Seven Levels Below

XIV

"No."

"Please, Mitchy?"

"No way!"

Scott was pouting. How the hell was he supposed to be stubborn and say no with that face right in front of him?

Mitch sighed and looked up at the steely tower of the store standing over them. The upper-city really did like their shiny buildings.

"I literally can't afford any of this, Scott."

"I'm gonna buy—"

"No!" Mitch glared at Scott. It might've worked better if he was taller. "I'm not taking your money. Even if it's for a bunch of clothes."

"Can I buy you one thing? Pleeeease, Mitchy?"

Don't look at the puppy dog eyes. Don't do it. Don't!

Mitch looked at the puppy dog eyes.

"One."

Scott whooped with joy and grabbed Mitch's arm as he dragged him through the front doors. It was early on a Saturday—God, the things Mitch did for him—so the store was mostly empty except for the occasional lone shopper or employee doing a double take when they saw Scott.

Mitch was aware that he agreed to only one thing, and he was determined to stick to it. But Scott was making it difficult to stay on track with his plan. The big goofball kept holding up different things, going "ooh", and adding them to the ever-growing stack of clothes draped over his arm. (He wouldn't let Mitch carry any of it.)

The longer Mitch spent wandering the racks with the bouncy Scott behind him, the more he started to calculate how much he could spare on an extra shirt. Ooh, or maybe those boots. No! Stop finding more stuff!

Scott kept adding clothes to his arm pile—honestly, he was probably adding more than Mitch at this point. And as tempted as Mitch was to see how long Scott would suffer under the weight of the selections before he caved, Mitch also really wanted to try this stuff on.

Scott had demanded a show of each article Mitch was interested in, and with the dressing rooms empty in the early morning, Mitch decided to appease him.

The dramatic gasps and enthusiastic applause after each outfit, regardless of his personal opinion on it, made Mitch quickly aware of his growing self-confidence. Slightly growing. ...Hehe. No, Mitch, be appropriate.

The next shirt he slipped on was an oversized, black and white striped sweater. Mitch arranged the massive neckline to drape over his left shoulder and swung the door open.

"What do we think? Do we like?" Mitch turned in front of the mirror in the hall rooming the dressing room stalls.

Scott gaped at him. That was new. Was it too much skin? The shoulder was bold, but he'd seen much worse. He'd worn much worse in public before. But if Scott didn't like it, then maybe it just looked bad? So much for self-confidence.

Mitch tore his eyes away from his reflection to study Scott. The continued lack of a response was starting to worry him after all the commotion and excitement he'd had before.

He was relieved to realize what had caught Scott's attention, though. He was staring, mouth hanging slightly open, at Mitch's neck. Specifically, the tattoos that were now very visible.

"Scotty?"

"Sorry." He looked a little sheepish. "Can I ask about them?" Scott gestured towards the inked lines.

"Sure."

"Why all the lines?"

Mitch smiled down at his shoulder. The lines started on the left side of his neck and curved down across his shoulder and down his shoulder blade, morphing from jagged little dashes to curved lines that swooped together to create the outlines of roses. Mitch pushed the shirt down farther so Scott could see the transition better, and the two little skulls that rested amongst the flowers on his upper back. Pushing the shirt down also made the tattoo on the top of his arm visible, too. The roses covering his shoulder also covered the root end of a long, thorny stem reaching halfway down towards his elbow. Filling the space behind the stem were piano keys falling from underneath the bed of roses on his shoulder. Where there would usually be a flower at the end of the stem was instead a skeletal hand resting open, with the fingers curved gently around the bend of his elbow.

"They're constellations. My mom used to sneak up to the upper-levels when she was young and stargaze with her friends, before security started restricting access at the elevators. And the roses are for my dad. He always wanted to be a florist, and roses were his absolute favorite. We used to be really close."

"What happened?" Scott lifted his eyes from Mitch's shoulder hesitantly.

Mitch just smiled sadly at him and tapped the spot on his shoulder blade where he knew the two skulls rested.

"Oh, I'm so sorry." Scott covered his mouth with his hands, but Mitch waved him down.

"It was a long time ago, it's fine. Besides, now I have them with me all the time. Have you really never seen my tattoos before?" Mitch asked curiously.

Scott seemed relieved that Mitch wasn't offended by his questioning and gladly switched topics. "Just the little ones on your hands and stuff. Not the neck and sleeve. I mean, I've seen the constellations a bit, but I didn't know what they were. I just kinda figured they were to make the scar look more intimidating."

"You noticed it?"

Scott raised his eyebrows. "Did you think I didn't?" he teased. "Can I ask about that too?"

Mitch tilted his head to the side and pondered for a second. "I think that, if you want to know the details of it, you need to ask Kirstie if she's willing to tell you. A fair amount of it is pretty sensitive for her. But I will say that I got myself into a bit of trouble with some drunk guys outside a bar one night three years ago, and that's how Kirstie and I met."

Scott nodded. "For the record, the scar was definitely more intimidating when I first ran into you in the market than now when I know how much of a big softie you are."

Mitch gasped dramatically and threw a hand to his chest. "Tell that to the three guys I tackled outside the bar!"

"You beat up three guys?" Scott looked mildly stunned and impressed.

"No," Mitch laughed, "I got beat up by three guys."

Mitch ended up letting Scott buy him the striped shirt, and was perfectly content with the purchase, despite Scott's incessant, failed pleading to let him buy Mitch just one more and the internal struggle Mitch had over trying not to cave. Later when he arrived home alone with his bag in hand, he ended up trying it on again, just for himself.

The next morning on his way out the door to go to Kirstie's apartment to hang out with the pair, he was confronted with a stack of boxes piled in front of his door.

He grabbed a pair of scissors out of his kitchen and sliced the top box open before he started the process of dragging them inside and burst into tears.

Inside the box was a fuzzy black sweater he recognized from the store yesterday. The sweater was one of the few items he had debated over before he settled on the striped shirt for the conversation he and Scott had had while he was trying it on. Nestled gently on top of it was a single, red rose.

Scott was leaning on Kirstie's counter, talking to the girl curled up in a ball across the room on a beanbag chair, when Mitch barged in.

He stalked straight up to the taller man and shoved his finger in Scott's slightly alarmed face.

"Don't you ever do that again." Mitch snapped.

He then threw himself onto Scott and squeezed him as hard as he could, burying his face in Scott's chest as he felt arms wrap back around him.

"Yeah, sure," came Scott's response from above him, and—God—Mitch could hear the smug, satisfied grin just from his tone.

Neither of them moved for a long time, until Kirstie finally interrupted them.

"I don't know how much longer I can put up with this. You two are absolute morons." Kirstie moaned at them from where she laid buried under a pile of pillows, a heating pad pressed over her stomach.

Mitch chuckled at her whine and pulled himself back from Scott long enough to offer her the bar of chocolate he had stuck in his pocket on his way out of his apartment.

She snatched it from him and glared at him as she munched down on it, watching as Mitch tucked himself back into Scott's side as they flopped down on her couch.