For Sist3r_Sin -- The New Tattoo

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Illya's eyebrows raised when Ivan's driver pulled the car to a stop and parked in front of the tattoo parlor. The sign was in Russian. It was not a place for hipsters and tourists to get inked. It was almost exclusively used by the Vor. The man who owned it was an old friend of his boss' from Russia. The driver got out and opened the door. As usual, Illya got out first, and then his employer. In truth they were more than that. By saving the old man's life, he had earned a permanent place in the family.

"Come, you have earned a new mark, Kuryakin," Ivan told him. He followed his boss inside and watched as he greeted the owner, Victor, with a kiss on the cheek and a handshake. "Go, take off your shirt and lie down."

He listened to the two old men talking softly in Russian as Illya went to the table toward the back of the shop and removed his tie and unbuttoned his shirt. Sliding the shirt off revealed his story to everyone who knew how to read it. He laid down on the table on his back, revealing a couple of recently healed scars. One on his chest bisected the crucifix, cutting Jesus in half and angled toward his heart. The other, raked down well developed abdominal muscles on his left side. These were from the knife wounds he had taken for Ivan. His boss sat down in the back in a chair and picked up one of the Russian newspapers lying there.

The tattooist came and sat down by Illya, pulling on a pair of neoprene gloves and looking over the display of prison and military tattoos. The new tattoo would be different. Made with professional ink and the artwork would be better defined. The tattooist cleaned the area around his abdominal scar with alcohol and looked over the space. Unlike American tattooists, he would not be working from flash, but from memory.

Illya relaxed while the artist prepared his inks. Today he would be getting the Ivanoff family crest, held by a bear. A mark that he was a protector of the family.

Comments

[abyssum_invocat]

"You'll see," she said and merely smiled, unlocking her door and clicking her tongue to call the dog off her bed--it was just left of the door, set back in a little alcove with her dresser. Avi, as it turned out, was a borzoi, lanky and all white with the lightest of gray markings on one eye and ear, and one leg.

"Get down from there, Avi," she murmured as the dog whuffed at her, slinking to the floor to greet his owner. To the new person, he reacted calmly but cautiously, sniffing in his direction as Sinthia stepped around him to let Illya in. There was no moving that animal out of the way easily, not at better than a hundred pounds already.

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When she let Illya in, he stepped sideways a little, then saw Avi. "Oh, Borzoi!" He knelt down, holding his hand out to the dog, palm down. Careful not to make any sudden moves that Avi might think was threatening to Synthia. He'd had occasion where dogs were threatened by his height. "Privet, Avi. What a beautiful dog. I bet you run like the wind, eh?"

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"Yes, he's a borzoi," she chuckles, shutting the door quietly and moving over to the couch to sit and watch Illya and Avi; the bed is just past it without a wall diving the spaces at all. Straight out from the door is where her dining table is, and beside it a glass wall with doors onto the balcony, only half-covered with long drapes.

"We run in the mornings. In the park, usually, and sometimes I keep up with him." More often she throws a lure for him. "Do you want that I should show you mine first?"

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Once the dog came closer and decided he wasn't a threat, Avi cautiously licked Illya's hand. Smiling, he petted the dog's silky fur. After a moment, he rose and looked around the small apartment. When he had lived in Moscow, a unit this size would have been considered luxurious for a single occupant. His own apartment here wasn't much larger, though it had a separate bedroom.

He joined her on the couch and sat on the opposite end. "Of course, ladies first."

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She couldn't help smiling at her dog warming up to Illya, sitting down where she could watch them interact. She wore stockings with her clothes, and necessity demanded she unclip one of the silk things from the straps that held it up, but doing so meant either rolling up or taking off her trousers. She hated wrinkles, yes, but she didn't want to scare Illya too badly either, and so she bent down to unclasp the tiny laces holding her heels on.

It didn't take long to push up the material of her trousers until she could unclasp the garter strap, practiced with the metal button end. Sinthia pulled the spun silk off, showing the delicate lines of ink now embedded into her skin at her foot, gracefully printed in handwritten Cyrillic script over her arch. It read easily against the paleness of her skin. "This is one of them," she said. The other, she was unlikely to show him tonight, but she was thinking about it since he seemed so unusual for one of the crowned himself.

But still, she was cautious with what she told him about herself, because even if he was different, he was still Vor. It was still dangerous getting involved with them a second time--given what her interaction with them had entailed before--and she didn't want to run the risk of having to leave the city.

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He hadn't quite expected her to roll up her trouser leg and unclip a silk stocking. Not many women wore those anymore. But they were far more alluring than the ridiculous pantyhose. Illya couldn't help but watch her with interest. Avi came over and watched as well. Then she held her foot up for him to read.

"'Miles to go before I sleep,'" he read the cyrillic. "Oh, that's lovely. I know this poem. It is Robert Frost. 'The woods are lovely, dark and deep, but I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep,'" he recited in English.

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"What?" she asked, catching him staring at her as she unclipped one of the fasteners. "Why are you staring?"

