Fifteen

“OKAY, DUDE, the color’s not even down and it looks cool.” Ivo’s breath tickled Gus’s ear. “Did you do a comp?”

“It’s over there on my table. And stop breathing on me, asshole.” An elbow moved his younger brother back an inch, but Ivo wasn’t going to be deterred. He dodged the next jab, grinning like a fool. Gus shook his head at his client’s smirk. “Let me guess, you’ve got brothers.”

“I’ve got younger brothers,” Alex replied. “Pains in the ass.”

“I’d love to be your pain in the ass,” Ivo murmured, only loud enough for Gus to hear. “Jesus, he’s hot.”

“Go sit down, little brother. You’re drooling on my shoulder.” Gus dabbed his needles into his pot of black ink, rubbing at a line with a dollop of clear ointment, then turned back toward the tattoo. “Brandt, don’t encourage him. He’s like a stray cat. Once you give Ivo a little bit of attention, he’ll be screaming at your door first thing in the morning to be let in.”

“Usually telling someone I’m DEA takes care of that.” The man’s deep brown eyes sparkled at Ivo’s retorting scoff. He shifted his broad shoulders to the right at Gus’s gentle push. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to move.”

“No, it’s okay. Let me know if you need to stretch or something.” He was half into the black outline, and with an eye on the clock, he’d be able to get the massive piece’s structure done before his next appointment. The phoenix’s color would wait until the outline healed, but he could potentially get some of the black shaded in if there was enough time. “I want to get the lines down today and maybe some of the shading, but if you need to tap out after the outline’s done, I can pick it up the next time.”

“I’ll sit through it,” he replied firmly. “I’ve been through worse. It’s why I’m getting this done. Almost died a little bit ago, so I wanted a phoenix. To show I’m still alive.”

“Rising from the ashes?” Ivo commented. Picking up the color comp from Gus’s station, he studied the paper carefully. “Never seen one like this. Russian with reds, blacks, and oranges? Lot of detail work. This thing’s going to be a monster.”

“Yeah, going to put some heavy golds in some of the outer feathers,” Gus replied. “Maybe some green-grays at the edges of the black to punch up the contrast. I want a lot of textures on the outer wings and tail feathers, but I don’t want to lose the flow of the head and beak. They’ve got to stand out.”

“I like the almost Japanese koi feel of the body’s feathers.” His brother turned the paper around, tapping at the outer curve of the bird’s shoulders where the wings connected. “How do you like it, Alex?”

“Yeah, it’s perfect. It’s exactly what I wanted. I got the shit kicked out of me on assignment. Touch and go for a bit, but while I was in the hospital, my friend Kane told me I should get a tattoo of a phoenix done when I finally crawled out. Kind of a fuck you to the universe for trying to kill me.” Alex held still when Gus began another stretch of lines, only wincing slightly when the needles drifted to the tender skin under his arm. “I was good until right there….”

“That’s usually the spot for most people. Goes from that low, steady burn to nuclear pinch,” Gus agreed. “Not much is over here and I don’t stay there for long, but I’ll be coming back once in a while. Unless you want me to power through the area. And if Ivo’s bugging you, we can have him go sit in the corner.”

“He’s all right. Baby brothers are a pain in the ass. It’s their job.” Alex chuckled. “One of mine married one of my former partners, and so now he thinks he’s got some sort of pass to be more of a brat.”

“Fixed that real quick, huh? You’ve got to slap them down sometimes or they get cocky,” Gus said, then laughed when Ivo flipped him off. “Keeps them humble.”

“Definitely,” he agreed, hissing when the machine’s needles passed over a sensitive spot. “And I wanted it Russian because I’d seen some art at Dimah’s house and really liked it. It felt right. You caught the feel perfectly. Can’t wait to see the finished piece. Drawing nailed what I had in mind. Better even.”

“Gus’s one of the best artists I know,” Ivo murmured, getting into Gus’s light. He was about to yank at Ivo’s hair when the bell over the door clanged and a pair of slender young women walked in. “Ah, I’m the Gatekeeper today. Let’s see what the sidewalk has brought us.”

“Don’t take this wrong,” Alex murmured, eyeing Ivo’s stilettos. “But I keep waiting for him to break his neck in those things.”

“Yeah, it’s easier to just not watch. Less strain on the heart.”

“Nice legs, though.” Alex studied his arm, hissing when Gus drifted back over to a delicate stretch of skin. “How long do you think this will take? Total, I mean. Not just today.”

