayed around town to drink, eat, and talk extravagantly about what they’d watched and experienced. There were a few suits-out-late still putting off the inevitable moment when they had to go home and face reality, and gangs of teenagers only just old enough to be out drinking in the evening cawing and crowing like they were the kings of their own little worlds. Dalton ignored them all, shoved his hands in his pockets, knowing how sulky he looked, and stomped through the crowds towards Jaxon’s apartment.

Once upon a time, before he’d answered a simple question and got a drink thrown in his face, Dalton had daydreamed that maybe, one day, it might be his and Jaxon’s apartment, but the vision of a bright shiny future was as broken as the smashed glass he’d swept up behind the bar.

Well there goes a perfectly planned evening, Dalton growled to himself. Angrily he thought about stopping somewhere en route to the flat, buying a bottle of something strong and dangerous and drinking until he felt numb. But where are you going to do that if you get back and all your possessions are in the street? He blinked hard, twice, dispelling the hurt that threatened to overwhelm his anger, passed by the last convenience store and took a left down the little side street which lead to the place he’d slept in for the last three months.

*

Dalton hadn’t started out with the intention to fall in love.

He’d started working at The Bar and within a couple of weeks another guy had quit, and Dalton had been doing well enough to take over his shifts for more money and generally slightly more sociable hours. And that had brought him into contact with Jaxon. They’d worked one shift together, a very busy Saturday night with barely time for civil introductions and somehow in the store room while fitting a new barrel on the most popular tap, Dalton had mentioned he was looking for a place nearer the city, Jaxon mentioned he had a spare room now, and by the end of the night it had been sort of a done deal. Dalton had moved in less than a week later with a guy he barely knew.

“So what’s your story?” Jaxon wiped down the long polished bar in smooth concentric circles. Dalton could tell by the way he moved that everything the man did was efficient and thought out. They been living together for about a week, but most of that had been spent at The Bar, or sleeping until mid-morning. Dalton couldn’t help but associate his new roommate with the smell of frying bacon. At no point had the two men had a chance to really talk.

“No story,” Dalton smiled and shrugged, “I just needed and change of scene. I’ve always wanted to work in this end of town.”

“And what about where you used to live?”

“With friends in Camden.” Dalton had moved from one pretty shitty student dig to another for years before finally pitching in with a long-time friend from college to get somewhere decent and clean. It hadn’t been long before it had been him and Sam; then him, Sam and Claire, which had been OK; and then they’d gotten engaged and Dalton had felt a lot like a spare wheel in his own house. Jaxon’s free room was just happy coincidence.

Jaxon began to empty the dishwasher, stacking new glasses for the morning, while Dalton began the overly long process of ringing up the till.

“Tell me about your ink.” Dalton hadn’t been able to help but notice his new roommate’s amazing traditional style tattoo sleeve. Now Jaxon pulled up the rest of his shirt sleeve to show off the river and it’s koi in full glory.

“Took three sessions. I had two of them three days apart in Osaka, then had to wait eight months to get it finished at the tattoo convention when Nami flew over from Japan. I think it was probably the most expensive of them all.” Jaxon seemed absurdly proud of this fact. “What about you? You got any tattoos?”

Dalton couldn’t help but laugh and hauled his shirt off, twisting as he did so. If he hadn’t been feeling so confident he probably wouldn’t have shown off in the same way, but then he’d already decided that until proven otherwise, his new roommate was straight, because it was way better than making a fool out of himself.

“Easier to show you.”

“Well fuck me sideways...” Jaxon’s voice had trailed off into an appreciative whistle as he’d taken in all the ink decorating Dalton’s skin. The whole of the left side of his chest was taken up by cool and colourful biomechanical bone work, very modern, and with lots of multi-faceted shading and very little actual black. Dalton wore his jeans low enough almost the whole of the lion wrapped around his hip was visible. The body of the creature was near enough gold, with a mane made up of a million colours. Over his whole shoulders and spine was an amazing dragon in traditional Celtic style, except for the bright colours. Dalton had come back from his slow three-sixty turn to find Jaxon nodding and looking impressed. “You have one hell of a high pain tolerance.”

“You’ll have to see what I have on my leg.”

