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Sighing as Aayla gently dressed her finished work on his neck, Anakin loosened his grip on the padded chair he was laying on. Patting his shoulder, she asked, “Do I need to remind you how the aftercare works?”
“No.” He blinked at her slowly, laughing softly at himself as he struggled for a moment to think through his rushing endorphins. “Change the Saniderm after twenty-four hours, then again after a few days until it’s healed up. Use the balm to keep things moist and help it along.”
“Good boy,” she told him with another pat, “Why don’t you hang out there a minute while I finish cutting you a few more pieces?”
“Sure,” he agreed, shifting, “Not going anywhere until Snips comes to get me, anyway. Oh!” He thrust a hand into his pocket to retrieve his phone, “I should text her to let her know we’re done...”
Aayla tried not to laugh as she finished cutting the proper shape out of the sheet of Saniderm but failed, muttering fondly, “Space cadet.”
An absurd little giggle slipped out of his mouth as he sent off his text. “Sorry,” he told her, lazily rolling his eyes at himself, “I don’t know why I get like this.”
“Some people just do,” she shrugged, picking up another sheet. “Don’t worry,” she reassured him, “I’d take one of you over the people who vomit any day.”
He wrinkled his nose in sympathy, making her laugh again, and turned his head toward the door as it opened. Two men stepped through; he recognized Quinlan, the owner of the tattoo shop. The man with him... “Hey, Aayla,” he asked, attempting to keep himself quiet, “who’s the guy with Quin?”
Flicking her gaze to the door, she recognized him easily as she deposited her cut sheets and the sketch she’d been working from that day into a small bag. “Oh, that’s Ben. One of Quin’s best friends,” snorting, as an afterthought, “and customers.”
“Him?” he asked, loud in his disbelief. He flushed as the two men across the floor paused briefly in their conversation at the outburst. “Him?” he repeated more quietly, “He looks more like a librarian than a customer here.” A sexy librarian. He was suddenly uncertain whether he’d said the last part aloud, he hadn’t meant to; judging by the look on Aayla’s face, he had. “What’s he got?”
She arched a brow, suggesting cheekily, “Why don’t you ask him out and see for yourself?” Aayla dropped the small bag onto his stomach and made a shooing motion with her hands. “Go on, I release you.”
“Thanks again!” He swung his legs off the chair, waited a moment to let his head catch up to the motion before standing and sauntering up to the front of the shop, bag in hand. “Hey, Quin,” he greeted with a wave. Then he leaned an elbow on the counter and turned to the other man—Ben—and looked him up and down. “Hey, pretty. I’m Anakin.”
Behind the counter Quinlan snickered; Ben blinked in amused surprise. “You’re a bold one, aren’t you?”
“Try to be,” Anakin grinned, giving him another lazy once-over.
“Aayla’s been working on him, his first piece,” Quinlan supplied helpfully, “She was finishing up the highlights today.” Anakin nodded along to confirm.
“Well then, Anakin,” Ben tried out the name, leaning on the counter as well, “Of all the tattoo shops in all the world—what brought you to this one?”
“My Snips got her sternum done here,” he explained, running a finger down the center of his own chest to demonstrate, “So when I said I was thinking of getting something done, she told me about Aayla.”
“Why don’t you show Ben the sketch you had her working off of, kid?” Quinlan suggested after a beat, as he looked over his appointments for the day, “You did it yourself, didn’t you?”
“Yessir.” He flashed a smile before digging into his bag and pulling it out, unfolding the paper before handing it to Ben. Having paid before the session, he had only to drop a healthy tip into Aayla’s jar; having turned to do just that, he didn’t see the shock on Ben’s face as he looked at the drawing, didn’t notice his breath catch. “So, Ben,” he began, extending a ring-laden hand to take back his artwork, “I don’t suppose you’d be up for giving me your number? Maybe getting a coffee sometime?”
Ben didn’t say anything before drawing a pen out of his pocket and hastily scribbling down his name and number on one of the blank areas of the paper. “Don’t lose it,” he instructed, handing it back as Anakin blinked owlishly at him.
