"Pen & Ink, part 1" PG-13, Highlander (For HL-Chronicles)
Sorry, guys, I had to post this in two parts on Livejournal. It's just a little too long, I think. On DW in one post, or on AO3 on one page.
Title: Pen & Ink, pt 1.
Summary: Losses, old injuries, & grudges. Not even time heals everything.
With thanks to JiM, for reasons in the end notes. Written for the HL_Chronicles timestamp challenge, and for SamJohnsson & Raine, who encouraged the tattoo & Rich mix. Beta by Devo, Dragon, Mischief, Raine,& Sam; remaining mistakes my own fault, of course.
Timestamp of Falling Stars and an AU in which events diverged during "End of Innocence." Detailed notes at the end.
Pen & Ink
It wasn't his first time crossing the Mississippi River, not even the first time on this motorcycle, but Rich still wanted to just pull over and watch the water pour by, watch the boats push on up against the current. He didn't, despite what looked a hell of a lot like a sidewalk all the way across the bridge. Cops frowned on that sort of thing, and getting arrested would be too good an excuse not to do what he needed to do.
Even as low as it was, the Mississippi lightened his mood -- somewhere in the last fifteen years, Rich developed a taste for the scenic as well as the urban -- which made it easier to thread his way through yet another unfamiliar city without getting or giving too many dirty looks. Memphis wasn't entirely what he'd expected; it looked like a nice city in some places and downright shabby a few blocks later, only to shift back again almost as quickly.
There'd been a time he'd have been making jokes about split personalities. This time, Rich changed directions. He swung north, heading towards his destination, and probably drove his GPS navigator a little crazier. Every time he got within a few streets, he turned the wrong way, watching for the ubiquitous 'no left turn' signs and getting a feel for the area. He wanted to learn a few ways out if he needed one in a hurry.
That part he could do. Figuring out why he'd been sent to an immortal tattoo artist in the middle of the Bible Belt might take a few beers, but what the hell, it was well past lunchtime and his appointment wasn't until four.
Whoever this Iris was, she was smart enough to be working two blocks from a police precinct house and across the street from a bar. "Neighborhood looks pretty cool, too," Rich muttered to himself, hearing and barely noticing the amused agreement in the back of his mind. A very full parking lot caught his eye and he swung around the corner, parking his motorcycle where he could watch it through the window.
The signs on either end of the building showed it had two different restaurants; Rich flipped a coin and went left. Molly's ended up being Mexican food, with servers so friendly it made him wary. Wary, but grateful for the way chips and salsa showed up with his first beer, ice water showed up with the refill on the chips, and getting his food didn't take forever. Even better, his pollo con mole actually tasted good.
Huh. That was a nice change.
* * *
Rich pulled up in front of Rainbow Tattoos a couple minutes before four, deliberately running himself tight for time. Tessa had tried to teach him to be prompt (sometimes by bad example, admittedly) but Rich had learned to see being on time as a politeness or a courtesy. Sometimes, being late was a weapon, but he was here to ask for... not a favor. He was planning to pay.
Whatever he was here for, Rich wanted to be on this Iris's good side. He used that to push him through letting go of the handlebars and swinging off his bike. Once he had both boots on the asphalt, he could finally feel it: he was standing on holy ground of some kind. A faint breeze cooled his skin although it never ruffled his hair, and he could almost feel water moving somewhere nearby, not quite a running stream and not quite waves.
Some of the tension seeped out of his shoulders and he took a deep breath, which he promptly regretted. The breeze was only metaphysical. In reality, it was hot out today. Rich pulled his swords off his bike, duffel bag onto one shoulder, yoga bag on the other, before he walked into the store.
It didn't look quite like any tattoo shop he'd been in before. The rolling cabinet for dyes and needle machines and the dentist-style chair near it? Sure. The massage table forming the other side of a V, dyes in the center -- that made sense too. The lights arranged over them all? Yeah. But brass wind chimes hanging off the air vent and humming deep, calming notes through the store with the AC? That was a little strange. So was the bead door into another room painted to look like a rainbow in steep, forest-covered mountains. For that matter, the funky bronze piece on a shelf on the far room looked like a dragon wrapped around a mountain, one in the process of going, 'Mine, all mine.'
The rest of the room had a couple bookshelves, one with an iPod speaker stand, three-ring binders on the shelves and out on top of an artist's drafting table, as well as pictures and sketches of tattoos on the walls everywhere. A pair of chairs were set up near the tattoo table and a full length mirror hung on every wall. Oddly enough, none of the mirrors seemed to reflect each other.
Rich had time to take it all in as he looked around for the immortal he could feel somewhere near.... She came out of the beaded door, hands out and open but watching him intently.
Peaceable until she wasn't, he thought, and he put his own hands out too, bags hanging off them, and held very still. "Rich Ryan. I called you a few days ago...?"
She nodded, which gave him a better view of short hair every color of her dyes, and a face that had a couple of those dyes smudged along her right eyebrow and cheekbone. "So you did. I'm Iris Kaulike. Welcome to my shop." She kept watching him and finally said, gently, "It's holy ground. All right if we both put our hands down?"
Rich blushed, a bad habit he wanted rid of, and tried to ignore the contentment in the back of his mind. "Yeah, sorry." He put his bags down by his feet, shed his riding jacket next to them, and said, "Ceirdwyn sent me here. She said... she said you do tattoos for us?"
Iris cocked her head to study him. "Among other things. You called me for an appointment a week ago, and I haven't seen or felt you around town before. Did you travel so far just for a tattoo that won't last more than a few years?"
Rich blinked then said, "Wait. It won't be permanent?"
"Not on us." Iris added, firmly, "I won't give you a permanent one. I don't know you."
"So... wait. Can you or can't you?" Rich answered his question almost as fast as she did. "Let me guess -- above the neck, sure, it's permanent?"
Iris shrugged and folded her arms, which showed off some of her own tattoos: one down each bicep and another under the edge of her cut-off t-shirt. "Ceirdwyn sent you." A smile edged her mouth. "How is she?"
Rich shrugged. "Doing okay. For a woman who's writing a dissertation, she's using me as an excuse for writing breaks. Keeps calling me every couple days."
Iris shook her head and relaxed. "To each their own. I still don't understand why she went for a degree in neuroscience, but the email discussions have been very interesting." She waved a hand at the chairs. "None of which discusses what you want done. Are you thirsty or hungry?"
