This War Paint

Butch


Coffee. It was the first thing I smelt, the first thing I could coherently process through my brain, just before the whole world caught up to me. My mouth was already forming as if to take in the drink, my lungs expanding to drag it all in. It smelt like waking up early in the morning as a kid to my mother pouring out two mugs of coffee with shaking hands. It was gripping her around the waist and not wanting to let her go upstairs to my father in his hung-over state.

I opened my eyes slowly because I remembered falling asleep with Jane so close to my side and the bed felt awfully empty with just me amid the sheets. I found the source of the smell in no time at all, the steaming polystyrene cup of coffee sat on the hospital counter. My arm conspicuously lying over the still warm indent beside me on the mattress twitched so I could reach for it.

“Careful,” a voice warned me “it’s hot.”

And there was a smile pinching my cheeks and spreading my jaw as soon as I heard her voice, husky in the early morning. Jane was perched on the end of the bed huddled in her cardigan once again with that hair spilling across her back and shoulders. Even in the morning glow coming from the white paned windows she was perfect. With only few hours sleep and dark circles under her eyes she was perfect.

“Good morning,” I breathed, breathless once again.

“Morning. Sorry if I woke you, it’s kind of a ritual of mine to down as much caffeine as possible when I wake up. I don’t feel human without it,” she smiled almost timidly, both fragile hands holding onto her polystyrene cup.

I took my own in hand, sliding my body up the bed so I could watch her easily. I could remember her as she was last night, cradled somewhere between my chest and arm, and I could remember exactly how it had felt folding her ever so carefully to me. She was like a doll when sleeping, all perfect angles and red parted lips. She was the best thing God had ever fashioned just as I was the worst. And I liked to think that this juxtaposition made us just right.

“Thank you,” I murmured after taking a long sip of the smouldering liquid.

She just shrugged, pulling her lean legs onto the mattress. “The doctors think you’ll be okay to discharge tomorrow, possibly later. They said they were pleased with how well you slept through the night. Normally patients find it hard what with the noise and strange bed and pain. They said you were quite the exception...”

A faint sprinkling of pink coloured her cheeks at the reminder of last night, and I watched with slow contentment the effect it had on Jane. Of course it had meant nothing to her compared to me, fighting to keep myself awake just to feel her snoozing only millimetres away from me, but it still meant something. Enough to break up that lovely complexion of hers.

A wolfish grin took over my pleasant smile and I knew she could tell what I was thinking. She knew I was imagining her body pressed so softly against mine, how subconsciously she had snuggled closer when the frigid air of the hospital had crept up her uncovered skin. Her blush increased, crawling down her neck, disappearing into that oversized cardigan. It was highly inappropriate and horribly immature, but I couldn’t help but let my eyes hover over those exposed pieces of Jane and wish that I could reach out for the large barrier between us. And rip it clean off.

Suppressing the bubble of desire, I shifted under the sheets, hoping she couldn’t tell exactly what I was thinking.

“How are you feeling now?” she broke our intense stare-off to shyly glance at the floor. “I mean the doctors are pleased with how you are after the overdose but you were dead asleep when they came around. You should have seen the jealous look on this nurse’s face when I told them I was your girlfriend,” she chuckled lightly.

I, on the other hand, had to swallow down the sudden insatiable joy which swarmed my stomach at the thought of Jane sitting there telling other people that she was mine. She wasn’t of course, but that didn’t stop it. I was in so deep I could barely control myself from splitting at the seams just because this girl had told a little white lie to the hospital staff.

“Why did you tell them that?” I asked cautiously, preparing myself for her look of disgust and dismissive tone. She certainly hadn’t wanted to call me that. It had been a necessity. Nobody would voluntarily tell such a fucked up lie.

None of that came, however. My Jane just took her bottom lip between her teeth and determinedly looked anywhere but into my eyes.

“I didn’t want them to know our real identities... I didn’t want to risk any of this getting back to people. This is a small town, Jane Hathaway and Fraser Swank sitting together in a hospital room would become Jane Hathaway and Fraser Swank having sex in a hospital closet. You know how vicious people can be.”

It still cracked my heart slightly to hear her say that, knowing that deep down she was ashamed to be identified anywhere with me. Her reputation couldn’t take it just as mine couldn’t make it. I’d never be a David Armstrong, the kind of guy the world fawned over. I’d always be Butch in Florence, a small town’s omen.

“Plus the look on the nurse’s face was totally worth it,” she grinned shyly, eyes finally locking with mine.

My spirits lifted as quickly as they had plummeted, taking in that beautiful smile, the way her high cheekbones lifted even higher towards the heavens. I don’t think anybody had ever looked as beautiful as she did. She was breathtaking, fucking hell she was a vision. I wanted to pull her to me all over again and kiss her everywhere I could.

But not here. Not in this hospital on the edge of my borrowed bed. Not with the heartbeat monitor giving away how badly I wanted her.

“That was probably a good idea,” I said smoothly, hoping she wouldn’t hear the huskiness in my voice.

“Yeah well with me looking like this and you unconscious I don’t think anybody would assume we were lying.”

I frowned “you looking like what?”

She laughed softly and huddled further into her cardigan, the wool material fraying at the cuffs from overuse. I wondered if she slept in it. I could picture her wrapped up in the thing, spread out in the backseat of my car; I could picture it so clearly I had to take in a sharp breath to calm myself back down. Normally guys liked to imagine girls in skimpy underwear and stripper heels, Hell most of the time that was how I liked to picture Jane, but somehow the image of my lean redhead in this ratty cardigan almost crippled me with desire.

She smiled fondly at me and shook her head. “Never mind.”