She hadn't found the stockings that odd; sure, they were less popular than pantyhose since they required more skill to put on than being able to wriggle into them like an exceptionally coordinated fish, but Sinthia had always worn them as an adult. His reciting the poem got nearly her full attention, and she slowly nodded. "I remember reading it as a child. I liked the image."

Avi, being used to Sinthia liking him to keep her legs warm in bed, came over and butted his slender head against her knee with a sedate huff of breath; borzoi were quiet and ninety percent of the time very lazy in their affections, and most likely he wanted her spot on the couch. She merely scratched his chin and murmured to him gently until he settled down under her feet. "I never got to ride a horse with harness bells, though."

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"Sorry, I didn't mean to stare. I've never seen silk stockings in person," Illya said. Nor that someone would wear them with pants.

"I too read it as child," he confessed. He watched her pet Avi. "I have actually never ridden horse with bells or no." He smiled, "I guess it is now my turn."

Illya took off his jacket and tie, and pulled his shirt front from his pants and unbuttoned it. Lifting up the left side of his shirt, he exposed the completed bear for her. It was a very well done tattoo and the bear is more realistic than many of the tattoos.

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"Oh," she said, letting out a breath in a laugh. "I've never liked pantyhose. And once you learn how to put them on they're easy enough. You can see them if you like, if you want me to show you?"

This was an entertaining if unforeseen turn in the evening, as he unbuttoned his shirt; Sinthia liked the tie--silk if she wasn't mistaken--and brushed the backs of her fingers over it, liking the feel. "It's beautiful," she said of the tattoo, reaching for it and very gently tracing the lines of the bear;, face falling into that same expression she'd had when studying the rest of his tattoos, analytical and focused. "The bear suits you, you know," she murmured, tilting her head.

"Strong, quiet, gorgeous. Dangerous."

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"That tickles," he laughed a little at her fingers exploring his abdomen. Victor had indeed done a beautiful job with the bear. Illya blushed a little at her assessment of him. He quite liked it. What man would not want to be described in those terms?

"Would you... Would you like to get closer look at the rest of them?" He didn't intend to disrobe entirely. He did want to show her the ones on his back though. Partly because he didn't mind showing off, and partly because he was curious to see if she could really read them.

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"I would," she answered, without much hesitation and a fair amount of curiosity; she hadn't gotten a very good look at them in the tattoo parlor, and couldn't read them as well as she could have if Ivan hadn't been sitting there. Her mouth quirked up at his admission that he was ticklish; of course he was. It was cute, and that was a word she did not lightly use to describe anyone who worked with or was part of the Vor.

"If you'd like to show me."

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He stood and unbuttoned his shirt the rest of the way. Turning his back to her, he let the soft shirt slip down his shoulders exposing the tattoos on his back. Illya looked over his shoulder to see her reaction.

Some of the stories inked on his skin were untrue. He caught himself wishing he could tell her who he really was. To show her his true self.

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Sinthia watched the shirt fall away, exposing the story inked onto his back; her eyes glanced over them all, taking in the meanings and what it must have meant for his life. Her hands mapped the inks, tracing from one to another and drawing spidery lines between them as she looked. She was fascinated, it was true, but not out of prurience; Sinthia could tell there was something very different about Illya, not only because of the way he spoke and carried himself but his respect towards her.

"You didn't tell me there were three more," she murmured, getting to the coffins on his arm and pausing over the one with the crest on it, having paced slowly around him to see them all.

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"Da," the bands on his arms were true. While he'd spent several months in the Siberian prison to earn his way into the Vor, he was not proud of what he had to do to succeed. It was a brutal life. He'd had to become Vor at the prison because if you had no ink, you did not exist there.

"The other three were fights in prison." Which were true. You had to defend yourself there or you'd be the one leaving in a coffin. The scar on his neck and the one by his eye attested to that. They had been earned in those fights. "The other arm, are legitimate kills while I was sniper."

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"Thirteen confirmed," she murmured, nodding. "You were good."

She'd know, and it was incredibly high praise from her, though he had no way of knowing how good she was with firearms yet. "I'm glad you're not there. I wouldn't have met you," she teased, though her smile didn't quite reach her eyes as she reached up to touch the scar at the corner of his eye. "Someone should have been shot for this," she said softly. "You have nice eyes."

She too had few scars--you didn't do what she had for very long without getting them--but they were well-hidden usually, save for one between her hairline and the edge of her eye, cleanly arced like it had been surgical.

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"Da," he was still quite good with several different firearms. He favored her with a soft smile, "I am glad too." For many reasons. Not the least of which was he wouldn't have met her. "Thank you. That one was better with a knife than I expected. At least I did not have to find out if wearing an eye patch was a good look for me."

"I like your eyes too," They had such depth. There were stories there, he could tell. Perhaps one day, she would tell him more of hers. The one on his throat was more telling. Two men had tried to hold him down so another could slit his throat with a straight razor. They hadn't expected that hands were not his only weapons. Illya was quite good with his feet as well. That had not been one of the incidents where he had killed the offending inmate, but it certainly had bought him some respect.

