Chapter 2
Saturday, February 22nd, 1986
Besides a two sided policy piece that Remus was assigned that week, and his landlady inexplicably shutting off his water for a harrowing six hours, the time between his meeting Marlene’s tattoo artist and his appointment passed rather quickly. As that Saturday loomed closer and closer, he found himself more than once standing in front of the mirror with his shirt sleeve scrunched up to his shoulder like a tank top, running his fingers back and forth over the scarring on his upper arm that was to be covered. Each time, it was as if something had possessed him, and when he thought back about the moment he had decided to look at the skin, he found he never had. Instead, each time, he was merely completing a task, and then he was staring at himself in the mirror.
Sometimes the action was affectionate, with an underlying melancholy, but tinged with excitement. Of course, he knew the scarring would not cease to exist. Remus had come to terms with the fact that there were no real fixes for scarring that deep a long time ago. At least, there were no fixes inside a reporter’s salary. But the idea of the scars not being the first thing someone saw when they looked at him was enough to course nervous excitement through his stomach. Instead of a walking tragedy, strangers would look at him and see art. They might even see something they related to. Even if Remus couldn’t get away from the memories of the scarring himself, he could redraw his picture in onlooker’s eyes, and the first step in this process was drawing ever closer.
But sometimes the action was that same disgust from his childhood and teenage years. Instead of imagining where the lightning bolt would conceal the scarring, reclaiming his skin for him in the name of the rock legend, Remus would drag his fingernails against the skin, itching to open the scars in a vain attempt to heal them, as he had done in his youth. He imagined picking them from his skin, and cursed the soft, unblemished canvas that he could have had. These moments often left him looking blankly into his own eyes, inches from the mirror, examining with the same utter disgust, the scars that ran over his forehead, the bridge of his nose, his chin. No matter how much of his past he tried to hide, Remus would never be able to run from those scars.
When Saturday the twenty second finally rolled around, Remus stepped off of the Hammersmith and City line at Ladbroke Grove at approximately five forty five and began his way toward The Dog Star. He had had the good sense to wear a short sleeved undershirt, but the nipping London weather that sat just above freezing had him also employing a thick jumper and trench coat.
This time, when Remus walked into The Dog Star, Sirius was already at the counter. The dark haired man was leaning across, resting on his forearms, to give advice to a woman who seemed to be just leaving. When the bell jingled, Sirius looked up, and there was a flash of recognition in his eyes, as well as a flash of an involuntary smile. Remus eased his lips into something small as a return, before making a beeline to the leather couch he had avoided upon his first visit. Checking his watch, as well as the clock on the wall behind the counter, he confirmed that he was still twenty five minutes early to his appointment, which was fine, except that he had expected Sirius to have been in the back, the same as before. Something about the fact that as soon as this woman was finished asking her questions, Sirius would point his attention to Remus had him squirming, picking up a haphazardly placed magazine on motorbikes to occupy his hands more than his mind.
Snorting, and then trying to keep it to himself, Remus replayed his conversation with Marlene over the phone, and then a subsequent call he had had with Mary the following day. Remus didn’t feel his unease or uncharacteristic nerves for any other reason than that Sirius was a looker. And it wasn’t as if it was hard to tell. It was so painfully obvious that Remus was lucky he had strung together full sentences the week prior. Remus was in the business of talking with people, and sometimes those people ended up looking fairly attractive. Men, women, it didn’t matter. Remus was accustomed to the banal professionalism of ignoring how someone looked or how those looks made him feel. It had bolstered his work in the office, and had more than once slipped into his romantic life, which was less than fortunate. But the point was that the intense abstractness of Sirius’s character, mixed with the gentle, inviting smile that he had employed so effortlessly, was unfortunately the exact thing that got Remus Lupin going. And he couldn’t turn off his attraction to the man that would very soon be touching his arm, he began to realize with minor horror.
Even now, if Remus looked up from the magazine that boasted about gadgets Remus had no interest in, he could catch in his peripheral vision the way that Sirius’s loose ringlets bobbed when he moved his head. That is, the ones that had escaped the unkempt bun that Sirius had attempted to wrangle to the back of his head with a pen. The curls stood in stark contrast with the cut of the artist’s jaw, which just so happened to rival the sharpness of Sirius’s cheekbones. But of course, those jagged, intimidating features had to be offset with the longest, fullest lashes Remus had ever seen. And the grey eyes. Fuck.
Remus wouldn’t have admitted to Mary or Marlene, or anyone, for that matter, exactly what those silvery eyes had been doing to him in the moments between waiting for sleep and actually getting there. He was even less willing to admit the fact that more than once, the thought of the way Sirius had carelessly stuck Remus under his gaze had kept him from finding sleep at all.
Biting the inside of his cheek, Remus folded a leg over the other and exhaled out a long, deep breath through his nose. The bell jingled, and he looked up from the magazine, or at least, what had been in front of his eyes as his mind wandered. Setting it down, he stood, and Sirius, on cue, turned from the register and fixed Remus with that easy, barely there smile, just at the corners, like it was sharing a secret with you. At the same time, he took both delicate hands and ran them back up and through his hair. Remus found this to be cruel, and wondered if Sirius knew just how captivating his tattooed fingers were.