Rich shook his head. "Late lunch, but thanks." He sat down, trying to stay careful of this strange immortal, but Ceirdwyn had vouched for her and there was a quiet pleasure in the back of his head. He tried to ignore that and stick to what he'd rehearsed during his days on the road. "Ceirdwyn said sometimes it helps to have... a reminder. Something to look at and consider."
"Sometimes it can, yes." Iris looked at him very thoughtfully. "How well do you know her?"
"She's a friend of... of my teacher, and his. And I get along well with one of her students." Rich smiled despite himself. "Never thought I'd say that about an FBI agent, but he was a lot less straight-laced than Cory said he was."
Iris grinned at that. "Oh, that student of hers. No, when you catch him in the right mood, Matthew can be as much of a hellraiser as Cory. It can be very entertaining." She nodded again, some decision reached. Maybe not the one Rich wanted, though; she didn't look completely persuaded. "All right, I'll go ahead and tell you what I do, and what I can and can't do, and what I will and won't do, come to that."
Yeah. Not convinced yet. Rich braced himself to lay on the charm if need be. "I thought you did tattoos?"
"I do." Iris considered him very thoughtfully. "I'm just wondering why you want one. On the mortals, it's for art or for memories. On us... it's for art or for healing."
"Healing. Through a tattoo?" Rich tried to stay on the 'skeptical but willing to be convinced' side of 'are you fucking kidding me?' Honestly, he gave his performance maybe an eight. He was a little tired.
"Through a tattoo, yes." Iris was watching him more intently now, sitting a little straighter. Her gaze flicked down across his shoulders, his chest, stopped at his arms before continuing on. Rich made himself relax his hands from the fists they'd clenched into. "How far did you come?"
"Far enough. Does it matter?" He sounded angry even to himself. The happiness in the back of his head felt like a hand on his shoulder for just a moment, and Rich shuddered the touch away reflexively.
"I'll give you a tattoo, Rich. Don't worry about that part. But what and why, you might want to consider." One of her hands lay loose on her thigh; the other was tracing the tattoo on that flat, gold-skinned belly. What he could see was a series of lines in a circle, going up, curving in, back, up to the edge of her shirt. Her hand stopped when she brushed the fabric, but she didn't break the silence.
She didn't need to. The pattern had distracted Rich until he finally placed the image, or as much of it as he could see. "That's a labyrinth."
Iris glanced down at it before nodding. "Yes, it is. I need the reminder. Some of my habits weren't as ingrained as they should have been."
"Did you tattoo that on yourself?" Rich frowned and added, "And is that the kind of thing you mean?"
"No, another immortal tattooed it on me." She looked amused. "Manoel taught me how to ink, and what and when to ink, too. Now we renew each other's tattoos every few years. But yes, this is exactly the kind of thing I mean." She twisted in the chair to show him her right arm. "What does this say to you, if anything?"
An anvil cloud spread from the top of her shoulder down to mid-arm. Intricate shades of gray, blue, and black spat blue-white lightning, scorching black craters into the skin above her elbow. Rich turned back to her, and as he did, something in the image shifted in the corner of his eyes. Suddenly, the cloud wasn't just a cloud; now he could see sword blades and knife-edges poking out of the gray mass or partially exposed within its lines. He leaned in, momentarily heedless of his exposed nape, and saw tiny drops of red in the center of the craters. The edge of one crater had a double curve like the top of a bone.
He fell back onto his stool, memories of bodies he'd carried and buried surging up in him. When he blinked, Iris was kneeling in front of him, rubbing his hands.
"--to breathe for me, Rich." She saw something in his face that made her voice sound relieved. "Now you're back with me. Deep breath, hmm? And my apologies. I didn't realize that would trigger you."
"You put swords in the cloud," he said, and tried to ignore his hands shaking. "And blood in the lightning strikes, and bones in the impact. You hate quickenings, don't you?" He heard himself thinking, 'And you're probably right-handed, or mostly,' and shoved that calculation down but not away.
"I hate the waste of the Game, yes." Iris settled back onto her heels, still holding his hands, and sighed. "I was an idiot. I took a head I meant to take, but that led to taking two others I didn't want just because they were young, and stupid, and bought into the crap about 'There can be only one.' They thought I'd be vulnerable because I'd just taken a head."
Rich swallowed, tasting bile and panic. "A lot of us are."
"True enough. I got to take the heads of two misogynist idiots who thought I couldn't face a second fight, and then a third, because I was female, because I was one of Darius' students, because I'd just taken a head, or two." She smiled just a little, bitterly amused. "I got them in my head. Three of them in a row. I... got lost in their noise and my own mind after that. It took Sean a while to untangle me."
"Sean?" Rich shivered, felt comfort trying to seep into him, and this time he accepted it. "Sean Burns?"
Iris looked at him and said firmly, "Come into my office. I'm going to make you some mint tea, so that you don't throw up, and we're going to put honey in for when the adrenaline in your blood stream finishes devouring the energy from that late lunch of yours." She didn't wait for him to agree, just pulled him up and supported him into her office.
The place had one comfortable chair behind the desk. Iris settled him into that, turned on the electric kettle, and vanished out into the main room. She returned in maybe half a minute, just long enough to grab his bags, still zipped up. "Here." She put them next to him and pulled out a mug and a box of teabags.
"You always have mint tea and honey on hand?" Rich asked randomly. He was breathing carefully, trying to keep his lunch. He still reached down and hefted each bag in turn, checking the weight to be sure his blades were still in place. She hadn't been gone long enough for a fast change of both, but. The weights were right, so he let go of that tension.
"You'd be amazed at how many people think they want a tattoo until the needle starts. Mint tea and ginger ale are useful things to keep around. Unfortunately, I think I'm out of ginger ale...." Iris dug in a mini-fridge, then shook her head. "Sorry. Just coconut cookies." She pulled a folding chair out from beside the fridge, pulled it open, and settled into it.
"Mint tea's fine. Sorry about...." He gestured at her arm, the change of venue.
Iris shook her head. "No. I'm the one who set this off. I apologize."
Rich leaned his head back against the chair, his eyes closed while he soaked up the feeling of holy ground, of water running somewhere nearby. It reminded him of being on the Seine, with Tessa still alive, and Darius just around the corner and always willing to listen or talk.... "You said you do tattoos for healing. If that tattoo has half the effect on you it did on me, yeah, that counts."