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"Somehow I doubt it," she chuckled, understanding the attempt at humor. He'd shared his story, and while she wouldn't be sharing all of hers, there were a few moments that wouldn't endanger either of them for him to know; to show one of her scars, though, she'd need to either take off her shirt, or take his hand.

Sinthia opted for the latter, reaching out to turn his hand so his palm would be faced to her belly, as she lifted the hem of her shirt up to her ribs. "Do you feel that?" she asked, when his fingers had brushed over the healed scar below the curve of her breast where a knife had almost punctured her lung; she'd had to back up quickly and found herself without quite enough space to do it. "We both have strange scars, Illya. Maybe we can talk about it."

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"What? You do not think I would make sexy pirate?" he asked, eyes widening as Sinthia took his hand and pressed his fingers to the scar on her ribs. His hand was huge in hers. Then he felt it."Yes, I feel it. Now there is something someone should have been killed for." Obviously, that was a fight she had won. He smiled, "Perhaps, we could sometime. But right now there is something I would much rather do than talk," Illya said looking into her eyes. "I would very much like to kiss you, may I?"

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She chuckled at his question, tilting her head up to look at him, having to look farther up now that she was in her bare feet, standing only five foot seven. "I think you would make very stylish pirate," she murmured, teasing him with the mimicry of his accent. She liked it though, the depth and way his voice manipulated English sounds; the language might not have been Illya's first, but it was lovely to hear him speak.

"Don't worry about him," Sinthia said, letting his hand go, though she let it stay warm on her skin, pressed to the sweep of her ribs. "I'd much rather be thinking of you when you kiss me," she whispered. "Of course you may." Her lips were soft against his when they met, silky and tasting faintly like vodka and wasabi and almost sweet sticky rice. The kiss was gentle and she sighed into it, rising up on her toes to lean against him, hands curling over his shoulders.

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His hand did stay where she had left it. Illya's other hand may have strayed to the other side of her waist as he bent down to kiss her. Soft, gentle. Ginger and wasabi kisses. Sinthia's warm hands around his shoulders felt like they belonged there. Drawing her closer, he deepened the kiss a little before finally pulling away.

He rested his forehead on hers for a moment, "I should probably go."

If he stayed, he would almost certainly end up staying the night in bed with her. While he really would like her to ask him to stay the night, Illya knew it was probably prudent if he did not.

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"What if I don't want you to?" she asked, eyes still mostly closed as she rested against him, hands still curved over his shoulders as if the light touch would be enough to keep him close to her. She knew as well as he did that she'd have to let him leave, and sooner rather than later lest he stay there all night and find out more than he should, but Illya was pleasantly surprising and she liked him.

"One more kiss," Sinthia whispered into a soft sigh, hands sliding to his waist and feeling the edges and toned planes of his muscles; he wasn't bulky, but certainly physically fit enough to be effective at his job. "Can I see you again sometime?" For a woman who hadn't dated in quite a few years, it being at odds with the nature of her profession, Sinthia found herself wanting to get closer with Illya.

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"Maybe... Maybe I could stay. If you really want me to..." his voice nearly a whisper. He opened his eyes and looked into hers. Such an unusual color. Illya didn't want to go necessarily. There were too many questions that could be asked that shouldn't. It was so tempting to tell her the truth.

Bending down a little, to grant her another kiss, he let that be the answer to her question. This time the kiss was deeper and lingering as his arms wrapped around her slender and muscular body. A body he was hungry to explore.

If it could be just sex... Just a one time thing, Illya would stay in a heartbeat. But he could tell, it was something more. No woman he'd been with in the last five years made his heart beat faster. None of them made him want to throw caution to the wind and tell her everything, as Sinthia did. Illya so wanted to throw off this Vor shell and show her that he was a good man. A wolf amongst pigs.

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"I want you to," she said softly, just before his lips met hers again. "But we'll have another time." She would make sure of it; she'd never known another man, or didn't remember one, that made her feel as comfortable around them as Illya did right now. Standing shirtless in her living room, she could have believed he needed to stay forever.

"I don't want to get you in trouble, though." And she knew as well as he did that if they intended to see each other again, they should take it slower. It would make things better when they did end up in bed. "You can call me again. Soon, hopefully." Sinthia would stay with him, if they ended up at his place next time.

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When their lips parted, he smiled, "Okay." He picked up his shirt and slid it back on, buttoning it up. Illya tucked it into his pants and then handed her the blue silk tie that she liked.

"You will not get me into trouble," he smiled again. Or maybe she would, but he would like that kind of trouble. "Help me with my tie?" he didn't need help really, he just wanted her to be near him again.

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"Won't I?" she asked, pushing up to give him a final kiss, light on the edge of his lips before she took the tie he handed over. She couldn't resist a smile when he gave it to her, slipping it through his collar and tying it expertly, dragging her fingers down his chest.

"Do you want me to walk you downstairs?" she murmurs, sliding one hand around the back of his neck fondly.