“No, I—” Whatever Anakin might have been about to say scattered from his mind at the sound of a car honking outside. Looking around Ben to see through the window, he saw a white car out front with a blue stripe like an EKG reading down its side. “Oh, that’s my ride,” he muttered distractedly. Anakin nodded to Quinlan, still behind the counter. “Have a good one. And...” he edged around Ben, waving the paper he still held in his hand a little bit, “I’ll talk to you later.”
Later he felt more than a little embarrassed at how he’d acted while still riding his tattoo-induced endorphin high, and spent the first few minutes of conversation apologizing for it when he finally did call Ben. After that, though, things went surprisingly smoothly. They did go out for a coffee together, one that turned into a lunch as they fell into an easy flow of conversation. Then came a dinner, and another, and then a movie before they started staying in at each other’s apartments.
Ben turned out to be much more physically demonstrative than Anakin had expected, frequently finding excuses to touch him, particularly his many piercings; he didn’t think he’d ever had a partner so enthusiastic about kissing with them. Seemingly constantly finding surprises in the other man, Anakin often forgot that his initial curiosity—aside from his obvious attractiveness—had been piqued by the idea of his mystery tattoos. He would always remember again when their heated kissing wouldn’t go much further. Blue balls weren’t fun but he could easily enough deal with that; it was the teasing glimpses of Ben’s ink that began to grow more and more frustrating.
It started out small enough, a few lines peeking out of Ben’s collar when he’d loosen it after taking off his tie; he’d catch a few more splashes of color around Ben’s side if his shirt rode up…The ink rising up from Ben’s wrists when he rolled up his cuffs had come as a surprise only because there was so much of it—he’d been expecting a few distinct symbols at most, not what appeared to be a mural. “Do those go all the way up?” he’d asked, the first time he’d seen them.
Lips tilting up in a teasing smirk, Ben had answered, “Yes.” And then offered no more information.
It was driving him slightly mad.
And so, one evening when Ben pulled him down onto his lap, he hadn’t been expecting him to trail the healed ink behind Anakin’s ear as it curved down his neck while he asked, “Tell me about this?”
“Me?” Anakin snorted, “You’re kidding, right?” He reached up almost self-consciously to trace the same path Ben had. “I’ve only got the one.”
Warm laughter as Ben’s hands smoothed down Anakin’s sides, hooked his thumbs into Anakin’s waistband, “Well, so have I.”
Heat bloomed through Anakin’s stomach at the thought that, whatever Ben had been hiding under his button-downs, he thought of it as a single piece. But then Ben’s hands were moving again, fingers feather-light over the rings in Anakin’s ears, the barbells at his eyebrows, the studs near his lips. “Come now,” he murmured, gazing up at Anakin from hooded eyes, “What made you switch from metal to ink?”
Ducking his head, Anakin gave a half-shrug as he draped his arms over Ben’s shoulders. “It’s kind of a ramble…”
Ben’s smile was patient as his hands settled warmly about the base of Anakin’s neck, one thumb stroking over the dragon’s tail. “I like long stories.”
“Well…” he closed his eyes briefly as he took a breath, “it’s me.” Chancing a look at Ben, he saw his eyes widen with surprise and hurried to add, “Well, part of me, anyway.”
Tilting his head in an attempt to catch his gaze, Ben invited, “Do go on?”
Anakin avoided him; he wasn’t very practiced at telling the story. But there was something about Ben that made him want to try. “I, uhm,” clearing his throat softly, “I lost someone. Important.” Giving his head a small, slow shake, “I went off the rails a little, for a while, after it happened. I’m not—” He twitched another half-shrug, “I’m not proud of it.”
Ben did not ask for more details about what ‘off the rails’ had meant for him, only nodded sympathetically as he traced the curves of the tattoo again.
The corners of Anakin’s mouth tipped up gratefully, though the expression faded quickly. “Once I got my head back on straight I…” His brows knit unhappily and he shook his head again. “I’ve never been that great at dealing with my problems. I tend to ignore them, or—” the words didn’t want to come easily, “or run away from things.”
Beneath his hands Ben could feel the heat rising under Anakin’s skin, the younger man’s expression shifting to one of shame. “I think it’s that way for a lot of people,” he murmured, leaning up to press a kiss to the corner of Anakin’s mouth.