"It does." She said dryly, "A reminder to keep up the workouts and to be more careful about why I fight, all in one visible image."
"What's the one on your other arm for, then?"
"Oh. That's just in case I ever forget my name." She sounded rueful. "I did that one once, too. It was very embarrassing a couple days later, after the concussion finished healing."
Rich opened his eyes and looked over to see if she was serious; apparently, she was. "Okay. That beats most of mine. I only wished I could forget some of mine." He even laughed, which made him wonder how shocky he was.
The kettle clicked off; Iris filled both mugs and passed a mug and the honey bear over to Rich. "You're my only appointment tonight, by the way. I wasn't sure how much time you'd need, whether you had the tattoo designed, or what. So we can talk about it now, or you can come back later and I'll get an evening free for once, which doesn't happen often in my profession. It's up to you."
"Yeah. I'd like to talk about the tattoo." He tried not to think about how much time he might have for this.
"Good. Once you show me what you want it to look like, and where you want it placed, I'll have a better idea what you want to accomplish with it. I can do it completely from what you've got now, or I'll give advice and help with the art if you want. That might take a little longer, but you're the one who's got to live with it for a few years. What you say goes."
Rich nodded and dug into his saddlebags. "I wanted... can you do something like these?"
He'd spent a while in a library, searching online for images he liked, then hunting down names for the styles to go look offline, too. What he'd come up with was a tiger made of Arabic calligraphy, crouched over a pond, lapping the water. The tiger's writing reflected in the pool and Rich felt like he could almost read it (if he let--).
Rich cut that thought off. He'd saved the tiger and done some very basic messing around with a couple programs on his laptop to superimpose a pair of falling stars into the water's reflection. The tiger was facing left; behind it, a stag was rearing to run (or charge) to the right, head turned back as if it had just seen the tiger. Celtic knotwork filled the stag's body, but it looked intent, not panicked. The tiger looked almost calm.
Iris looked it over and nodded immediately. "Yes. I can work from this easily. Both heading outwards, I take it?"
Rich sighed in relief. "Yeah. That was what I wanted. I was thinking maybe across the chest?"
Iris measured him with by eye, then reached for a tape measure, which made Rich smile despite himself. She waved off his offer to shed the t-shirt. "Oh, that's fine. While I'm thinking about it, would you mind if I redrew these? I'll need to balance the sizes and composition, and I'd rather not be completely violating copyright," she added, sounding amused already.
Rich just nodded. "The stag's free-usage clip art. I checked. The tiger probably isn't, so go ahead." He shrugged. "You're the expert."
She looked at the measurements, then back at him. "Yes, but it's your body. Hmm. I can size them down a little to fit them on one plane, certainly. If you'd rather, however, I could also do something like this." Iris shifted the papers around so that the tiger's pool was farther down, the stag's hooves farther up. "The reflecting pool would probably come across the floating ribs, and the stag's horns would be up here, under the collar bone if we did it that way."
Rich looked at them, then shook his head. "No. Size them down, that's fine, but I want them to be on one level."
Iris smiled at him. "As I said, it's about what you want, and what you need it to say. On one level it is."
"Great," Rich agreed. "Yeah. That's what I want."
She picked up a sketch pad and pencil, nodding agreement as her pencil began to move. "Is this a design you're likely to want to keep, or a set of memories you're working through?"
"You said they're not permanent," Rich said. He'd sit up and pull his pride around him in a minute. For now, the chair was comfortable, and maybe this would help.... "I mean, if I can't keep it, does it matter?"
Iris glanced up at him. "Quit stirring your tea and drink it, would you? Your color's only a little better. No. They're not permanent, so you'd have to have a tattoo touched up every few years if you wanted to keep it. We could do that, if you want to have the option of keeping them longer."
Iris kept sketching as he drank the mint tea. "I use my tattoos for reminders, you see, but for us, tattoos can have another use. They will fade if nothing is done, as our memories don't anymore. If you have to, you can tattoo something on to act as an external form of a memory that needs less intensity. If you concentrate on it as being associated that way, the start is unpleasantly intense -- although I doubt you'd have come to me if it wasn't already unpleasant -- but by the end, it's a great deal better. Assuming you want the emotions in questions less intense, that is."
"And you think I do." Rich didn't bother making it a question. The tea's not sweet enough, came the thought in the back of his head; Rich added more honey.
The scratch of her pencil over the paper only paused when Iris looked more closely at Rich's cobbled-together image. "You've got to be a good fifteen pounds under your best weight -- the shirt's an old favorite from the way you've washed it down, but it's big on you now. You drove days to get here. Ceirdwyn's worried enough to be calling you every other day with a dissertation to write, but for whatever reason she hasn't called your teacher or his. And you nearly had a panic attack over my tattoo. So, if I were betting, I wouldn't bet you wanted to keep the memory's associations."
Rich managed not to flinch as she laid out her facts like a winning poker hand, but it took energy he hadn't wanted to spare. He sat there and concentrated on breathing and drinking his tea.
She always could aim. But she can also keep her own counsel. Tell her about all of it.
Rich managed not to flinch; he just thought desperately, 'All of it?'
From the Dark Quickening on. She's Darius' and she always could listen and not judge, if I needed her not to. And you're actually listening to me, Rich. You've got to talk to someone.
Her pencil had stilled. When he looked up from his tea, Iris was watching him. Rich swallowed and said, "This is holy ground, and you studied with Darius. Do you do seal of the confessional?"
"I'm a healer some of the time," Iris said soberly. "I do hold to patient confidentiality. I might talk to another healer about your case sometime for advice, if I needed it or they did, but I wouldn't use your name or any details that would tell someone who you were. And I definitely wouldn't give another immortal any details on you, Rich. Anything you need to tell me about the work I'm doing for you, anything you need to talk about while I am working on you -- that's private, and it'll stay that way. Does that help?"
Rich took a deep breath and then told her, "It's... kind of a long story."
Iris shrugged. "This evening is already blocked out for you. If we get the art done in time, I'll start tattooing it on for you tonight. Otherwise, I can start first thing tomorrow morning if you like. If you want to talk while I work... honestly, it will probably help this work better for you. The more I know, the more I can help you set it up to give you the cleanest healing."
Rich nodded and wrapped his hands around his mug. "Okay. It's kind of...." He looked up. "You knew Sean Burns, you said?"
