WHAT: The morning after some regratable decisions WHERE: Leon's apartment; Morningside WHEN: August 20th WARNINGS: References to heavy drinking, terrible tattoos, a fade to black at the end STATUS: Complete
Leon’s head pounded, like his brain was trying desperately to escape from his skull. For all he knew, it probably was. He didn’t have many clear memories of the night before, but he was pretty sure that his brain had every reason to want to pack up and call it quits. First there’d been Fight Club, which had involved more than one blow to the head, and then there’d been the drinking.
So much drinking. He was pretty sure that Revy had convinced him to at least attempt to drink 38 shots in honour of his 38th birthday. He didn’t know if he’d managed it. He was pretty sure he didn’t. He thought that likely would’ve killed him if he had.
He groaned wordlessly and rolled over to bury his head in his pillow, blocking out what pale light managed to filter through his blinds. He groped for Revy, and, finding her, slung his arm over her.
And then he shot up, yelping in pain. What was that? It had felt like something had… had bit him. Or like he’d laid his arm in a growth of thistles. He looked at Revy, but she hadn’t suddenly grown pins and needles all over her. And then he looked at his arm, and his face paled – somehow more than the sickly palor his hangover had already given him – in horror.
Bits and pieces of flashed by. Lying on the table, his arm laid out alongside him as a man with a tattooed face held the machine gun to his inner arm. The man grumbling at him that he needed to stop moving around. Him standing with his arm around Revy’s waist, her’s around his, revealing the pistols inked on their inner biceps (Shot through the heart, and you’re to blame, Leon recalled singing drunkenly at some point) as the tattoo artist snapped a photo.
The pistol itself was… well, at least it was recognizable as one of Revy’s silver Berettas, even if the lines weren’t exactly straight, and the skull and crossbones on the handle was already blowing out. The 9mm Sword Cutlass that was engraved along the barrel of Revy’s gun had been replaced with 9mm Revy Lee in shaky lettering. He’d never gotten a tattoo before. Had never really had any interest in getting one. And now…
How many people had they texted??
He glanced over at Revy, could see the hint of a magazine on the bottom of her arm. His bedding was stained with blood and ink.
“What the fuck?!” he exclaimed, and winced at his own raised voice.
Revy didn’t startle awake at his yelling, but being that loud was currently a huge fucking inconvenience, as she was attempting this thing called fucking sleep, and –
Wait, why was she yelling?
Did she care why he was yelling?
…
No, no, she did. Revy loved the dumbass. She cared. Did she care enough to actually get up and not roll over to the other side, mumbling a string of incoherent noises at him that were supposed to resemble some offensive sentiment of vulgarities? She felt a familiar discomfort in her head that told her staying asleep was her best bet.
But, fuck, fine, she cared enough to acknowledge whatever distress Leon was in and cracked an eye open. “Wha?” she slurred, the side of her face pressed against the pillow. All she saw was a blurry outline of him that took a few blinks to sharpen. Revy shifted, feeling a curious sting to her arm that she was ignoring for now. “Did – we have a threesome?”
Revy felt around the rest of the bed. Nope, nah. Just a twosome.
For a moment, all the anger disappeared off Leon’s face, struck by a sort of stunned horror. Had they had a threesome? He wracked his brain, trying to remember. He didn’t remember having a threesome, but why would Revy bring it up if they hadn’t?
No. No, he was sure that he’d have remembered something like that. And besides, there was no one else in the bed.
“I… No, I don’t think so,” Leon said, uncertain. He shook his head, physically shaking off the idea, and then, voice raising again, he said, “What the hell is this, woman?” he flexed his bicep and pointed at it with his other hand. “What did you do to me?”
“What the hell are you –” Revy squinted, finding this way of waking up very fucking unnecessary, but she took the moment to hone in on what was causing Leon to lose his marbles. She could make the poor outline of her name, and she more or less recognized the design of the gun.
It was hers.
Huh.
Frowning, she pushed herself up to sit. Felt the sting in her arm again. Looked down. Looked back up at Leon’s arm. Looked back down at hers again. Her skin was agitated, and there was a fresh redness around the ink etched into her arm. “These are fake,” she announced, totally unsure of that claim, but also needing that claim to be true.