“Probably a couple more sessions. Maybe four-hour stretches if you can hold to them,” Gus warned. “Lots of details in it, but I think it’ll be nice. It’ll have that cloisonné feel to it. The reds and oranges will pop on your skin. I just need to make sure I pack in the black well so there’s a good contrast. Need another break?”

“No, I’m good. Besides, your brother’s watching. If I took a breather now, he’d think the underarm bit broke me.” He sucked air in through his clenched teeth, and Gus looked up, meeting Alex’s narrowed eyes. “Oh no, keep going. Remember, powering through this.”

It was easy enough to fall into the ink. Tattooing was different than drawing, a storm of needles, gritty ink, and blood. There were brief moments when he forgot the canvas he was working on was someone’s skin, especially when doing detail work. Then the skin would shift under him, pulling Gus back to the now. The buzz and hit of vibrating needles lulled him, rocking away a bit of the noise in his brain, and the lines unspooled under the machine’s path, thick black curls and angles mimicking the purple transfer he’d done of his final outline.

Two and a half hours in, Gus felt the roll of Alex’s skin shrink in, and he pulled the machine head away. A shiver worked through Alex’s shoulder, and Gus reached for the rinse he kept on his cabriolet. Cleaning off the man’s upper arm, he studied the piece, looking for any gaps or saturation points he needed to work on.

“You done?” Alex frowned. “I’m good.”

“Actually, I don’t want to overwork your skin. Just checking to make sure I’ve got everything I want down for this session and we can wrap you up.” He studied a point on the phoenix’s beak, having a quick debate on if he wanted to pack more ink into feathers around its curve. “Lines are solid, but this piece is pretty big. Shoulder to elbow’s going to need balance. You go dark to light with ink, and I want to play it safe since we’re going with some strong colors. I don’t want to muddy the brights we’re going to be putting in, so let’s see how this heals up, and then I’ll have a better idea on how much more shading you’ll need.”

“Okay, now it hurts, but the adrenaline’s kicking in.” He exhaled hard, then leaned his head back when Gus cooled off the spot with cleanser. “Wow, I’m both amped up and sick to my stomach, but it wasn’t bad. More like a… burn. Except for under my arm. That was like salted razors cutting into me.”

“Yeah, you’ve got a good spot for your first. I’m going to clean you up and then use this derm-film on you. It’s clear, like medical adhesive, but you’re going to leave it on for a few days. There’s going to be some buildup of inks and fluids underneath, but don’t worry about that.” He wiped away the excess ink, then measured out a large strip, judging how much he’d need to get the tattoo covered. “This stuff’s awesome. I can’t tell you how much ink bleeds out in the first couple of days. Stains your sheets and clothes. This’ll stop that, and it’s waterproof so you can shower and do everything else. Just let me get this on and I can give you some stuff on aftercare.”

“And make an appointment for the next session,” Alex said, looking up when the door’s bell went off. “And Dimah’s here to grab me. Perfect timing. He’s been giving me a hard time about chickening out.”

IT’D BEEN a good day. He’d had breakfast with Chris through a video call, way too early for his liking, but he’d crashed for a few hours after his son said goodbye, then kissed the screen before Jules came on to sign off, laughing when she wiped Pop-Tart crumbs off of her laptop. The phoenix turned out even better than he’d hoped, and Alex sat firm for a long stretch, a good promise he’d be able to absorb the next few sessions it would take to finish the piece. A couple of walk-ins turned into a pair of Japanese-style shoulder pieces he and Ivo designed out for a pair of sisters while the shop’s apprentice, Noob, worked reception, scheduling in a few clients for later that week. Without Bear pulling the same hours, the place seemed a bit empty at first, missing his strong presence, but overall, it was good to work a long shift. Heading into eight o’clock, there were a couple of hours left before they closed up the shop, and without anything on the books, he could spend the time sketching out the flight of faerie dragons one of the Chinatown cops wanted wrapped around his right arm.

Armed with a fresh cup of coffee and hoping he could talk the guy into vivid, sharp colors, Gus returned to the front of the shop, only to find a piece of his own personal nightmares waiting for him by the front counter, the shop’s door left wide open behind him, letting the pier’s noise and brine-tainted scents flow in.