"He taught me sword work, since Darius wouldn't, and a few other things besides. Why?" Iris was still watching him with that calm, tolerant patience Darius had had. It made Rich miss him all over again.
"Because if he was a friend of yours, you won't like parts of this."
"Were you an enemy of Sean's?" She didn't sound angry at the thought, but she did put her pad down and fold her arms across her belly. Her left hand brushed back and forth along the tattoo on her right arm that had set him off.
"No, I never met him. I heard about him from... from my teacher." Rich concentrated through the memories of Joe showing up just in time, one hand coming up to rub away the feel of steel at his throat. "Duncan MacLeod was my teacher. He nearly killed me during... that monumental fuck-up that killed Sean Burns."
"Your own teacher nearly killed you when he was under the influence of that dark quickening?" Iris asked. Her voice was very steady but her face was so motionless it had to be a mask.
Rich nodded, swallowed, and kept rubbing his throat. "Yeah. I didn't... I knew something was wrong. But Mac wasn't sparring me, or trying to make a point. He just hammered my sword down, had his blade at my throat -- he kissed me on the forehead and was going to strike. Joe shot him for me."
"Joe?" Iris was still watching him very steadily.
"A really good friend. He used to be a marine, can still shoot. He shot Mac, told me to get out of there...." Rich looked up at her, settled his hands into his lap which ended up with his fingers woven together, and tried to steady his voice back down. "Then I got stupid. I wasn't going to let that ever happen again, you know?"
"If you'd just gone to Connor for help or a new teacher, I doubt you'd call that stupid." Iris saw him wince. "You only thought of that option later?"
"Yeah. Much later." Rich said quietly, "I went headhunting."
Iris nodded slowly. "Ah. Yes. After that, I can imagine you did feel a need to become stronger."
Rich shrugged a little, helplessly. "I didn't know what else to do. I mean, it wasn't something I could take to Amanda, Darius was dead, I'd never met Sean and... Duncan killed Sean not long after that."
"And your teacher had to go lick his wounds after his own recovery?" Her tone didn't excuse Duncan's actions, but it didn't blame him, either.
Rich knew damn well he couldn't be that impartial. "He sure as hell didn't come looking for me." More quietly, he added, "He didn't tell Connor about it either."
Iris nodded thoughtfully. "Meaning Connor didn't know to come looking for you. More tea?"
"Yeah, sure." Rich looked down and saw his mug was empty. He had an idea how that had happened, but didn't bother asking.
Iris put the kettle back on and pulled out an actual tea pot. She spooned fresh tea in and said quietly, "We all make mistakes. Which mistake is eating at you?"
Rich studied the blue and white pattern of the teapot as if that could tell him how not to do this again. "I... took a couple heads I really wish I hadn't." He leaned forward onto the desk finally, face in his hands. "No. I took a bunch of heads I really shouldn't, but two of them.... I killed a woman. She didn't try to dodge the challenge, didn't beg me to let her live, but oh God, I should have walked away. She wasn't ready for the Game. She said she was, but she wasn't, and it was...."
Some of the honey had spilled on his hand and Rich rubbed at it until it was tacky and he was out of excuses. "She lost the sword part, but she did... something after I took her quickening. I don't know how she did it, but for weeks, I'd find myself reaching for foods I'd never really liked before, trying to fit through spaces I was too big for, reaching for a book and a mug of tea at the end of the day."
Rich didn't meet Iris's eyes when he admitted, "She also had me looking at guys. Wanting to flirt with them, wanting to lead them on for the fun of the chase, or take them to bed. "
Iris said gently, "How much of that was new to you?"
He winced, then smiled a little despite himself. "Yeah. I knew I was gonna end up embarrassed somewhere in here. Of course I did, I visited Ceirdwyn... Some of it was embarrassing. I mean, I like women."
"But?" A thread of laughter tinged her otherwise calm voice.
Rich managed to look up at Iris; she had a faint smile and the same unruffled amusement he remembered so well from Paris. "Oh, yeah. You studied with Darius. You've got that calm, 'no, really, you can't shock me' look down."
"Not with that you can't, no," Iris said gently. "And you're dodging it. Which of us don't you want to tell about this: me, or yourself?"
"A little of both," Rich said at last. "I'm not sure which was worse, realizing I was watching more guys than women for a while, or the times they'd see me studying them -- and some of them flirted back."
She nodded, clearly unsurprised by that. "Of course they did. You're a good-looking man who was obviously interested. So did you act on it?" Iris asked. "Or did you just want to?"
Rich winced. "Two of them got pissed at me when they figured out I wasn't entirely sure. Said they weren't going to be my experimental stage. Funny thing was, one of them was loud enough about it that another guy said he didn't mind letting me experiment if I didn't mind the change in partners."
"You're smiling," Iris pointed out. She filled his mug, and Rich sniffed at the tea before deciding it was probably green tea with some herbs in it. It smelled like cut grass and lemon and tarragon or rosemary or something else sharp under that.
"Yeah, well." Rich shrugged and raised his gaze for just a moment. "Eli was a nice guy. Good sense of humor, too."
"A good night was had by all, then?" She sounded somewhere between fond and amused.
The pencil was scratching across paper again. Even knowing she probably wasn't watching him, Rich smiled. "Yeah. Took me months to figure out the part that felt strangest, though. Usually I do the chasing. I was setting up to get chased during that, which felt weird."
Rich studied his hands, remembering Eli's fingers twined with his, the cheerful comments about 'Hey, come on, a handjob is not worth freaking out about, okay? If you just have to have a 'what did I just do?' freak-out, try it over something that is, why don't you?' Rich smiled again. The stubble had been a surprise, but yeah, his kisses really had been worth a few 'how straight am I?' questions later.
Iris' next question sobered him again. "How long did it take before her quickening's influencing wore off?"
"A month, maybe a month and a half," Rich said quietly.
She kept working on the sketch, but after a minute, Iris said, "That's a little longer than usual. Have you had any other aftereffects that lasted that long? Or that strongly?"
"I took up lousy cigars for a while," Rich offered, still studying his hands and the wood grain of the desk. With an effort, he reminded himself that Ivy had been the unobtrusive one; he wasn't. At least Alec's cigars hadn't been a problem again after that first month.
He expected another question. Instead, Iris pushed her pad over. "Here. Is this what you want?"
Rich studied it carefully, tracing a line on the stag's spine, the arc of the falling star, running a finger just over a paw near the water. Then he nodded. "Yeah. This is it."
