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dominimoonbeam · 8 months

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The Truth in Your Skin - 12

The tattoo au continues!!! To read from the beginning check it out on ao3. <3

Darlin/David, Milo/Sweetheart, Asher/Huxley

tags: angst, past violence, scars, trauma, hurt/comfort, we're working through things, found family

Put your angst seatbelts on! Milo's seeing that tattoo for the first time.

The Truth in Your Skin - 12

Milo came in early for an appointment he’d made with a client that absolutely couldn’t come in any other time of day. He still doubted that, but it was hard to negotiate with moms on a schedule and this one was determined. So he not only managed to wake up early but pry himself from Sweetheart and head in on his own. He’d definitely gotten used to carpooling with Sweetheart because driving alone felt unbearably dull.

He was surprised to see the lights on, expecting to be the first, but sometimes David took early appointments. Milo hesitated for only a second. He’d put this one on the schedule so David would have known he was coming in. It wouldn’t be a surprise. He unlocked the back door and walked into the low hum of music and the familiar buzz of the tattoo needle. “Good morning,” he called, hanging up his jacket and eyeing the coffee pot. Oh, he was coming back for some of that. First, he’d prep his station. Then he could stand around and drink coffee, talking to David and his client while he waited for his own to show.

If that soccer mom didn’t show up, Milo was going to blow a fuse!

“Good morning,” David and Darlin called back.

Milo smiled to himself. Had Darlin come in just to keep David company or did they have an early client too? He hadn’t seen them since the club after the game the other night. He wondered if they were still dancing around their feelings for each other or not.

“We’re all here and there are no donuts? This is crime,” Milo complained, stifling a yawn on his way into the main room.

“There’s coffee,” Darlin said.

Milo blinked. Darlin was stretched out on David’s bench, shirt hiked up and the big guy bent over their hip and working on their side. Milo grinned. When the fuck had this happened? Had they skipped hooking up and just gone straight to giving each other tattoos? Or maybe this was a prelude? Were they flirting in ink?

“No coffee will ever have enough sugar to rival a donut in my heart,” Milo argued, coming over to get a look at the tattoo.

It was big, a portion of it and the outline clearly done at an earlier date. David had a steady hand and a good eye. Milo had a piece of his on his shoulder that he’d done freehand. This wasn’t freehand. It was clearly planned, designed to meld with the other pieces on their body even if it was definitely David’s work. In fact, it looked a lot like the flower he had on his arm…

Milo’s stomach dropped when he took in those lines that couldn’t be David’s. Sloppy, brutal, ink carved into their skin. Part of that first word was already gone, devoured by the new design, but the rest and the scars were still there under the delicate outline of the plan. -AYS MINE

That MINE made him feel sick. Made his jaw tight and his knees want to bend.

How had that happened? How had they sat still for it? As soon as he thought it, he knew they hadn’t. They couldn’t have.

Someone rattled the front door. It was still locked. His client.

His gaze snapped up to find Darlin staring back at him, something unreadable about their expression.

Guilt twisted his heart. He hadn’t reacted correctly. He hadn’t—

The door rattled angrily. “Fuck,” Milo turned. “Sorry.” He went to the front room and unlocked the door. The soccer mom was pissed. Milo was a jumble of emotions himself, but they managed to get through niceties. When he led them through the parlor and toward his station at the back, David was cleaning up and Darlin was gone.

Fuck. Fuckfuckfuck.

He got through the piercings and so did his client.

When he walked his client out, David was gone but Darlin was at their station. It was still early. He locked the door and stood in the dark lobby for a few more minutes, staring out at the snow and trying to collect himself. Trying to think of how to fix what he’d damaged.

“I’m sorry,” Darlin said.

Milo spun around to stare at them. They leaned against the archway between rooms, not quite looking at him but not looking away. It was almost a talent how they could do that.

“I should have warned you or—”

“What? No! No. Fuck.” David did cover up work all the time. Milo did not need to be warned ahead of time or told anything and they definitely didn’t owe him any of that information. But this was different than just anyone. This was his friend and the idea that someone had…

Darlin nodded, still not quite looking at him, but not seeming to know what else to say. They started to back out of the room.

Milo jerked a step forward. “It’s…” he started and stopped.

Darlin stopped too, both of them caught there together but Milo wasn’t sure they understood each other.

“You’re my friend. The idea that someone…”

Darlin’s gaze flicked up to his, dark and surprised. Why were they surprised?

“I don’t want you to feel like you need to hide it or work on that tattoo when I’m not around. I was just surprised…and angry.” Shame twisted his heart when he confessed to his own anger. Anger had always felt dirty to Milo, like something flirting with being a person he couldn’t be—like something inherited from a dad that used fists instead of words. He wasn’t that guy. He’d never be that guy. But damn did it scare him.

Darlin nodded. “Me too,” they said with the smallest smirk.