Leon gaped at Revy’s arm. He’d expected it, really, but seeing the shitty Smith and Wesson tattooed on her inner bicep, Leon Orcat engraved on the barrel, which pointed toward her heart, still struck him dumb for a moment. That… that wasn’t even his name.
But then her words finally sunk through the headache. He could feel the tattoo wasn’t fake. He knew it in his bones. He just had to look at the fucking massacre of black and blood on his sheets.
“Fake, huh?” he snarled. He jabbed Revy in the a of Orcat. “Does this feel fake to you, Rev?!”
“Ow, fuck you,” Revy whined out, the sharp ache enough to jar her into more of a full-conscious state. God, it was too early for any sort of shit and definitely too early to come to terms that they had tattoos of each other’s names that kind of looked like shit.
It made her study her arm closer, and her squint sharpened.
Then, after a beat of silence, “I can’t believe I’ve been spelling your last name wrong this entire time, dumbass. I was pretty sure it was Or-cot.”
(She must still be a little drunk. And tired. And also hungover.)
“It is Orcot,” Leon snarled. “O-R-C-O-T.” He pinched his brow, both in frustration and in the vain hope that it would make this god-forsaken headache go away. “Jesus fucking Christ. These are what we get when we find some tattoo artist at two in the fucking morning when we’re drunk out of our fucking tree.”
“‘Drunk out of our fucking tree’ isn’t an actual saying,” she nitpicked, dropping her arm and throwing herself back into the bed with a groan. Fuck. What were they thinking? These were honest-to-god tattoos, the fucking permannent kind, and a small part of her figured they ought to be responsible by cleaning it. And slathering it up with globs of aquaphor before it looked worse. “This is your fault.”
Revy didn’t say that angrily. She didn’t even know if it was true. It didn’t matter. She just wanted to casually toss blame while she processed.
“Bet your old ass was having a midlife crisis.”
Leon snorted. “My fault?” he asked. “This was clearly your idea. I don’t already have tattoos.” One thought didn’t necessarily follow the other, except that Leon had once shacked up with a tattoo artist when he was in his 20s and he’d never asked her for any tattoos. Tattoos weren’t something he’d ever really considered for himself before.
He stared at his bicep sadly, gave a heavy sigh, and threw himself face-down on the bed next to Revy. “Do you think anyone will notice? Maybe we can just wear baseball tees for the rest of our lives?”
Oh, hey. Warm body. Leon might be pissed but she was going to be magnet to his stupid ass anyway, scooting closer and draping a leg over him. Revy was still tired, and if she had the luxury to stay in bed then she was going to milk it for as long as she could. “Dunno,” she mumbled, closing her eyes like this wasn’t a big deal and it’s time to go back to sleep.
Except –
“I think we sent pics to Barbie,” she realized, cracking an eye open. “And maybe more people. I remember taking selfies.”
Leon groaned. Did he get into an argument over text with someone? He was pretty sure he did.
“Okay, here’s what we’ll do,” he said. “We’ll go back to bed, and then we just won’t get out of it again. Deal?”
“Then get your ass back down here,” Revy yawned, smooshing her cheek into the pillow. “We’re going to have to get some goopy shit on our arms though, otherwise all this shitty ink is gonna look more shitty. I’ve seen worse tattoos in prison.”
Was she psyched about these? Fuck no. it could have been worse. Leon’s face could have been hideously tattooed on her ass cheek.
“I don’t think it can get worse,” Leon grumbled petulantly, burying his face in Revy’s shoulder. “But fine, we can put some shit or something on it. I’m gonna follow your lead on this one, Rev.”
Revy didn’t reject closeness. Not behind closed doors, anyway. Getting sappy and touchy in public wasn’t their style. She let out a rumble of a laugh into the cushion, raspy and thick with sleep. “Good luck breaking up with me after this, fuckface. That tattoo means I fuckin’ own you.”
More romantic and permanent than a wedding ring.
(Gross, that was a weird thought. She blamed that bad timeline.)
Leon let out a dramatic groan. “Well fuck, there goes my weekend plans,” he lamented, though it was hard to get the proper amount of lament in his voice when he was grinning. He nuzzled her neck. “Guess we’ll have to do something else instead.”
Revy snatched his chin, angling him to her face for a kiss. Morning breath could go screw itself; they were both on the same boat with it. “I sure as shit know who I’ll be doing all weekend,” she grinned lazily at him. “Happy birthday, Orcat.”