Iris nodded. "All right, then. Let's get started."
* * *
Part 2
Title: Pen & Ink, pt 1.
Summary: Losses, old injuries, & grudges. Not even time heals everything.
With thanks to JiM, for reasons in the end notes. Written for the HL_Chronicles timestamp challenge, and for SamJohnsson & Raine, who encouraged the tattoo & Rich mix. Beta by Devo, Dragon, Mischief, Raine,& Sam; remaining mistakes my own fault, of course.
Timestamp of Falling Stars and an AU in which events diverged during "End of Innocence." Detailed notes at the end.
Pen & Ink
It wasn't his first time crossing the Mississippi River, not even the first time on this motorcycle, but Rich still wanted to just pull over and watch the water pour by, watch the boats push on up against the current. He didn't, despite what looked a hell of a lot like a sidewalk all the way across the bridge. Cops frowned on that sort of thing, and getting arrested would be too good an excuse not to do what he needed to do.
Even as low as it was, the Mississippi lightened his mood -- somewhere in the last fifteen years, Rich developed a taste for the scenic as well as the urban -- which made it easier to thread his way through yet another unfamiliar city without getting or giving too many dirty looks. Memphis wasn't entirely what he'd expected; it looked like a nice city in some places and downright shabby a few blocks later, only to shift back again almost as quickly.
There'd been a time he'd have been making jokes about split personalities. This time, Rich changed directions. He swung north, heading towards his destination, and probably drove his GPS navigator a little crazier. Every time he got within a few streets, he turned the wrong way, watching for the ubiquitous 'no left turn' signs and getting a feel for the area. He wanted to learn a few ways out if he needed one in a hurry.
That part he could do. Figuring out why he'd been sent to an immortal tattoo artist in the middle of the Bible Belt might take a few beers, but what the hell, it was well past lunchtime and his appointment wasn't until four.
Whoever this Iris was, she was smart enough to be working two blocks from a police precinct house and across the street from a bar. "Neighborhood looks pretty cool, too," Rich muttered to himself, hearing and barely noticing the amused agreement in the back of his mind. A very full parking lot caught his eye and he swung around the corner, parking his motorcycle where he could watch it through the window.
The signs on either end of the building showed it had two different restaurants; Rich flipped a coin and went left. Molly's ended up being Mexican food, with servers so friendly it made him wary. Wary, but grateful for the way chips and salsa showed up with his first beer, ice water showed up with the refill on the chips, and getting his food didn't take forever. Even better, his pollo con mole actually tasted good.
Huh. That was a nice change.
* * *
Rich pulled up in front of Rainbow Tattoos a couple minutes before four, deliberately running himself tight for time. Tessa had tried to teach him to be prompt (sometimes by bad example, admittedly) but Rich had learned to see being on time as a politeness or a courtesy. Sometimes, being late was a weapon, but he was here to ask for... not a favor. He was planning to pay.
Whatever he was here for, Rich wanted to be on this Iris's good side. He used that to push him through letting go of the handlebars and swinging off his bike. Once he had both boots on the asphalt, he could finally feel it: he was standing on holy ground of some kind. A faint breeze cooled his skin although it never ruffled his hair, and he could almost feel water moving somewhere nearby, not quite a running stream and not quite waves.
Some of the tension seeped out of his shoulders and he took a deep breath, which he promptly regretted. The breeze was only metaphysical. In reality, it was hot out today. Rich pulled his swords off his bike, duffel bag onto one shoulder, yoga bag on the other, before he walked into the store.
It didn't look quite like any tattoo shop he'd been in before. The rolling cabinet for dyes and needle machines and the dentist-style chair near it? Sure. The massage table forming the other side of a V, dyes in the center -- that made sense too. The lights arranged over them all? Yeah. But brass wind chimes hanging off the air vent and humming deep, calming notes through the store with the AC? That was a little strange. So was the bead door into another room painted to look like a rainbow in steep, forest-covered mountains. For that matter, the funky bronze piece on a shelf on the far room looked like a dragon wrapped around a mountain, one in the process of going, 'Mine, all mine.'
The rest of the room had a couple bookshelves, one with an iPod speaker stand, three-ring binders on the shelves and out on top of an artist's drafting table, as well as pictures and sketches of tattoos on the walls everywhere. A pair of chairs were set up near the tattoo table and a full length mirror hung on every wall. Oddly enough, none of the mirrors seemed to reflect each other.
Rich had time to take it all in as he looked around for the immortal he could feel somewhere near.... She came out of the beaded door, hands out and open but watching him intently.
Peaceable until she wasn't, he thought, and he put his own hands out too, bags hanging off them, and held very still. "Rich Ryan. I called you a few days ago...?"
She nodded, which gave him a better view of short hair every color of her dyes, and a face that had a couple of those dyes smudged along her right eyebrow and cheekbone. "So you did. I'm Iris Kaulike. Welcome to my shop." She kept watching him and finally said, gently, "It's holy ground. All right if we both put our hands down?"
Rich blushed, a bad habit he wanted rid of, and tried to ignore the contentment in the back of his mind. "Yeah, sorry." He put his bags down by his feet, shed his riding jacket next to them, and said, "Ceirdwyn sent me here. She said... she said you do tattoos for us?"
Iris cocked her head to study him. "Among other things. You called me for an appointment a week ago, and I haven't seen or felt you around town before. Did you travel so far just for a tattoo that won't last more than a few years?"
Rich blinked then said, "Wait. It won't be permanent?"
"Not on us." Iris added, firmly, "I won't give you a permanent one. I don't know you."
"So... wait. Can you or can't you?" Rich answered his question almost as fast as she did. "Let me guess -- above the neck, sure, it's permanent?"
Iris shrugged and folded her arms, which showed off some of her own tattoos: one down each bicep and another under the edge of her cut-off t-shirt. "Ceirdwyn sent you." A smile edged her mouth. "How is she?"
Rich shrugged. "Doing okay. For a woman who's writing a dissertation, she's using me as an excuse for writing breaks. Keeps calling me every couple days."
Iris shook her head and relaxed. "To each their own. I still don't understand why she went for a degree in neuroscience, but the email discussions have been very interesting." She waved a hand at the chairs. "None of which discusses what you want done. Are you thirsty or hungry?"
