'Nother Sip of Gin - Rhys Ford Page 0,5
I got you a couple of those coffee things. Where can I put this stuff down? Can I eat in here? Or do I have to go back outside?”
“No, you’re fine,” Ichi informed him. “Have a seat. You can use the table over there if you want. When Damien feels the need to stop, he’ll be able to reach for his drink.”
“I’ve changed my mind,” Damien grumbled. “Go get me some fucking whiskey.”
“You’re going to have to be happy with the beer for right now. I’ll get you something after I eat.” After sitting down on the wing chair, Miki dug out a Styrofoam container and a pair of chopsticks, then opened it up, letting out a cloud of pungent steam. Whatever Miki brought back with him smelled more like someone had dredged the Bay and served it up in a taco than anything edible, but knowing his brother, Miki didn’t care. “I want to eat this while it’s still hot.”
“I have literally seen you eat a forkful of macaroni and cheese that had fallen into a snowbank. You don’t give a shit if your food is hot. You don’t even give a shit if your food is cooked.” The next line brought tears to Damien’s eyes, and he ground his teeth together to stop himself from yelping. “Pass me the fucking beer.”
There wasn’t enough alcohol in the can to do anything other than dampen the back of Damien’s mouth, and he gratefully accepted one of Ichi’s coffees, hoping the still missing-in-action Stan had been right about the caffeine. Either he was getting used to the drag of fire across his flesh or Stan had been right, because after a few minutes, the agony didn’t seem so bad. He was actually considering telling Ichi to see how far he could go when Damien spotted the six-inch-long pink tentacle Miki slurped up from his noodles.
“Okay, that’s kind of disgusting.” Damien wrinkled his nose. “I’m getting tattooed here and you’re doing Cthulhu impressions.”
“Fuck you. You’re just mad because I won’t get you some whiskey until I’m done eating.” Miki picked up another piece of a cephalopod with his chopsticks and nibbled on its end. Gesturing with the tentacle, he said in his husky, smoky voice, “That looks like it hurts.”
“Shit, you think?” He sneered back, only to get flipped off. “You don’t remember what it feels like?”
“Me?” Miki glanced down at his arm, his tattoo hidden under his sleeve. “Nope. I don’t remember anything.”
“He said you got a tattoo when you were a child,” Ichiro commented, circling back around to Damien’s other side, his rolling chair squeaking as he moved. “That is… wrong. Never children.”
“Yeah, nobody asked me,” Miki said, putting down his chopsticks. Dragging up his sleeve, he showed Ichiro the mangled, patchy blue lines on his arm. “One of the cops told someone it meant Mieko, so they wrote that down as my name, but….”
“That is not what that says.” Ichiro’s frown grew deeper. “I don’t recognize it. Not that I know every kanji, but usually I can hammer away at the edges of one. I’ve never seen that.”
“Yeah, nobody else has either. Or least a couple of times when I brought it up to someone I thought might know,” Miki said, pulling his sleeve back down, “they just changed the subject and walked away.”
“Hey, I’ve got an idea.” Damien sat up before Ichiro began again. “Do you think you can cover it? I mean, Miki, you hate it. Ichiro here is a god, and how often are you going to have some free time and there is a tattoo god right next to you?”
For a moment, Miki’s face softened with an expression Damien could only call regret, and then his brother, in true Miki form, picked his chopsticks back up and laid Damien’s soul out for the vultures to pick clean.
“I can’t do that, D. What happens if someone comes looking for me and all they have to find me is this?” Miki tapped at his arm with the blunt ends of his chopsticks. “This is all I have that’s really me. Everything else is something given to me, like leftovers and hand-me-downs, but this—as fucking ugly as it is—is all I’ve got that’s mine. So maybe one day, when I’ve given up on anyone giving a shit about me, I’ll get it covered. But for right now, it stays. Because someone still might need me to have it. And I want them to be able to find me.”
Oaths