“Er, show!” Jaxon had demanded.

Afterwards Dalton had wondered how it had looked to his new roommate that he was so willing to get nearly naked at his command, and he hoped the thrill of showing off his ink had been taken at face value. He had at least, managed not to get a hard on during Jaxon’s examination of his full leg tattoo. An enormous whale reared out of the sea over the tiny outline of a three mast ship, the sky full of a storm made of swirling fractals. Skeletons of long dead fish lay at the bottom around his ankle, interspersed with lost gem stones, and un-nameable birds wound through the storm. Despite how dark the whole thing was, it was still a riot of colour

“You have a thing for colours huh?”

“The whole rainbow,” Dalton grinned and stroked his hand over the back of the whale before pulling up his jeans. The tattoo disappeared into his boxer shorts, and he was wasn’t feeling good enough about himself to show that much off.

It had been the start of an easy friendship, and though he’d never actively pursued the idea, Dalton found his thoughts returning more and more in odd moments to his new room mate. Jaxon would hand him something and smile, and hours later Dalton would find himself reading much more into it than there probably had been.

They ate breakfast together most days, showered in shifts to preserve the hot water, watched TV on their off days, drank beer, ate everything in sight, and shared their newspapers. It was only a couple of weeks before they started going to the gym together, matching weight reps, laughing as Jaxon tried to teach Dalton how to spin the liquor bottles and do the fancy barman tricks that made everyone happy on a Friday night. Dalton scored cheap tickets to see a comedy show and both held each other’s shoulders while they laughed hard enough they couldn’t breathe.

The day Jaxon wandered through the living room and let his fingers trail along Dalton’s shoulders as he sat on the sofa reading a book was the beginning of Jaxon showing up in his fantasies. Dreams that started out with pictures and ink became ink and skin, then sweat and heat until Dalton would wake shaking and aroused in the middle of the night or first thing in the morning. The images stuck in his head and he found it hard to hang out with Jaxon and Jaxon’s good friends without feeling jealous every time someone else touched him, or he smiled at anyone who wasn’t Dalton.

Then there had been the day, not even a week ago, when Jaxon had taken him to meet his tattoo artist. Over coffee with AJ discussing Jaxon’s latest tattoo idea, Dalton had needed to admit, just to himself, that he was in something more than lust with the straight guy he lived with. They’d not been working that day, had gone for dinner together, and that evening with the bottle of rum, everything had changed.

*

Dalton pushed the door open with as little noise as possible. The hinges squeaked something awful, and their little private joke of waking up one day in a horror movie almost made him smile. The apartment looked just as it had when he’d left that morning, except Jaxon’s boots had been kicked off and left abandoned in the middle of the hallway. Dalton automatically picked them up and stowed them in the little show rack next to his own.

It was a long series of heartbeats later when he found himself still staring at their footwear. Three rows of mixed shoes, boots and flip flops, his one size bigger than Jaxon’s, were all sitting together closer than he and Jaxon had ever been. Ever; except...

Except for that one night, Dalton told himself, the night when I thought I’d died and gone to heaven.

It had been the beginning of a new, very short, chapter of longing in Dalton’s life. That night laying side by side, their heads touching, getting just a bit drunk and shooting the breeze. Talking about stuff that was everything and nothing, listening to Jaxon spool out his thoughts, laughing and joking about a movie they’d both seen and forgotten about since. Jaxon talked about how much he missed his parents, Dalton tried not to show it affected him. Just when Dalton thought he was really getting to know who his new flatmate really was, Jaxon had rolled over so he was practically leaning on Dalton’s chest and grinned.

“So, you ever been in love?”

His mouth had turned suddenly dry, and Dalton had swallowed, unexpectedly loud in the silence between their soft breathing.

“I-,” he’d opened his mouth to speak, though without any idea what he was going to say, and Jaxon had closed the space between them and kissed him. It had been like lightning, and Dalton had been too shocked and surprised to kiss him back. When the kiss was over, Jaxon sat up with a half chuckle, raised the near empty bottle of Old Spiced Rum to his perfect lips, drained it, and stood.

“’Night Dalton.”

Dalton had barely been able to grunt a response.

