'Nother Sip of Gin - Rhys Ford Page 0,4
sinewy grace. “I’ve got my card on me and some cash, but the noodle place had one of those signs, so I should be okay.”
“Just… grab me something cold. Jesus fucking Christ, this hurts.” Damien gulped down some air, hoping to cool off the burn from the inside out. Ichi made some murmuring noises he took as a question about if Damien wanted to stop, so he shook his head. “I’m good. It just… fuck, right over that spot.”
“Spines are the worst,” Ichi confirmed, then hummed to himself. “Well, necks. Anything with connective tissue. The pain travels sometimes, so you’ll feel it in other places. If you need to stop—”
“He won’t,” Miki snorted. “Stubborn as fuck. Probably crawl back out of his grave because he’s not ready to be dead when the Reaper comes for him. Just you watch.”
“Go get your damned noodles. And maybe a beer.” Damie glanced at the tattoo artist reflected in the mirror in front of him. “Beer okay? Can we drink? Do you want to drink?”
“None for me. I’m… driving a needle,” the Japanese artist teased, shifting his chair around to work over Damien’s shoulder. “And yes, you can drink… a little bit. Just do not get drunk. Not good for the skin. If they have an iced Bossccino, that would be nice.”
“Okay, some piss-water beer for Damie, a coffee thing for Ichi, and noodles for me.” Miki grunted at them. “I’ll be back in a bit. Hopefully they’ve got chicken. I mean, octopus is okay, but I’d rather have chicken.”
Ichi grew still, pulling the buzzing needle away from Damien’s skin, and a thoughtful expression settled on his handsome features as Miki ambled out of the front door, letting the noren drop behind him. Damien knew that look. He’d seen it a thousand times before, but Ichiro simply dipped his tattoo machine head back into the inkwell and began again.
“Jesus, I don’t know what’s worse,” Damien muttered. “You working on it without stopping or you stopping long enough for my skin to think it’s over and then you start again.”
“I think it’s worse when they stop.” Another dip and the burn began again in a different spot. “Tell me about your friend. He looks… complicated. Beautiful but very complicated.”
“That is possibly the best description of Miki St. John that I’ve ever heard.” Damien held himself extremely still as the needle drifted back across his spine. It hit a cluster of nerves and his toes began to tingle; then it drifted away, filling in another line. “If you’re interested… he likes guys—for the most part—he’s just kind of… a mess.”
“Do you say that because he is not sentimental or because you want to keep others away from him?” This time the pinprick of pain did not come from the needle but rather from Ichi’s words, but Damien hissed anyway. “I like how he looks. And he seems like he would be a challenge, but not one that I would survive. His skin is on too tight, and you seem to be the only one he trusts. I would sooner offer him friendship than anything else. I think that is something he could return without me losing any of my fingers. As much as I would love to see how he tastes, I like having my tongue in my mouth.”
“Yeah, I don’t know if there’s someone out there who will ever win Miki’s heart, but if he exists, I hope to hell he has a strong stomach, because that fucker eats the weirdest things.” Another buzz, another burn, and Damien settled in against the chair, thinking he finally had gotten a grip on the pain coursing over his skin when Ichiro circled back, adding an embellish. “Motherfucker. Jesus, and somebody did this to Miki when he was a kid?”
If Ichiro was curious about what Damien said, he didn’t get a chance to ask because Miki came through the shop’s curtained door holding a plastic bag in one hand and what looked like a short bottle-shaped can in the other. His brother paused for a second, probably caught up in the tangle of his own lyrics wrapping around him as he walked through the shop. Ducking his head down, Miki stalked forward.
“Hey, D! I got you… what the fuck is this?” Miki studied the can as he approached the stall. “It’s Michelob. Guy says it’s American, but I don’t know, it could be Japanese. Could be horse piss, but he said it was the best they had. Ichi,