He looked a little less troubled, then. “Well, this time, I wanted to make sure that I didn’t,” he continued, “I wanted something to remind me of my mistakes so I wouldn’t make them again, but something that wasn’t only negative either.”
Ben hummed thoughtfully. “And you came to a dragon for the purpose?”
The smile that bloomed then didn’t vanish as quickly as it had come. “I read lots of stories about dragons growing up.” One of his hands slipped down to flick idly at Ben’s top button. “Sometimes they were monsters, sometimes they were protectors. It seemed like a good fit.” He looked at Ben from beneath lowered lashes, “I don’t want to forget the monster, but I want to make him something better, too.”
Having declined asking more about Anakin’s past earlier, Ben worried he’d sound insincere if he gave in to his first reaction, told him, ‘You’re not a monster.’ Instead, he returned to the design, picked out the small line struck through the dragon’s eye, those crackling along its chest. “Is that how he earned himself these, then?” he asked, moving to lightly stroke the dragon’s head, “Making himself better?”
For a moment Anakin’s eyes narrowed, and he leaned back a little, as if assessing whether or not Ben was teasing him. But soon enough he recognized it as an honest question and offered the other man another small smile as he nodded, “I like to think he got a little banged up on the way back to good, but didn’t let it stop him.”
“It’s a good story,” Ben agreed. His fingers drifted lower, then, sending a shiver down Anakin’s spine as they moved ticklishly over the patterning on his dragon’s wings. “Tell me about the wings?” he murmured, “I’ve always wondered.”
A wider smile then, Anakin’s voice was incredulous, “Always?”
Waving off the question, Ben let his hands fall to Anakin’s waist again to pull him just a little bit closer. “They’re so much lighter than the rest of him, and the blue in them,” he carried on, “it’s almost like striping.”
“It is,” Anakin agreed, “They’re my girl’s colors.” The thought of her brought a light to his eyes. “Blue streaks,” he ran a hand through the longer strands of his hair to demonstrate, “have always sort of been her trademark.”
Ben repeated Anakin’s motion, grinned as he watched the other man lean into the touch like a cat. “She must be very special to warrant such an honor.”
“She’s my best friend,” he nodded, “Some people gave up on me, but never Snips.” His smile didn’t so much fade as turn wistful. “She pulled me back out of the dark place I was in, then, so I…”
“…put her on the wings,” Ben completed softly. His expression had gone soft too—Anakin wasn’t sure how to read it, became even more confused when Ben wrapped his arms around him. “That’s beautiful,” he spoke, slightly muffled, into Anakin’s shoulder, “Thank you for telling me.”
Anakin huffed a laugh, feeling his face heat again. “Well,” his hands moved in idle patterns over Ben’s back, “you asked…”
Taking a long, meditative breath through his nose, Ben offered a quick, wide grin when he leaned back again. “I’ll return the favor if you’d like?”
The spark of excitement that flared in Anakin’s stomach said that was about the most pointless question he’d ever been asked, his answer instantaneous. “Yes!” Finally!
Chuckling at the other man’s enthusiasm, Ben unbuttoned the cuffs of his sleeves. “It turns out that’s another thing we have in common,” he began, arching a brow as he set to work on his shirt buttons, “I grew up with dragons too—though mine were dreams rather than stories.”
Tilting his head inquisitively, Anakin slipped a hand into Ben’s newly opened collar. “You dreamed about dragons?” At Ben’s nod, “Were they scary?”
“Oh, fearsome creatures to be sure, but they never scared me,” Ben confided, “I tamed them.”
Brows shooting upward, Anakin’s hand delved deeper into Ben’s shirt, enjoying the feel of his skin. “Were you a knight?” His eyes sparkled with excitement at the prospect, “With a sword?”
Ben took it as a good sign that Anakin seemed to find the idea so intriguing. “A knight, yes. A sword, no.” He rolled his shoulders in a lazy shrug. “Well, I had one, but I much preferred talking with the dragons. Remember,” he tapped Anakin’s wrist, “I was taming them, not slaying them.”
“Yes, right!” Anakin took the reminder gracefully, taking up the bottom hems of Ben’s shirt. “So,” he asked, playfully opening the shirt a bit wider, “does that mean I’m going to find dragons in here?”