Rich shook his head. "Late lunch, but thanks." He sat down, trying to stay careful of this strange immortal, but Ceirdwyn had vouched for her and there was a quiet pleasure in the back of his head. He tried to ignore that and stick to what he'd rehearsed during his days on the road. "Ceirdwyn said sometimes it helps to have... a reminder. Something to look at and consider."
"Sometimes it can, yes." Iris looked at him very thoughtfully. "How well do you know her?"
"She's a friend of... of my teacher, and his. And I get along well with one of her students." Rich smiled despite himself. "Never thought I'd say that about an FBI agent, but he was a lot less straight-laced than Cory said he was."
Iris grinned at that. "Oh, that student of hers. No, when you catch him in the right mood, Matthew can be as much of a hellraiser as Cory. It can be very entertaining." She nodded again, some decision reached. Maybe not the one Rich wanted, though; she didn't look completely persuaded. "All right, I'll go ahead and tell you what I do, and what I can and can't do, and what I will and won't do, come to that."
Yeah. Not convinced yet. Rich braced himself to lay on the charm if need be. "I thought you did tattoos?"
"I do." Iris considered him very thoughtfully. "I'm just wondering why you want one. On the mortals, it's for art or for memories. On us... it's for art or for healing."
"Healing. Through a tattoo?" Rich tried to stay on the 'skeptical but willing to be convinced' side of 'are you fucking kidding me?' Honestly, he gave his performance maybe an eight. He was a little tired.
"Through a tattoo, yes." Iris was watching him more intently now, sitting a little straighter. Her gaze flicked down across his shoulders, his chest, stopped at his arms before continuing on. Rich made himself relax his hands from the fists they'd clenched into. "How far did you come?"
"Far enough. Does it matter?" He sounded angry even to himself. The happiness in the back of his head felt like a hand on his shoulder for just a moment, and Rich shuddered the touch away reflexively.
"I'll give you a tattoo, Rich. Don't worry about that part. But what and why, you might want to consider." One of her hands lay loose on her thigh; the other was tracing the tattoo on that flat, gold-skinned belly. What he could see was a series of lines in a circle, going up, curving in, back, up to the edge of her shirt. Her hand stopped when she brushed the fabric, but she didn't break the silence.
She didn't need to. The pattern had distracted Rich until he finally placed the image, or as much of it as he could see. "That's a labyrinth."
Iris glanced down at it before nodding. "Yes, it is. I need the reminder. Some of my habits weren't as ingrained as they should have been."
"Did you tattoo that on yourself?" Rich frowned and added, "And is that the kind of thing you mean?"
"No, another immortal tattooed it on me." She looked amused. "Manoel taught me how to ink, and what and when to ink, too. Now we renew each other's tattoos every few years. But yes, this is exactly the kind of thing I mean." She twisted in the chair to show him her right arm. "What does this say to you, if anything?"
An anvil cloud spread from the top of her shoulder down to mid-arm. Intricate shades of gray, blue, and black spat blue-white lightning, scorching black craters into the skin above her elbow. Rich turned back to her, and as he did, something in the image shifted in the corner of his eyes. Suddenly, the cloud wasn't just a cloud; now he could see sword blades and knife-edges poking out of the gray mass or partially exposed within its lines. He leaned in, momentarily heedless of his exposed nape, and saw tiny drops of red in the center of the craters. The edge of one crater had a double curve like the top of a bone.
He fell back onto his stool, memories of bodies he'd carried and buried surging up in him. When he blinked, Iris was kneeling in front of him, rubbing his hands.
"--to breathe for me, Rich." She saw something in his face that made her voice sound relieved. "Now you're back with me. Deep breath, hmm? And my apologies. I didn't realize that would trigger you."
"You put swords in the cloud," he said, and tried to ignore his hands shaking. "And blood in the lightning strikes, and bones in the impact. You hate quickenings, don't you?" He heard himself thinking, 'And you're probably right-handed, or mostly,' and shoved that calculation down but not away.
"I hate the waste of the Game, yes." Iris settled back onto her heels, still holding his hands, and sighed. "I was an idiot. I took a head I meant to take, but that led to taking two others I didn't want just because they were young, and stupid, and bought into the crap about 'There can be only one.' They thought I'd be vulnerable because I'd just taken a head."
Rich swallowed, tasting bile and panic. "A lot of us are."
"True enough. I got to take the heads of two misogynist idiots who thought I couldn't face a second fight, and then a third, because I was female, because I was one of Darius' students, because I'd just taken a head, or two." She smiled just a little, bitterly amused. "I got them in my head. Three of them in a row. I... got lost in their noise and my own mind after that. It took Sean a while to untangle me."
"Sean?" Rich shivered, felt comfort trying to seep into him, and this time he accepted it. "Sean Burns?"
Iris looked at him and said firmly, "Come into my office. I'm going to make you some mint tea, so that you don't throw up, and we're going to put honey in for when the adrenaline in your blood stream finishes devouring the energy from that late lunch of yours." She didn't wait for him to agree, just pulled him up and supported him into her office.
The place had one comfortable chair behind the desk. Iris settled him into that, turned on the electric kettle, and vanished out into the main room. She returned in maybe half a minute, just long enough to grab his bags, still zipped up. "Here." She put them next to him and pulled out a mug and a box of teabags.
"You always have mint tea and honey on hand?" Rich asked randomly. He was breathing carefully, trying to keep his lunch. He still reached down and hefted each bag in turn, checking the weight to be sure his blades were still in place. She hadn't been gone long enough for a fast change of both, but. The weights were right, so he let go of that tension.
"You'd be amazed at how many people think they want a tattoo until the needle starts. Mint tea and ginger ale are useful things to keep around. Unfortunately, I think I'm out of ginger ale...." Iris dug in a mini-fridge, then shook her head. "Sorry. Just coconut cookies." She pulled a folding chair out from beside the fridge, pulled it open, and settled into it.
"Mint tea's fine. Sorry about...." He gestured at her arm, the change of venue.
Iris shook her head. "No. I'm the one who set this off. I apologize."
Rich leaned his head back against the chair, his eyes closed while he soaked up the feeling of holy ground, of water running somewhere nearby. It reminded him of being on the Seine, with Tessa still alive, and Darius just around the corner and always willing to listen or talk.... "You said you do tattoos for healing. If that tattoo has half the effect on you it did on me, yeah, that counts."
"It does." She said dryly, "A reminder to keep up the workouts and to be more careful about why I fight, all in one visible image."