As nightmares went, the man was unimpressive. Older, balding, and skinny, he stood a few feet from the shop’s entrance with his shoulders rolled down and his chin jutting forward. His hair was thinner, scraggly, with bits of silver scraped over his mottled forehead, and his pale eyes were nearly hidden behind a pair of thick black glasses. He looked like an accountant, some stereotypical throwback from the ’50s who wore a short-sleeved button-up shirt, black tassel loafers, and a pair of dark brown pants hitched high up above his waistline. He looked innocuous, a bit sour but the kind of man someone’s attention wouldn’t grab a hold of.

But Gus knew his true form, a hateful cog in the system’s machine, an obstructive, sadistic, manipulating piece of shit masquerading as a human being.

“August Scott?” The man sniffed, and Gus’s guts clenched, memories of a spittle-laden, derogatory rant raining down on him as he sat in a small room waiting for a judge to decide if she would let him live with Bear. “Well, you certainly didn’t go far, did you? You probably don’t remember me. I’m—”

“An asshole,” Gus finished for him. Keeping the reception counter between him and the social worker who’d pleaded long and hard to send him to juvie, Gus braced himself for whatever the man intended to bring with him through the shop’s door. “I know you. Don’t remember your name but I know you. If you’ve come looking for a tattoo, you might as well turn around and go back out. No one’s going to ink you here.”

He didn’t need to look over his shoulder to know it was Ivo coming up behind him. His brother’s heels beat an angry, determined report on the shop’s floor, and they came to a stop a few feet to Gus’s left. Leaning his hands on the counter, Ivo studied the man, his eyes hard and challenging. It was enough for Gus to feel his brother’s heat near him, a soothing balm of crazy and familiar.

“Why would I mutilate my body that way?” The man’s name coyly danced through Gus’s mind, a feathery skim of a sound he couldn’t quite grab. Glancing at Ivo, the social worker stiffened, and his mouth pressed into a tight line. “You’re… the cousin?”

“I’m the brother.” Ivo nodded at the door. “Gus told you to get out. Why am I still looking at you?”

“I’m here about Lynn Wagner’s grandson, and if you don’t recall my name, it’s Frank Bulcher.” One of his shoes squeaked when he stepped closer to the reception counter, his long nose casting a shadow over Bear’s portfolio. “I work with her, and when she told me your name, I recognized it immediately—”

“Well, not a lot of kids in San Francisco named August,” Gus cut in. “And I’m probably the only one you tried to toss into jail because you couldn’t find a foster home for me.”

“Seriously?” Ivo leaned on the counter, his fingers tapping out an erratic beat. “What a fucking asshole.”

“Yeah, I already called him that before you came out. Look, Bulcher, it’s nearly eight at night. Jules and I are going through the custody proceedings without involving social services,” Gus cut in. “Social Services doesn’t send out people like you to the field. You’re the kind of guy who sits behind his desk and bitches when he has to answer the phone. Lynn seems like a nice woman. She’s fine with who I am and what I’m doing with my life. The only question right now is what the fuck are you doing here?”

“I came to see if you’d made something more of yourself than I’d expected. She needs to know what type of person her grandson is going to be around. They’re a nice family, despite their daughter’s bad life choices. The girl is going back to school to make something of herself.” Bulcher’s eyes narrowed at Ivo’s snort. “She is better than this… type of work. Her mother and I might not be close, but I’ve watched Juliana mature into a vibrant, lovely woman, and I will do my damnedest to ensure her child does not get influenced by the likes of you.”

There was more. A lot of noise and Ivo grumbled back, a simmering baritone slapping back at Bulcher. His day had been good—great even—and it always seemed like the universe wasn’t happy about things going his way. Bear told him that morning he needed to take more control over his life. He’d wanted to argue, but staring at Bulcher, spittle foaming at the corners of his mouth, his face going red as Ivo stabbed him with a pointed look and sharp word, Gus realized his older brother was not only right but probably also sick to death of dealing with Gus’s shit. Life should have been pretty simple. He’d come out of his childhood a little wrinkled and broken but alive. Bulcher’s arrival on 415 Ink’s doorstep wasn’t his problem.

Bulcher couldn’t touch him. He had no say in Gus’s life. Not now. Maybe back when the world was wound too tight around him and he was drowning in grief and fear, but standing in the front of a tattoo shop he’d helped found, Bulcher’s agitation and aggression was only noise.

The relief he felt made him gasp, and Gus rubbed at his stomach, easing away the last remnants of the knot he’d carried there for years. It was freeing, exhaling the heat burning through him, and his next breath—as salty and pungent as the San Francisco piers—was the freshest he’d ever taken.

“Heh. You have no power over me,” he snorted, rocking back on his heels. “Shit, that finally makes some fucking sense.”