I was caught up in that moment with the notion that I wanted to own a part of her, all for myself. She already unknowingly had a patch of my skin and the secret behind some of my tattoos. I wanted some of her too for me to lock away.

“Tell me something about you?” I asked abruptly “something nobody else knows.”

“Like a secret?”

“Yeah,” I smirked “preferably a dirty one.”

Jane laughed “that kind will cost you. I want a story behind one tattoo for one secret.”

I pretended to think about it for a second, as if I’d ever have to contemplate that. I’d give her the world for just a slice, just a taste; I’d hand over every pitiful thing I owned.

“Deal.”

“Alright,” she still wore a fond grin on her face, the freckles on the ridge of her nose catching the light. “I have a deep and guilty love for all 90’s boy bands. I swear whenever an NSYNC song comes on the radio I go completely crazy.”

I groaned and rolled my eyes up to the ceiling. “That was a cop-out secret.”

She held a hand to her heart, feigning hurt. “Hey now, nobody else knows that apart from you. I thought it was a pretty good secret.”

“It wasn’t dirty at all,” I scoffed “it wasn’t even that embarrassing.”

She grinned as if she’d been caught red handed with her hands still searching the cookie jar. Guilty and pleased, charmingly smug, a smile which almost drove me overboard. And I had a feeling she knew exactly what she was doing.

“Fine you want a better secret than that?” She only had to glance at my curious face to know that I did, that I was dying to know. She had me in the palm of her hand then... just like she always did. “I’m still a virgin. At eighteen years old I’m still a virgin.”

I watched her shrivel back into herself, the cardigan suddenly overwhelming her body. She had no idea what weight her secret had lifted from me and yet there she was, trying to hide her adorable blushing face. She couldn’t possibly understand why I made a grab for her, catching her arm in my hand and pulling her gently closer. I wouldn’t allow her to be embarrassed when she had just given me a part of herself and returned a chunk of me too. I had to have her next to me somehow.

“You see this right here?” I said softly, my mouth now only inches away from her ear, breath fanning away some stray red hair. I pointed to my neck, to the dragon and its scales just peeking out from my hospital gown. “This is to symbolise my mother. I got it when I was sixteen, my third tattoo, and it goes all the way down my back.”

With my words she slowly trailed a finger down my spine as if she could see it through the material. I fought back the urgent thump to my heart and tried to disguise my hitching breath.

“She left when I was still young but I can remember seeing the tattoo on her foot, just below her ankle. It was a dragon just like this and, while I hate that she left me, I still like to remember her too.”

I had never been this truthful or straightforward with anybody in my life. Even Max who knew about my Mom didn’t know about her dragon tattoo or that this was what had sparked my love for them in the first place. It wasn’t all some misplaced anger. It wasn’t just me trying to rebel. It was Fraser trying to preserve a little bit of her somewhere.

Jane placed a careful hand on my shoulder, her other still on my back, scorching me. Before I had a chance to contemplate what she was doing or what it would mean, she was undoing the hospital gown’s cords at the back of my neck. She slid the material down my arms to reveal my entire colourful chest. I turned away from her, somehow knowing exactly what she wanted.

I heard her gasp when she saw the dragon in all its glory. I could picture it too having scrutinised it so much in the mirror, trailing the lines and wondering how my mother’s tattoo looked now. Where she was. How she was. I closed my eyes tightly, jaw tensed, as Jane’s fingers were on me again.

The dragon ran the entire length of my back, its snarling snout peeking at my neck, its tail twisting just above my boxers. It had all colours in its scales somewhere, mainly blues and greens as if it was meant to blend into the sky as it flew. Mariah had painted it deliberately so every time I flexed my shoulders the creature appeared to move like some mirage. It was one of my favourite pieces and also the largest. From Jane’s stunned reaction I couldn’t help but smirk to myself, apparently it was a high favourite of hers too.

Her fingertips lightly brushed the beast and stopped at the head, testing out the jaws to see if they were as sharp as they looked. It was almost too much with her hands on my naked skin. I had to cross my legs uncomfortably and pray to a God I didn’t believe in that she didn’t notice.

“I knew David Armstrong was lying,” I said if only to keep the attention away from my suddenly ignited body.

I felt her sigh on my neck and flinched away. Jesus, if this girl kept doing this to me I’d have her pinned to the hospital bed in two seconds flat. Fucking hell, the thought of that alone had my eyes rolling to the back of my head.

“Sorry,” she shuffled away, giving me back control of myself and taking away what I longed for most in the world all in one swift movement.

I didn’t trust my voice so merely nodded and retied my hospital gown, turning around to my red-faced minx one again.

“Your Mom leaving you must have been hard, but you got a beautiful tattoo out of it,” Jane said quietly.

“You learn to deal with it. After a certain amount of time you can learn to deal with anything.”

“Maybe not anything,” she smiled sadly.

It hit me then that she thought something about me was beautiful. It hit me so quickly that I hadn’t time to hide or cool my burning cheeks. I didn’t even know I had the capacity to blush until this girl came along with her charming smile and pretty words and bright blue eyes. She was turning everything I knew and everything I wanted upside down.

Startling up both, Jane moved from the hospital bed to stand almost daringly on the cold tiled floor. Her face was overcome with panic as if she’d only just realised a horrible truth. I cringed into the pillow, suspecting that this horrible truth was seeing me for what I really was.

“I’ll be back in a minute Fraser,” she mumbled “I’ve... I’ve got a few things I need to take care of.”

It didn’t surprise me when she practically flew from the room with the speed of the hunted. It didn’t surprise me but it still chipped away once again at my plastered-up heart.