"What's the one on your other arm for, then?"
"Oh. That's just in case I ever forget my name." She sounded rueful. "I did that one once, too. It was very embarrassing a couple days later, after the concussion finished healing."
Rich opened his eyes and looked over to see if she was serious; apparently, she was. "Okay. That beats most of mine. I only wished I could forget some of mine." He even laughed, which made him wonder how shocky he was.
The kettle clicked off; Iris filled both mugs and passed a mug and the honey bear over to Rich. "You're my only appointment tonight, by the way. I wasn't sure how much time you'd need, whether you had the tattoo designed, or what. So we can talk about it now, or you can come back later and I'll get an evening free for once, which doesn't happen often in my profession. It's up to you."
"Yeah. I'd like to talk about the tattoo." He tried not to think about how much time he might have for this.
"Good. Once you show me what you want it to look like, and where you want it placed, I'll have a better idea what you want to accomplish with it. I can do it completely from what you've got now, or I'll give advice and help with the art if you want. That might take a little longer, but you're the one who's got to live with it for a few years. What you say goes."
Rich nodded and dug into his saddlebags. "I wanted... can you do something like these?"
He'd spent a while in a library, searching online for images he liked, then hunting down names for the styles to go look offline, too. What he'd come up with was a tiger made of Arabic calligraphy, crouched over a pond, lapping the water. The tiger's writing reflected in the pool and Rich felt like he could almost read it (if he let--).
Rich cut that thought off. He'd saved the tiger and done some very basic messing around with a couple programs on his laptop to superimpose a pair of falling stars into the water's reflection. The tiger was facing left; behind it, a stag was rearing to run (or charge) to the right, head turned back as if it had just seen the tiger. Celtic knotwork filled the stag's body, but it looked intent, not panicked. The tiger looked almost calm.
Iris looked it over and nodded immediately. "Yes. I can work from this easily. Both heading outwards, I take it?"
Rich sighed in relief. "Yeah. That was what I wanted. I was thinking maybe across the chest?"
Iris measured him with by eye, then reached for a tape measure, which made Rich smile despite himself. She waved off his offer to shed the t-shirt. "Oh, that's fine. While I'm thinking about it, would you mind if I redrew these? I'll need to balance the sizes and composition, and I'd rather not be completely violating copyright," she added, sounding amused already.
Rich just nodded. "The stag's free-usage clip art. I checked. The tiger probably isn't, so go ahead." He shrugged. "You're the expert."
She looked at the measurements, then back at him. "Yes, but it's your body. Hmm. I can size them down a little to fit them on one plane, certainly. If you'd rather, however, I could also do something like this." Iris shifted the papers around so that the tiger's pool was farther down, the stag's hooves farther up. "The reflecting pool would probably come across the floating ribs, and the stag's horns would be up here, under the collar bone if we did it that way."
Rich looked at them, then shook his head. "No. Size them down, that's fine, but I want them to be on one level."
Iris smiled at him. "As I said, it's about what you want, and what you need it to say. On one level it is."
"Great," Rich agreed. "Yeah. That's what I want."
She picked up a sketch pad and pencil, nodding agreement as her pencil began to move. "Is this a design you're likely to want to keep, or a set of memories you're working through?"
"You said they're not permanent," Rich said. He'd sit up and pull his pride around him in a minute. For now, the chair was comfortable, and maybe this would help.... "I mean, if I can't keep it, does it matter?"
Iris glanced up at him. "Quit stirring your tea and drink it, would you? Your color's only a little better. No. They're not permanent, so you'd have to have a tattoo touched up every few years if you wanted to keep it. We could do that, if you want to have the option of keeping them longer."
Iris kept sketching as he drank the mint tea. "I use my tattoos for reminders, you see, but for us, tattoos can have another use. They will fade if nothing is done, as our memories don't anymore. If you have to, you can tattoo something on to act as an external form of a memory that needs less intensity. If you concentrate on it as being associated that way, the start is unpleasantly intense -- although I doubt you'd have come to me if it wasn't already unpleasant -- but by the end, it's a great deal better. Assuming you want the emotions in questions less intense, that is."
"And you think I do." Rich didn't bother making it a question. The tea's not sweet enough, came the thought in the back of his head; Rich added more honey.
The scratch of her pencil over the paper only paused when Iris looked more closely at Rich's cobbled-together image. "You've got to be a good fifteen pounds under your best weight -- the shirt's an old favorite from the way you've washed it down, but it's big on you now. You drove days to get here. Ceirdwyn's worried enough to be calling you every other day with a dissertation to write, but for whatever reason she hasn't called your teacher or his. And you nearly had a panic attack over my tattoo. So, if I were betting, I wouldn't bet you wanted to keep the memory's associations."
Rich managed not to flinch as she laid out her facts like a winning poker hand, but it took energy he hadn't wanted to spare. He sat there and concentrated on breathing and drinking his tea.
She always could aim. But she can also keep her own counsel. Tell her about all of it.
Rich managed not to flinch; he just thought desperately, 'All of it?'
From the Dark Quickening on. She's Darius' and she always could listen and not judge, if I needed her not to. And you're actually listening to me, Rich. You've got to talk to someone.
Her pencil had stilled. When he looked up from his tea, Iris was watching him. Rich swallowed and said, "This is holy ground, and you studied with Darius. Do you do seal of the confessional?"
"I'm a healer some of the time," Iris said soberly. "I do hold to patient confidentiality. I might talk to another healer about your case sometime for advice, if I needed it or they did, but I wouldn't use your name or any details that would tell someone who you were. And I definitely wouldn't give another immortal any details on you, Rich. Anything you need to tell me about the work I'm doing for you, anything you need to talk about while I am working on you -- that's private, and it'll stay that way. Does that help?"
Rich took a deep breath and then told her, "It's... kind of a long story."
Iris shrugged. "This evening is already blocked out for you. If we get the art done in time, I'll start tattooing it on for you tonight. Otherwise, I can start first thing tomorrow morning if you like. If you want to talk while I work... honestly, it will probably help this work better for you. The more I know, the more I can help you set it up to give you the cleanest healing."
Rich nodded and wrapped his hands around his mug. "Okay. It's kind of...." He looked up. "You knew Sean Burns, you said?"
"He taught me sword work, since Darius wouldn't, and a few other things besides. Why?" Iris was still watching him with that calm, tolerant patience Darius had had. It made Rich miss him all over again.