And now here he was, three days later, smelling of alcohol, his shirt damp and stained, outside Jaxon’s bedroom door, wondering what the hell had happened. He took a deep breath, and rapped on the door with his knuckles.

“Go away!” Jaxon’s voice sounded anything other than level, and Dalton was filled with a punch-gut feeling, knowing his friend had been crying.

“Jax? Look, I’m coming in.”

“No!”

“I ain’t breaking down the door Jaxon,” Dalton paused to take a deep breath, and tried the door handle. The door swung away from his easily, and Dalton met Jaxon’s red-rimmed gaze with something more or less approaching a clang. He looked equal parts angry and upset, sat against the headboard, knees drawn up to his chest, both strong tattooed arms hugged around his shins. “We need to talk.”

“I have nothing to say to you.” The words were practically spat.

“Jax,” Dalton felt the edges of his heart flaking away in little pieces, but unlike the scab after getting inked, what was underneath was neither healed nor beautiful. “I don’t even know what happened back there. You have to talk to me.”

“I can’t believe you slept with her,” Jaxon sounded utterly dejected.

“Huh?” Dalton was shocked enough to be distracted by the threat of heartbreak. “What?”

His wholly surprised tone made Jaxon flinch and shiver as he looked up. Two pairs of brown eyes regarded each other with confusion.

“But...” Jaxon frowned, but then seemed to regain his angered composure. “Don’t you dare try to go back on it now. You told me you’d slept with Jemma! She’s my oldest friend. I can’t believe you’d do that to me.”

Dalton blinked hard, and the conversation, as casual as he had been able to make it behind the bar and in front of customers, in the moments before the drink had come splashing across his face and head, replayed itself in startling clarity.

“So where’d you go last night?” Jaxon was wiping a hot glass from the dishwasher, the muscles of his forearm making the black, grey and white tattoo of the river and fish pulse in a very distracting manner.

“I met up with Jemma. We went for sushi.” Dalton had slid the steel shot measure along the bar. At the time he hadn’t noticed the long pause, or the hardness in Jaxon’s voice when he’d next spoken.

“Jemma?” A long pause, Dalton had turned to collect a tip left on the bar. “Did you guys have fun?”

Dalton had grinned, self-satisfied and confident, knowing what he’d been told, thinking about the evening he’d planned, and remembering the electric shock of Jaxon’s kiss.

“Oh yeah, it was great.”

And then he’d looked up, and Jaxon had thrown a newly-poured drink in his face and run out the door.

“I didn’t do anything to you Jax.” Dalton tried to keep his voice level, trying not to give himself away. “You were the one who threw a drink in my face.”

“You slept with my best friend!”

Dalton clenched his fist, lost the fight with his self-control, strode across the room, seized Jaxon’s forearm, and before the other man could react had pulled him up off the bed and firmly into his arms. Jaxon was all hard muscle and tension against his chest, and Dalton was hit instantly by the heady intoxicating scent of the man he lived with.

“I ain’t ever even kissed a girl. Why would I start now?”

“But you said-?” Jaxon’s voice faltered, and the question was left unfinished.

Dalton was sick of resisting, he’d been resisting for months, and Jaxon was so close in his arms. He leant forward and kissed him squarely on the lips. Jaxon might have still been mad with him, angry,

and confused, but his body gave him away. The little groan was as loud to Dalton as a cheering crowd at the Super Bowl.

“I said we went for drinks,” Dalton clarified, staring into his friend’s eyes. Their faces were inches apart, the air between them warm. Jaxon’s lips were wet and slack from his kiss, and Dalton could barely think past the erotic texture of the other man in his arms. “I wanted to test the waters, see what she would think if I asked you out.”

Now it was Jaxon’s turn to look incredibly surprised.

“Seriously? You had to check?”

Dalton chuckled and bit his lip.

“Until you kissed me that night, I didn’t even know you were gay.”

“What, your radar is completely broken?” Jaxon’s voice was moments away from laughter. Dalton didn’t normally like to be laughed at, but under the circumstances it was way better than having a drink thrown over his head. He nodded. “All those times I wandered around in nothing but a towel?” Jaxon wondered aloud, “I’ve been stroking your shoulders on the couch every time I’ve walked past for a month.”

Dalton exhaled, releasing the tension he’d been holding onto since their first kiss.