The monster in Gus’s mind shrunk, collapsing down into a skinny older man who even now fought to tear apart children he’d let down years ago. A wheedling bitterness haunted Bulcher’s words, curdling even the simplest sounds into an acidic attack. Ivo stood his ground, defending himself, Gus, and the world at large against a man he’d never met before but who’d walked into their life with the singular intent to destroy Gus’s world.

“Ivo, stop. Might as well argue with a pudding cup.” He kept his voice down, low and steady. It was odd how transparent the world became without anger or fear coloring it. There were shards of glass in his belly, fleeting reminders of arguments battled on top of him while he sat motionless, powerless, and silent, unable to do anything but listen to people decide his life. “Mister Bulcher, you don’t have any business here, either in the shop or with me. So you’re either going to walk out or we’ll ask SFPD to help you find your way out.”

“Maybe you’re not hearing me. I’m taking this on by myself. If the courts had followed my recommendation, you’d have been a more useful member of society. Instead of owning up to the state’s responsibility to rehabilitate you, they handed you over to your faggot cousin because it was easier. Now you’re just like him.” Bulcher leaned over the counter and stabbed Gus in the chest with his finger. “You are filth. I knew you were filth the moment I laid eyes on you, and if that damned judge hadn’t—you are not fit to be near a child, much less the Wagner boy.”

Gus put his hand on Ivo’s arm, squeezing tightly to keep his younger brother from going across the counter. Ivo trembled in his grasp, anger vibrating through him, but Gus felt… nothing. Instead he was mostly tired, worn around the edges from a long day and exhausted from working two big pieces but exhilarated at how they came out. Bulcher was simply… a distraction.

“First off, I didn’t need rehabilitating. I didn’t do anything wrong. I was a ward of the state because my mother was a drug addict and well, tried to kill me. Not because I was a shitty person but because I came from a shitty person.” He let go of Ivo, smiling when his brother shifted a step back to give him some room. “Secondly, you ever call Bear or anyone I love—hell, anyone I hate—a faggot again while I’m around, I’m going to shove your teeth so far back into your throat they’re going to use you to circumcise guys by giving them blow jobs.

“How did you think this conversation was going to go?” Gus tempered his tone, watching Bulcher carefully. “In your head as you drove down here or however you got here, did you play it through what you were going to say? Did you believe you’d storm in here like some righteous avenging angel, condemn me to hell, and I’d just fold up and step out of my kid’s life? I’m not going to do that. Just like I’m not going to let you scream me down in my own shop—yeah, my own shop.”

“Well, ours,” Ivo interjected. “Technically.”

“Ours.” Gus smirked at his brother. He tapped at the five-pointed star on his wrist. “See that? That’s my family mark right there. The shop’s logo. All five of us own a piece of 415 Ink. We’ve all worked here. Some of us still work here, but it’s all of ours. This is a part of a legacy I’m going to be able to give to my son. A part of a legacy. He gets not just me but my brothers and my work. I’m damned fucking good at what I do. Sure, Ivo’s better—”

“Going to argue about that,” his brother snorted under his breath.

“Yeah fine, you do that.” Gus shrugged. “Ivo’s crap aside, I’m good at what I do. People come to me for their ink. They fly to this city or ask their shop to bring me in as a guest because I am fucking good at this. Whatever shit you’ve got going on in your head about who I am or what I do really doesn’t affect me. I’m still going to be the best damned artist I can be and work on some kickass things people want to carry around on their skin for the rest of their lives.”

“Look at yourself. Look at how your brother turned out.” Bulcher pulled himself up, staring at Gus with a fevered gaze. “I can’t allow you to affect the Wagner family. They deserve so much more than—”

“I agree. They’re awesome people. And so is my brother here. What I’m not going to do is let some asshole like you come into my life so he can try to make me smaller. You tried that when I was a kid, and it didn’t work. You think I’m going to let you do that to me now?” He took a breath, both to steady himself and to give Bulcher a moment to hear everything he was saying. “I’m done carrying around the shit my mother pulled. I’m not going to hand it off to my kid, but you know what? That’s none of your fucking business.

“You’re nothing to me, and you’re going to be nothing to my kid. So if anyone’s going to make sure he’s got the proper influence in his life, it’ll be me and the rest of his family,” he continued, nodding when Bulcher’s nostrils flared and sniffed. “So I’m going to tell you—not ask you—to turn around and take the shit you came in with back out with you. The big question is, are you going or are you going to need help finding the door?”