I am so used to him giving me shit and teasing me endlessly, that I am unprepared for this sweetness. "Why did we stop?" I ask mindlessly as I trace a tattoo on his arm idly.
"We needed to hook up to water so we could shower." I went to sit up and freak out, my head throbbing from the movement when he placed his hand on my head gently. "I made sure they filled the tank and the water heater is on so you can shower."
He pulls from me and gets out of the bed and down the hall. I lay back on his pillows, perfect soft and expensive pillows and it feels so good. Not as good as laying on his chest was, but a damn good second option. He comes back in the room with two cups of coffee and a washcloth. He hands me a coffee and sets his on his night stand before laying back down and pulling me to his chest.
"This will help the throbbing." He says and places the washcloth, cool and wet to my neck. We don't talk as I lay there, tracing his ink as he drinks coffee and stroking my back.
I can feel the medicine working and I try to sit up and reach for my coffee, the washcloth falling from my neck. He takes it and tosses it to the bathroom doorway.
I look over at him and grab the arm I was tracing, taking in his tattoos for the first time. "This is seriously cool." I say and trace the portrait of his sister on the inside of his bicep. She had to have been around sixteen maybe younger.
"She's fourteen in that picture. I took it at our aunt and uncles house about two months after we moved to Gig. I think it was the fourth of July." He sips from his coffee, before letting me keep looking. "I love that pic because it was the first one I had of her, and in it you can see her happiness. When she turned sixteen I was nineteen and already tattooing and believe it or not her husband Chad did the work."
"That's awesome. Very fitting." I say and decide I am gawking as it is I might as well take it all in. "So tell me the story?" I ask and go to pull back when he grasps my wrist to stop me, then holds my pointy finger and begins tracing his tattoos.
"This side is the good, and my left is the bad and they come to war on my chest. The whole thing is symbolic. See the angel standing in front of the sun? She holds a scale, one with a pound of flesh, the other a pound of gold. The snake at the foot of the angel symbolizes my dad and the bird atop the scale symbolizes Carrie."
He traces the lines over to his left arm. "See, here, all the skulls and bodies lined up." He rolls his arm to the inner forearm. "Here you see my vision with Freddy Kruger and Jason Voorhees. All depictions of evil." His hand stops when he comes to the inside of his arm and looks at me. "This is me, on the other side of the spectrum." I look at the rusty spoon in one hand and a needle in the other arm. He looks old and dirty and almost dead.
I look up with tears in my eyes, tracing his arm on my own "I am so glad that you see both sides. That's strength Noah. Pretending it couldn’t go there is unhealthy, knowing it could have, and might even is amazing."
"Now this side…" He says enthusiastically, officially changing the subject pulling my hand to trace the good. "This picture is Layne Staley. He was the singer of my favorite band Alice in Chains. He died of a heroin overdose, but he is on the good side because he inspired me to change, to run from our dad, so many things."
His fingers guide me over his TAT logo, music lyrics from an Alice in Chains song that read:
I don't wanna feel no more
It's easier to keep falling
Imitations are pale
Emptiness all tomorrows
Haunted by your ghost
Lay down, black gives way to blue
Lay down, I'll remember you.
"Is this for her?" I don't say who, I know as does he who I am talking about.
"Yes. I got it about six months ago when I knew I was gonna live instead of die."
"I think that it’s a perfect example of your ongoing love for her." I mean that too. Yes, I am totally crushing on some yummy Noah Beckett, but I would never feel an ounce of jealousy to the woman who changed his view to live. I can only assume she was amazing and very much missed.
"Thanks." He says and lets my hand go. I follow the patterns and line work that fills the negative space and down his chest tracing the beautiful angel.
"Does she represent anyone?" I ask as I look at the face that is the very definition of angelic.
"Sometimes I think my mom. I don't remember her at all and I have thoughts sometimes that I can't explain. I swear she loved us, but we were just too young to remember her. I have two memories and they are good. One, she's playing the airplane spoon game with me and in the other she is tucking me in. When I look at the angel I think of her, but it was never intended to be her."
There is a detachment as he talks about her that tells me he isn't connected in one way or another. Maybe she was a subconscious idea that represents both sides.
Either way, it makes me sad. And I don't think either of us want to be sad right now.
I lean down, unsure if what I am about to do is fair to either of us, but I can't help myself when my lips kiss the angels head. I can hear his breath catch, and close enough to hear his heart rate pick up. I pull back and look at him, unsure if I may have read him wrong.
He takes my hand in his, the look in his eyes is that he is very much okay with what I did. "Keep touching me..." He says on a whisper and closes his eyes, breathing deep as my fingers trace the wings that span hisentirechest.