“Alright, Bowie,” Sirius addressed him, rummaging through a drawer until he pulled from it the carefully folded reference Remus had given him the week before, as well as a few other scraps of paper. “You ready to see what I’ve got for you?”
Remus raised a brow, hoping to look nonchalant, as he stood and shed his coat. “Are you not just replicating the reference?” The words felt oddly formal coming from his mouth, but Remus had to brush this away with the excuse that Sirius’s tone had been so informal that it was impossible to match tones just yet.
“Well,” Sirius started, dispersing the other scraps that he had drawn across the table, “we could definitely just do what’s right there, but I’ve come up with a few ideas as well, just if you wanted something a bit more your own.”
Remus peered down at them, and Sirius took a step back from the counter, both hands coming to rest easily on his hips. A few of the ideas involved the lightning bolt being an outline, which wouldn’t work. It was too little to distract from the scarring. Not that Sirius could know, he hadn’t seen the scarring yet. Remus hadn’t even told him that the reason for the appointment had been specifically to cover a scar. So he moved on, but nodded in appreciation.
A few of the ideas were rather eccentric. They definitely spanned out of his price range and time allowance, though Remus loved the bursts of color or the full coverage qualities of them.
At last, he settled on one that he knew would still be in his bracket, and was both classy enough to be accepted at The Daily Mail, and vibrant enough to draw the eye to the color and shape, instead of the warping skin underneath. The design was simple: two lightning bolts overlapping on one another, the bottom one being a deep blue, and the top being a sporty red. The shading on the ends of either bolt made them appear to be moving, without feeling over the top, and the widest point of both, the head of each, came together to form a black star which appeared to be racing up what would eventually be Remus’s skin.
“This one.” Remus said, mostly to himself, but by association, Sirius. Without hesitating, he drew his finger over the outline of the bolts.
Sirius shifted from one foot to another, and reached out to take the sketch. Remus unbowed his head and looked down at Sirius’s reaction, which seemed to be moderately pleased.
“Will that one take any longer?” He asked.
“No,” Sirius responded. “Let’s go get you ready, Starman.” His lips had quirked, and Remus’s lungs did a funny thing where they momentarily cut off his air supply. God, he could not come back here.
* * *
After briefly disappearing to make a stencil, Sirius led Remus to a quaint tattooing room at the back of the shop. This room was hardly as flashy as the front lobby, with no murals of barely clothed women or funky leather studded couches. Instead, there was a modest tattooing chair, a table, a wall of shelving, a stool, and a sink. Sirius pulled a bottled water from off one of the shelves and mimed tossing it to Remus, before handing it to him.
“You’ve had enough water today?”
Remus nodded, but uncapped the bottle and downed a few sips anyway.
Sirius then pointed across the room to a boombox similar to the one in the lobby, which was not violently shaking due to the volume, as its pair had been. “Do you want to pick your soundtrack?”
Remus snorted. “My soundtrack?”
“Some people like to listen to something specific. Bowie’s toward the top. I try my best to keep it alphabetized.”
Remus blinked. He held his tongue to refrain from mentioning that keeping an alphabetized cassette collection seemed highly out of character for Sirius. But then again, what did he know?
“Yeah, sure. Thanks.” Remus answered, examining the shelf of cassette tapes, running his fingers over each case. He paused at Bowie, before continuing down the list and pulling Led Zeppelin's Houses of the Holy. Sliding the tape into the boombox, he turned to catch Sirius grinning at him in the same sharp but easy way he had done when Remus had shown him his reference.
“Good pick.”
“Good taste on your part.”
The two stood for a moment and basked in the opening notes of “The Song Remains the Same,” before Sirius turned back to his prep work.
“Alright mate, get comfy and we’ll get into it. It’s your left bicep, right?”
Remus sat down and went to push up the sleeve of his jumper, before chiding himself on how unhelpful that would be. “Yeah,” he started, pulling the fabric up and over his head and tossing it over the head of the chair. “just right here.”
Gesturing to the skin in question, Remus had to hand it to Sirius, his reaction to the amount of scarring was rather minor. Or at least, his eyebrows only quirked enough for Remus, who was well versed in facial contortions, to notice somewhat.
He realized, lamely, that he probably should have shown Sirius the skin in question the week before, and there was a potential that he had just wasted both of their time with something Sirius couldn’t work with. But just as Remus was parting his lips to ask if the skin was too far damaged, Sirius snapped the elastic of a latex glove over his right hand.
“You’re not allergic, are you? To latex?” Sirius asked, cocking a brow as he rummaged through a few drawers, pulling rubber bands, paper towels, a tray, and the rest of his supplies out.
“No, no I’m all good. You’ve done scarred skin before?” It felt stupid and somewhat condescending to ask, and Remus scrunched his nose hard in embarrassment.