“Oh, yes,” Ben breathed, leaning away from the couch as Anakin’s hands slid under the yoke of his shirt, drawing the garment down his arms, “Here there be…”
So many dragons.
Anakin was already familiar with the light blue that began at Ben’s wrists, a design like crystalline mountain formations rising up onto his forearms. But soaring above them were the creatures of Ben’s dreams, mostly in silhouette, but some with more individual details. Anakin didn’t know which he wanted to do first: count them or learn their shapes. “Are they all from your dreams?” he asked, wonder softening his voice.
Ben hummed an affirmative. “Best as I could remember. Of course,” he chuckled, pointing to one of the more detailed figures mid-way up his left arm, “some came back to me more clearly than others.”
Unable to help himself, Anakin’s gaze swept back and forth between Ben’s arms as he tried to soak everything in. They appeared to be dedicated to different times of the day. High on Ben’s right bicep was a stylized sun; the further up the design went the fewer dragons there were, replaced with rolling clouds outlined and shaded in dawn colors. On his left bicep was a similarly styled moon; the rolling clouds were outlined and shaded in a darkening sunset palette and, eventually, became interspersed with stars. Dimly Anakin realized he’d begun tracing the outline of one of them. “And Quin did all the work on it?”
A bark of laughter, “Yes, to his great pride, and annoyance.” He shook his head, grinning at the memory. “I swear I must’ve made him completely redo the sketches for the back four times—at least—before I felt like he’d gotten all the details right.” Ben’s voice was warm with amusement as he rolled his eyes at himself, “If I’d been a normal customer, he’d have probably referred me off to someone else.”
That was right—Anakin could have kicked himself for forgetting that there would be more to see on Ben’s back. “Too many dragons to keep track of?” Anakin hazarded a guess.
But Ben shook his head, “The most important one.” He suddenly looked the way that Anakin had felt earlier when trying to explain his own tattoo; Anakin stroked his hair comfortingly, and earned a rueful little smile. “There was one that I dreamt of more than any of the others—I think it was years before I got the whole story.”
“Yeah?” Anakin had had some recurring dreams in the past but never a serial. Snorting a laugh, “I’m not sure whether that sounds fun or maddening.”
“A bit of both, actually,” Ben agreed with a grin, “But eventually things worked out.”
Anakin was beginning to understand the feeling, with all the build-up Ben was giving…but he remembered how patiently Ben had coaxed Anakin’s own story from him. He cleared his throat and, with another inquisitive tilt of his head, asked quietly, “Tell me?”
Ben didn’t have the same trouble meeting his companion’s gaze that Anakin had earlier. “I didn’t realize at first,” he began, “how much of the story would be his. At first he was just a shadow on the sky, swooping back and forth. Over time I started to draw closer to his mountain.”
“Was he alone there?” Anakin asked, following the curves of a particularly fluffy cloud with his fingers.
Nodding, Ben tracked the motion. “It wasn’t easy getting near him, once I was there—” He shifted his attention from Anakin’s hand back to his face, “he was very guarded.”
Anakin balanced himself with a hand on Ben’s shoulder as he shifted slightly, kept it there after he’d finished. “Why?”
“It turned out he’d been hurt, badly. Never did find out how, but the ‘how’ always felt less important.” Ben’s hands sought Anakin’s belt loops again, slipping his middle fingers through as his thumbs rested against Anakin’s abdomen. “He was missing a great chunk of his scales, and it left...” He hummed, considering, appearing for the first time as though he wasn’t sure what to say.
Blinking, Anakin was surprised as the other man’s pause continued; Ben hadn’t struck him as someone who ever got tongue-tied. “What?” He smiled encouragingly, “What is it?”
Ben sighed, answered with another rueful little smile of his own. “It left his heart exposed.”
His thumb stroking over the moon on Ben’s shoulder, Anakin’s expression spoke nothing but pleasure. “Your dreams sound like some of the stories I used to read. One of the better ones.”
“I’m glad you think so.” There was something a little funny to Ben’s voice then, something else Anakin didn’t know quite how to read as Ben released his hold on his hips. “Shall I show you, now you’ve heard the backstory?”