“I was thinking it was all my imagination. I mean, it’s the kind of thing you get in movies. You’re nice, smart, funny, cool, and sexy-as-dammit. We already live together, and we work together, and we like the same tattoos. It’s too awesome.” Dalton took the chance to breathe before his brain caught up with him and told him he’d just told his roommate he was sexy. Then he frowned. “Hang on, if you knew I was gay, why’d you think I’d slept with Jemma?”

Jaxon took the opportunity to extract himself from Dalton’s arms. He crossed his room and began to pick fallen clothes up from the floor and tidy them away, as much as stuffing unfolded items in drawers could be called tidying. Without the presence of the other man there, Dalton suddenly felt like he was intruding. Without looking at him, Jaxon rubbed his fingers across his lips. Dalton watched the action in slow motion, repeated a dozen times in his inner vision in the time before Jaxon spoke again. The texture of Jaxon’s skin was going to keep him awake that night.

“You didn’t kiss me back.”

“Huh?” Dalton wished he could have said something slightly more eloquent.

“When I kissed you that night, you didn’t kiss me back. I’d been so certain about you, but you didn’t even try to follow me or anything. Then Jemma let slip you’d called her… and I figured I’d been wrong.”

“You weren’t wrong.” Dalton took a shaky breath. His stomach was doing little flips, and his heart was trying to batter it’s way out through his ribcage. If this pans out, his inner voice sounded smug, this evening is going to be even better than you’d planned.

“No?”

“No. I was just… I couldn’t think of a single thing to say to you.” Kind of like now … “And I didn’t expect it. I didn’t want to be too forward, maybe you’d think I was trying to take advantage of you or something.”

“Well you ain’t being forward now.” Jaxon’s eyes had gone all soft, his voice smooth and welcoming. He turned to Dalton and smiled, but Dalton didn’t miss the little wrinkle of his nose as he came closer. “Sorry about the drink.”

“Y-yeah,” Dalton coughed, trying to clear the fog that was rapidly clouding his brain but not his imagination. “I’m gonna go take a shower.” He ducked out of Jaxon’s room before the other man could speak.

The steaming hot water of the shower didn’t help quell his rising desire, and Dalton scowled down at himself as he let the water pound over his heavily inked shoulders. He refused to give into the fantasy, when the last thing Jaxon had really said to him was that he’d been disappointed nothing had happened the other night.

Down boy. Stop getting ahead of yourself.

Jemma had given him the confidence boost he badly needed, had giggled at him when he’d shyly asked if he should ask Jaxon out, and waved her tempura prawns around when she’d answered.

“You do realise that boy has had the hots for you since the second he met you right? He was so excited when you first moved in he came over to my place and hyperventilated for an hour.”

Dalton leant against the wet tile with his forehead and focused on breathing. He was so focused, that at first the rustle of the shower curtain didn’t rouse him.

“I’ve always loved that tattoo.”

Dalton froze, hands on the wall in front of him. He was one hundred percent naked, standing under the shower, and Jaxon’s voice had been close enough to make the short hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. A moment later, a finger traced one edge of the big Celtic knot-work dragon that wound over both his shoulder blades, across his spine, and over the ball of one shoulder. The biggest difference between his and Jaxon’s tattoos was Dalton’s were full of colour, as bright and bold as he could get it.

“Is this OK?” Jaxon’s words in ear made him quiver, “I’ve been trying not to rip your clothes off you for weeks. It’s been really hard.” Jaxon’s last word dripped with suggestion. “You can turn around now,” there was a long pause where Dalton could do nothing but try and catch his breath, “or not.”

Dalton’s twist brought them face to face, inches from each other, and Dalton didn’t even try to resist the urge to look down. For the first time he saw the rest of the tattoo which he’d only glimpsed above a towel, a series of spiky looking flowers swirling down Jaxon’s hip and thigh. The amazing ink was not enough to distract him from the rest of Jaxon however.

“Well we ain’t going to fix that by throwing a drink at it.”

Jaxon laughed, closed the distance between them and slid his arms around Dalton’s neck. They kissed with the water from the shower pouring over them: decorated bodies pressing close for the first time.

“This is going to be awesome.”