Luckily, Sirius chuckled. “I’ve done veterans, mate, you’re nothing to worry about. It is gonna hurt more than a normal tatt though. You’ve had one before, yeah?”
“No.” Remus answered, habitually biting the inside of his cheeks.
“Then forget I said anything, sorry about that.” When Sirius looked up at him this time, he was smiling in a sort of apologetic, shit-eating way. He settled himself down on the stool next to Remus and reached over to pat the chair that had been reclined into a lying position. Trying his best not to appear more out of place than he already was, Remus took the hint and laid down.
He had kind of been hoping that Sirius would be less pretty to look at from a lower angle. But of course, as was his luck, the man was just as sharp edged and daunting from below as he was when Remus was looking down at him. What was worse, was that at this proximity, Remus realized he could smell Sirius. The cologne was faint, just a hint of cedar and whiskey. And of course, a distant cigarette smell that had Remus itching for one himself. As Sirius leaned down to begin the stencil on Remus’s skin, the final punch was thrown, as he was now grasping gingerly at Remus’s upper arm, and subsequently breathing out gentle and even breaths against the skin. As one Zeppelin song morphed into another, Remus held his composure together by a single fraying thread.
* * *
When Houses of the Holy ended, they took a break, Remus drank the rest of his water, Sirius put on the Sex Pistols’ Never Mind the Bollocks, and they resumed. Remus found the entire process was much easier than what he had been expecting, but he also had never truly been subject to intolerable pain since he’d endured the reason for the tattoos. At one point toward the middle of the tattoo, as Sirius was beginning the coloring on the red bolt, he made a passing comment about Remus’s ability to sit so well, especially considering the fact that the tattoo was covering scars, and it was his first.
“Better than Marlene?” Remus asked, willing his voice to be nonchalant and jokey.
At this Sirius laughed and shook his head. “No. She’s like a stone. But you’re pretty impressive as far as guys go.”
Remus nearly groaned at how ridiculous that thrown away phrase had made him feel.
* * *
Once they had finished, Remus sat up from the chair, and Sirius wrapped a film around his arm, spindly, cold fingers brushing the side of Remus’s ribs. As Remus was paying, he warred against himself over whether it was worth it to come back.
The tattoo was incredible. Simple, but sleek, exactly what Remus had wanted. And it hadn’t been ridiculously priced. By all means, he was quite giddy about the entire experience.
But the idea of scheduling another appointment with someone he could barely keep his eyes off of was excruciating. It wasn’t as if the feelings had wavered at any moment in the process. Sirius’s gentle touch and short spurts of breath against Remus’s upper arm should have been illegal. And yet, as he was handing Sirius the notes he had carefully counted and folded over in his pocket, he felt his lips betray.
“I’m sure you’re booked up for a while, but I have been wanting to get a bit more covered, and your work is just really fantastic.”
Sirius, who was closing the register, cocked an eyebrow and nodded. “I can definitely get you in again. I’ve never heard of an artist turning down a perfectly good client, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
Remus’s neck flushed, and he was thankful for the jumper he had pulled back on. “That would be great.”
“Do you know what you would want next time? Same size and general vibe?” Sirius had pulled out his appointment calendar and was flipping through.
“No,” Remus started, “not yet, but I love what you came up with. More subtle classic rock would be great. Maybe a bit bigger.”
“Well, let's give that first one time to heal.” Sirius laughed a bit. “This always happens. Has Marlene told you? You start with body modifications and it ends up just never being enough. You’re always itching for the next one.”
Remus nodded, though he was quite sure he and Sirius, or he and Marlene for that matter, had very different reasons for covering themselves in ink. “Are you?”
“Hm?”
“Itching for your next one?”
Sirius grinned, and this one was less effortless, it was jagged and raw, pure excitement flashing through his eyes. “Oh of course, I’m the worst.” He pointed to his left eyebrow. “I’m set up to get pierced here. Drives the birds crazy, I’ve heard.”
Remus pressed his lips into what he hoped was a convincing smile. “Really?”
“Really.” Sirius paused and closed his appointment book, taking a step back and crossing his arms loosely. “Well, let’s not schedule you for anything until you’ve come up with an idea or two that you’re interested in. I can also come up with a few sketches for you.” He looked around behind the counter, plucking a pen from the metal can next to the register. “Fuck, okay, I’m out of cards, but here,” Sirius held out his hand and beckoned, and after a moment, Remus held his own hand out across the counter. Sirius uncapped the pen and, for the second time that day, put his cool fingers to Remus’s overheating skin. There, in Remus’s palm, he scrawled a phone number in perfect, loopy cursive. The alphabetization made a smidge more sense.
“Call me when you’ve thought of something and we’ll figure something out.”
“Thank you,” Remus said, closing his fingers tentatively around the numbers. “I’ll see you.”
Sirius gave him a small, loose salute, and Remus ventured his way back out into Portobello Market.
On the tube ride back to his flat, the dull pain in his left bicep was counteracted in full by the sensation that Sirius’s fingers had left on the back of Remus’s hand.