"Because if he was a friend of yours, you won't like parts of this."
"Were you an enemy of Sean's?" She didn't sound angry at the thought, but she did put her pad down and fold her arms across her belly. Her left hand brushed back and forth along the tattoo on her right arm that had set him off.
"No, I never met him. I heard about him from... from my teacher." Rich concentrated through the memories of Joe showing up just in time, one hand coming up to rub away the feel of steel at his throat. "Duncan MacLeod was my teacher. He nearly killed me during... that monumental fuck-up that killed Sean Burns."
"Your own teacher nearly killed you when he was under the influence of that dark quickening?" Iris asked. Her voice was very steady but her face was so motionless it had to be a mask.
Rich nodded, swallowed, and kept rubbing his throat. "Yeah. I didn't... I knew something was wrong. But Mac wasn't sparring me, or trying to make a point. He just hammered my sword down, had his blade at my throat -- he kissed me on the forehead and was going to strike. Joe shot him for me."
"Joe?" Iris was still watching him very steadily.
"A really good friend. He used to be a marine, can still shoot. He shot Mac, told me to get out of there...." Rich looked up at her, settled his hands into his lap which ended up with his fingers woven together, and tried to steady his voice back down. "Then I got stupid. I wasn't going to let that ever happen again, you know?"
"If you'd just gone to Connor for help or a new teacher, I doubt you'd call that stupid." Iris saw him wince. "You only thought of that option later?"
"Yeah. Much later." Rich said quietly, "I went headhunting."
Iris nodded slowly. "Ah. Yes. After that, I can imagine you did feel a need to become stronger."
Rich shrugged a little, helplessly. "I didn't know what else to do. I mean, it wasn't something I could take to Amanda, Darius was dead, I'd never met Sean and... Duncan killed Sean not long after that."
"And your teacher had to go lick his wounds after his own recovery?" Her tone didn't excuse Duncan's actions, but it didn't blame him, either.
Rich knew damn well he couldn't be that impartial. "He sure as hell didn't come looking for me." More quietly, he added, "He didn't tell Connor about it either."
Iris nodded thoughtfully. "Meaning Connor didn't know to come looking for you. More tea?"
"Yeah, sure." Rich looked down and saw his mug was empty. He had an idea how that had happened, but didn't bother asking.
Iris put the kettle back on and pulled out an actual tea pot. She spooned fresh tea in and said quietly, "We all make mistakes. Which mistake is eating at you?"
Rich studied the blue and white pattern of the teapot as if that could tell him how not to do this again. "I... took a couple heads I really wish I hadn't." He leaned forward onto the desk finally, face in his hands. "No. I took a bunch of heads I really shouldn't, but two of them.... I killed a woman. She didn't try to dodge the challenge, didn't beg me to let her live, but oh God, I should have walked away. She wasn't ready for the Game. She said she was, but she wasn't, and it was...."
Some of the honey had spilled on his hand and Rich rubbed at it until it was tacky and he was out of excuses. "She lost the sword part, but she did... something after I took her quickening. I don't know how she did it, but for weeks, I'd find myself reaching for foods I'd never really liked before, trying to fit through spaces I was too big for, reaching for a book and a mug of tea at the end of the day."
Rich didn't meet Iris's eyes when he admitted, "She also had me looking at guys. Wanting to flirt with them, wanting to lead them on for the fun of the chase, or take them to bed. "
Iris said gently, "How much of that was new to you?"
He winced, then smiled a little despite himself. "Yeah. I knew I was gonna end up embarrassed somewhere in here. Of course I did, I visited Ceirdwyn... Some of it was embarrassing. I mean, I like women."
"But?" A thread of laughter tinged her otherwise calm voice.
Rich managed to look up at Iris; she had a faint smile and the same unruffled amusement he remembered so well from Paris. "Oh, yeah. You studied with Darius. You've got that calm, 'no, really, you can't shock me' look down."
"Not with that you can't, no," Iris said gently. "And you're dodging it. Which of us don't you want to tell about this: me, or yourself?"
"A little of both," Rich said at last. "I'm not sure which was worse, realizing I was watching more guys than women for a while, or the times they'd see me studying them -- and some of them flirted back."
She nodded, clearly unsurprised by that. "Of course they did. You're a good-looking man who was obviously interested. So did you act on it?" Iris asked. "Or did you just want to?"
Rich winced. "Two of them got pissed at me when they figured out I wasn't entirely sure. Said they weren't going to be my experimental stage. Funny thing was, one of them was loud enough about it that another guy said he didn't mind letting me experiment if I didn't mind the change in partners."
"You're smiling," Iris pointed out. She filled his mug, and Rich sniffed at the tea before deciding it was probably green tea with some herbs in it. It smelled like cut grass and lemon and tarragon or rosemary or something else sharp under that.
"Yeah, well." Rich shrugged and raised his gaze for just a moment. "Eli was a nice guy. Good sense of humor, too."
"A good night was had by all, then?" She sounded somewhere between fond and amused.
The pencil was scratching across paper again. Even knowing she probably wasn't watching him, Rich smiled. "Yeah. Took me months to figure out the part that felt strangest, though. Usually I do the chasing. I was setting up to get chased during that, which felt weird."
Rich studied his hands, remembering Eli's fingers twined with his, the cheerful comments about 'Hey, come on, a handjob is not worth freaking out about, okay? If you just have to have a 'what did I just do?' freak-out, try it over something that is, why don't you?' Rich smiled again. The stubble had been a surprise, but yeah, his kisses really had been worth a few 'how straight am I?' questions later.
Iris' next question sobered him again. "How long did it take before her quickening's influencing wore off?"
"A month, maybe a month and a half," Rich said quietly.
She kept working on the sketch, but after a minute, Iris said, "That's a little longer than usual. Have you had any other aftereffects that lasted that long? Or that strongly?"
"I took up lousy cigars for a while," Rich offered, still studying his hands and the wood grain of the desk. With an effort, he reminded himself that Ivy had been the unobtrusive one; he wasn't. At least Alec's cigars hadn't been a problem again after that first month.
He expected another question. Instead, Iris pushed her pad over. "Here. Is this what you want?"
Rich studied it carefully, tracing a line on the stag's spine, the arc of the falling star, running a finger just over a paw near the water. Then he nodded. "Yeah. This is it."
Iris nodded. "All right, then. Let's get started."
* * *
Part 2