The look on her face was gratifying, in a strange way. Alfred hadn't shown anyone his tattoos this purposefully since he'd acquired them, and she was clearly appreciative of them. The only people who'd seen him shirtless before had done so through some twist of circumstance — like Zelda — and taking the time to notice and comment on his tattoos hadn't been on the agenda for those situations.

Her question surprised him, but not in a bad way. "Sure," he agreed, scooting a little closer to her on the couch to give her easier access. "Do you want me to explain them?" he offered a moment later.

  

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MJ made the most Alfredy of sets and then two years later she made it EVEN BETTER

Jo inched towards him, knees brushing his leg immediately upon being granted permission. Very few people she'd been intimate with had tattoos such as these, and she was completely mesmerized. "Yes, please." She nodded as her hand traced the uppemost arch.

  

Her fingers were cool against his skin — from the beer bottle, he imagined. It didn't bother him.

"The section there is about the Sycorax," he explained, raising his own hand so that he could outline the designs as he described them. "The storm, here — you can see the swirl there for the clouds — see how angry it looks? And then the crash," he continued, moving to another pattern with a series of hatched lines. "In the mountains. Then this line here is for the journey afterwards. The wandering," he said, letting his fingertip run down towards his abs along the trajectory of a zig-zag line. There were dots placed regularly along either side of it, which represented something, too — all of the lives they'd lost along the way. Alfred decided he'd keep that part to himself, unless she asked.

Just below the top of his rib cage the jagged line smoothed into a curve and started back up in a straight, fluted sort of line. "This is when we found the tribe — this swooping symbol at the bottom here is like a harbor. Not a harbor, I mean — it doesn't have anything to do with sailing," he said, shaking his head at the limitations of his own metaphors. "Like a — what's the word? A haven."

There was another vertical section next to that, which Alfred waved his hand over generally but didn't trace through each detail of. "And this section is about the village — plenty of food, and shelter, and the way they'd catch the rainwater. It's, uh — where you come from is a big part of your story, for them," he explained. "So stuff like this goes into everyone's tattoos. Because they're meant to tell stories, you know — the whole story of your life. If I'd been born there, this bit about the Sycorax would be about my family and how I was born, and what the stars were like that night," he explained. "And I didn't have all of that when I decided to get the tattoos, so... The story of how we all fell out of the sky and found them took its place."

  

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MJ made the most Alfredy of sets and then two years later she made it EVEN BETTER

Now, more than ever before, Jo was thankful she hadn't gone through with the tattoos herself. The story he told from the ink weaved into his skin was devastating, hopeful, and enraging all at once. No stories Jo possessed came anywhere near one as intense as the one he was explaining.

Tenderly, like his skin might crack and expel the inked lines hidden beneath, Jo traced her fingers along with him. Grazing over the dashes and lines and lingering as he explained. "The dots?" She asked softly, fingers moving from side to side to follow them down the long line. Had he not been stressed only minutes before about expectations, Jo would've leaned down and pressed a soft kiss on his shoulder. As it was, she was content to continue to listen intently.

  

Without giving much thought to what he was doing, Alfred reached down and stopped the progress of her hand. He looked down at the line that she'd just been tracing, contemplating how to answer her question.

"Broken lines like that represent death," he said after a moment, his voice quiet. In the stillness of the empty flat, it sounded even smaller than he'd thought. "There was a lot of it, on this line."

Alfred glanced up at her briefly, then guided her hand away from where it had been and towards the center of his chest, where a series of horizontal patterns spanned the gap between the pattern he'd just explained to her, regarding tribal life generally, and the next vertical, which told the stories of his time with the tribe. "Let's talk about a different section," he suggested, still holding her hand lightly in his.

  

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MJ made the most Alfredy of sets and then two years later she made it EVEN BETTER

Oh.

It made perfect sense, now that he said it, that the dots were symbolic of those lost. Really, she should've known better than to question a section he purposely skipped over. Jo frowned and bit the inside of her lip. "Okay." She said even quieter than he.

She left her hand where he placed it and made no move to release the grip he had on it. Jo tore her eyes from his to look back towards his chest. After ensuring there would be no further broken lines in the section she asked, "what are these lines?"

  

Alfred shifted his weight on the sofa so that he was leaning one shoulder against the back of it, instead of sitting straight up as he had been when he'd first undressed. He kept her hand in his as he returned his attention to the tattoos; it didn't make sense in the relatively small space at the center of his chest for them both to trace out the patterns independently.

"This section in the middle is like... like your character, or your identity. It starts with this top line — that's the nickname that I got when I first showed up at the tribe. And then this one below replaces it. Or, not replaces," he clarified. "That's not quite the right word. Adds to it. So when you read them, you read them all together, even though you get them one band at a time. And a lot of these are connected to things on this side," he said, letting go of her hand to indicate the patterns on the left side of his chest. "This is more narrative, over here, about things that happened or that I did after I joined them. The section in the middle is like... titles, I guess. That one you've got there is like... warrior, I guess," he said, brows furrowing as he tried to think of how the term would be translated. "And this one below it is like teacher."

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   Jupiter Smith

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MJ made the most Alfredy of sets and then two years later she made it EVEN BETTER

"What was your nickname?" She asked immediately, perking up in the hopes it was something funny instead of tragic. How terrible would it be if his name was synonymous with 'death' or something equally awful? Though, if Alfred was permitting it to be tattooed permanently onto his body it couldn't have been that awful, could it?

The new position resulted in Jo shifting one of her knees atop his to maintain the closeness. "Teacher?" She then asked with a grin. "What did you teach?"