He wondered if they meant the first time they’d seen it. God, what had that been like? Was it the same night, the same guy, that had pulled that lip piercing out and left a scar? Quinn. He’d wanted to forget the name after those clients of his had recognized Darlin months ago and shown him pictures of them after the assault. Quinn.

Darlin took a step back, into the parlor, this time the movement seeming to invite him along. “David went to get donuts.”

Milo followed them, relieved by the offer of normalcy. “I’m sorry if I reacted badly,” he added, before they could completely sweep this under the rug and he could fail to apologize properly. They should hear it.

Darlin jerked a little, surprised, and Milo knew he’d been right to say it.

“The cover up David’s doing looks incredible.”

Darlin smiled. “Yeah.”

They were relieved that they hadn’t just triggered the shit out of Milo by not warning him about the tattoo. Or, if they had, at least they’d made peace.

He followed them to the back room to get coffee and wait for that promised sugar blast.

“Can I ask something?” his voice was low. It was barely a whisper.

Darlin braced themself but nodded. They knew they could have said no and he would have dropped it, and they knew they would have a month ago, but it didn’t feel as raw anymore. “I might not answer,” they said instead, sipping their coffee.

Milo nodded. He looked so tense. He didn’t have any scars they could see but Darlin was starting to get the feeling that he understood something about what it was to have them. “Was it…the same guy as your lip?”

Darlin had held their breath, for a second terrified he might say his name. Like Quinn was the fucking boogeyman to be summoned with a whisper. He wasn’t. He was just a guy. Darlin tongued the thick scar tissue in their lip. “Yeah.”

Milo wasn’t looking at them, staring instead at the coffee in his cup. “Same night?”

Darlin watched him. It was easier because he wasn’t trying to look at them, wasn’t reading their reactions or taking in their discomfort. “Yeah.”

Milo cringed, eyes closing. “That night those clients recognized you… I should have thrown them out but I didn’t know. They talked about…him. And they had a picture.”

“Of him?” the words jumped from Darlin’s throat, a strange mix of surrealism and panic at the thought of his face, not as it had been the last time they saw him, but as it would have been in a picture. Quinn was beautiful and charming.

Milo opened his eyes and shook his head.

Oh. “Oh.” That picture. Oh yeah, they’d seen that one floating around after. Everyone they’d known had seen it, had a copy of it on their phones to analyze and debate and gawk at. “Did anyone else see it?” they asked without thinking. Did it matter now? Yes, of course it did. It had been the worst night of their life followed by the worst year of their life and it was all right there, raw and awful in that photo. Of course, they didn’t want anyone in their life now to see it, to know what it had looked like or how broken they had been.

Milo shook his head. “No. And I didn’t mean to see it. I swear. I didn’t know if I should tell you or not. I don’t want to make anything worse.”

Darlin studied him. He still had his head down, fingers barely touching his coffee on the counter. Something about the way he looked, reminded of how they felt sometimes, when they could hear the echo of their head smacking the floor. What echo was he hearing?

“He was charming,” Darlin said, voice hollow but not shaking.

Milo’s gaze snapped up to theirs, like for a second he wasn’t sure who they were talking about. His ghost or theirs, maybe?

“It’s hard for people who know him, or even met him, to believe it happened. I think if it hadn’t been so bad… I probably wouldn’t have believed it happened either.” They’d never said any of it out loud. “He was always a bit of an asshole but he’d never been… not until that night. He’d been rough and pushy, and we argued a lot, like big arguments too, but he’d never swung at me so I just…didn’t see it coming.”

Milo stared at them, his eyes shining with tears. It felt like those were their tears in his eyes, like they didn’t have to choke up on the words because he was. Milo’s jaw ticked, angry for them too. “It’s not your fault.”

Darlin shrugged a little. They’d underestimated Quinn, or overestimated him, depending on how they looked at it. They hadn’t seen it coming.

“Darlin,” Milo said, voice hard.

They looked at him.

He looked so certain when he said it again, “It wasn’t your fault.”

Darlin exhaled hard and nodded this time. Some days it was easier to believe than others, but there were more of those in the last few months than there had been in years.

“Can I hug?”

Darlin laughed. “Why are you all so huggy?” they complained but turned away from the counter and opened their arms.

Milo smiled and wrapped them in a hug. “It was Asher. He started it.”

Darlin sighed, always surprised how nice it felt to be hugged. “Asher said it was you.”

The back door opened with a gust of wind and snowflakes, letting David in with a pink box.

Milo didn’t let go of Darlin but pivoted so that they could both look at David.

David raised an eyebrow, the door clapping shut behind him. “Am I interrupting?”

“No,” Milo said, smirking now. “You can join if you want.”

David snorted and put the box on the nearest counter before shrugging out of his jacket and shaking the snow from his hair.

#tattoo shop au #redactedverse #darlin/david #milo/sh #asher/huxley #milo & darlin #angst #hurt/comfort #tw abuse #<3 #dominimoonbeam #fanfic

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