Again, with the unnecessary questions. “Please?”
“Alright, up, then.” The words were accompanied by a quick swat to his ass.
All too happy to comply, Anakin unfolded himself from Ben’s lap and stepped back. “This was actually the first part of the piece I had done,” Ben added as he got to his feet, “But once I started...”
Anakin huffed a laugh, “I’ve heard that happens.” He hadn’t gotten the urge for another yet himself, but that didn’t mean it wouldn’t come; he’d started out with one piercing, after all. Craning his neck a little, “So...?”
Crossing his arms over his chest, Ben cleared his throat, twitched a small grin. “Here we go, then.”
When Ben turned it was the colors that captured Anakin’s attention first. Another crystalline blue mountain spanned the small of his back, this one with a green-tinged stream that pooled at the bottom, dotted with small white flowers. Across his shoulders, the dawn clouds and night sky met to form a blended twilight above the dragon’s head. The tips of its outstretched wings drew Anakin’s gaze down from the sky...
And his breath caught as he found himself looking at his own dragon.
There was no mistaking it, the designs the same even as the larger size of Ben’s allowed for greater detail. Anakin remembered having difficulty choosing between yellow and blue for the eye of his, had ultimately chosen yellow to go beneath its scar; both eyes of Ben’s dragon stared back at him, and it had one of each. As with Anakin’s, the wings were noticeably lighter than the rest of its body—before he realized he was doing it, Anakin had reached out to follow the patterning that mirrored Ahsoka’s stripes with his fingers. “You’ve always wondered...” he echoed.
Ben shuddered, murmuring, “Yes.”
Unwilling to lift his hands, Anakin’s fingers skimmed over the dragon’s scales, some gleaming, some appearing roughly healed. His brows knit in thought as he tried to reason out what he was seeing. “Quin doesn’t have a picture of this up in the shop.” So he couldn’t have seen it, before he’d tried to get his own down on paper.
“No, I asked him not to,” Ben’s voice came softly, “It felt too personal.”
“I’ll bet.” He followed the path of the more disturbed scales on the dragon’s chest, surrounding— “What’s this?” Anakin leaned in closer to peer at the image, the one detail notably missing from his own dragon. Almost to himself, “It looks like a shield.”
“That’s because it is.” Ben’s shoulders shifted as he felt the other man’s breath against his bare skin. “I forgot to mention how we became friends,” he murmured.
Anakin traced the lines of the shield’s crest, the wings arcing up from the center of it. “Was it yours?” He asked, “You said you were a knight?”
“Yes.” He turned, then, Anakin’s hand migrating to his arm thanks to the motion. “Do you believe that some things are meant to be, Anakin?” he asked softly.
It was a question that probably would’ve sounded hokey at any other time, from any other person, Anakin thought, but not from Ben, not right now. “I like to think so,” he reasoned, “It would make some things too cruel, if they weren’t.”
Ben twitched a small smile. “And if I said, that when Quin had you show me your drawing, I thought you might be one of them?” He inclined his head, dropped his arms so that he could settle his hands on Anakin’s hips again. “That I’d like to try and see if I’m right?”
“Then I’d say...” Anakin ducked his head, his lips curving in a growing smile, “I think we’re off to a pretty good start.”
Tugging him forward to close the distance between them, Ben was smiling too as their lips met, even as the kiss deepened, grew hungry. His voice was low and rough when, starting to walk backward toward his bedroom, he asked, “Stay tonight?”
Anakin followed, chuckling, “Keep asking me easy questions.” His hands were already restless, fluttering over Ben’s shoulders, framing his face so he could go in for another kiss. They were steps away from Ben’s bedroom when they broke from each other again. “So,” he asked, thumbs smoothing over Ben’s collarbones, “am I going to find more tattoos when we get in there?”
A warm bark of laughter, “No, this is everything.” Then, allowing, “For now, anyway.” His smile turned playful as he arched a brow. “And you? Am I going to find more piercings?”
Mirroring his expression, Anakin answered, “Yes.”
Surprise and delight lit Ben’s face as he pressed one hand to his heart, hooked the other into the front of Anakin’s pants to pull him into his bedroom.