  

"It's..." Alfred began, glancing down at the top line on the center of his chest and smiling. He had no idea what the equivalent word would be in English. "It's like... I don't know. The lines are meant to look like a sunrise," he said, gesturing to the two lines that comprised the first pattern: one deep swoosh that looked like a valley and a semi-circle above it with little ridges. "And it's like — well, it's a name you use for children, mostly. It's like brand new, or something — but mostly it means you don't know anything yet. It's not a very nice thing to say about adults," he added with a chuckle. "But that was when we first got there, and we didn't speak the language, and they thought — well, it was pretty obvious we didn't know what we were doing, wandering out in the jungle. So — it was fitting, I guess."

Alfred leaned back slightly so that he could put the array of horizontal patterns on better display, then counted down them with his fingers. "And these three are sort of different levels of... wizard, I guess. The tribe we were living with was magical, but most people didn't use it — they just had a few elders who knew a lot and everyone else just had a few spells they used. And the first thing I did was I spent a lot of time with one of those women. Because Pablo was sick, when we showed up, and she was tending to him, so I was there a lot... a then I started helping her out with things and she taught me their language and some of their magic. Then hunter is when I actually started going out with the tribe, and exploring, and warrior is — well, we had to defend ourselves from another tribe, and I —" Alfred drifted off, glancing up at her briefly before continuing.

"That's when I actually got the tattoos. Because they don't just offer them around — it's a mark of... belonging. That you're part of the tribe," he explained. It had to do with their views of the afterlife, too; the tattoos were meant to tell your story even after you passed, so that your spirit would remember its history. It was a decided unChristian thing to do, getting tattoos like this. "So then the teaching one was — all sorts of things, I guess, but just little things. Tying sailing knots and charting stars, that sort of thing. Nothing special," he continued, shaking his head slightly. "Just stuff that was new to them."

  

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MJ made the most Alfredy of sets and then two years later she made it EVEN BETTER

The language barrier was one of the most difficult parts of her job, and she had magic to assist her. Jo couldn't begin to fathom the frustrations not being able to properly communicate would bring. "What language did they speak, do you know?" Studying languages was a hobby of hers, and a skill she was surprisingly adept at. Greek had taken less time than she anticipated learning initially. Though, Portugese maintained its position as her favorite.

"It's a beautiful idea." She said earnestly about the spirtual beliefs of the tribe. Far more beautiful than what Christianity would preach anyway. The more Jo saw of the world the less she believed in her sister's religion. There were far too many unanswered questions and contradicting beliefs. "Would you want to go back to visit the tribe ever?"

Navigation knowledge wasn't common in that part of the world. Most tribes she came into contact with had small boats to take out and capture fish, but nothing like the English Navy. "They must miss you and your teachings, however simple you believe them to be."

  

"Not anything I'd ever heard before," he said with a casual shrug. He didn't believe that the local population in that area had much contact with colonizers, so he wasn't even sure there would be a name for their language. It wasn't as though he'd grown up actively thinking about English, after all; it was just the language the world existed in. Why have a name for something when there was no alternative?

Her question of going back was a more complicated one than she probably realized. Neither Pablo or he had ever divulged that they'd left behind one final, third survivor of the Sycorax expedition in the village when they'd gone off to return to the civilized world. The younger man felt he had nothing waiting for him back in England, and a good life with the tribe. At the time of departure, Alfred had thought he had a lot to look forward to in going home — seeing his family again, being reunited with his then-fiancee, and being welcomed back into society. He'd discovered on return that his two closest family members had died while he was away, he had no longer had much in common with the girl he'd planned to marry, and he just didn't fit in the English world anymore. He'd thought quite frequently in the first few months of being back in England that leaving in the first place had been a mistake, and he might have been happier had he just stayed and lived out the rest of his days as a member of the Central American tribe.

Things had gotten better since then, though, and although he still didn't feel like he was particularly at home in England, he no longer felt the pressing urge to leave — or, at least, he hadn't until November, when he'd put his whole heart into a letter and then not gotten a response. But that was something else entirely.

"Someday, I think I would," he said a little wistfully. "We'll have to see what fate brings."

  

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MJ made the most Alfredy of sets and then two years later she made it EVEN BETTER

Later, perhaps, Jo would push for more details on the language. A word or two, even maybe. She was fascinated by his story (not all the death, of course, she wasn't yet that morbid) but wouldn't push him for details he didn't want to divulge.

"I dream of the sun." She admitted quietly instead. Their day on the patio was one of the last bright days she noticed this past month. Between being locked away in the dimly lit shop and the continuous rain Jo hadn't yet seen another day as nice. "It's much stronger there, isn't it? I miss the warmth." Already, her tanned skin was fading into its naturally pale state.

Jo leaned against the back of the sofa, her hand slipping from his chest as she did. "When you go on the expedition, maybe." She suggested, wholly unaware of why such an idea would be refused.

  

"Maybe," Alfred agreed pleasantly. The idea of mounting another expedition was still such a distant dream that it seemed relatively harmless to put any sort of plan whatsoever out in that realm, attached to it. It wasn't as though they were making plans for next week, after all. There were a million things between this moment, sitting on the touch and narrating through his tattoos, and that moment, which may or may not ever happen.

A part of him sort of wanted to die there, he supposed — not any time in the future, of course, and it would hardly make sense if he went back just for that — but the traditions surrounding funerals there resonated with him more than the morose English affairs he'd been involved in, with everyone dressed in black. Maybe that was just a thought that had occurred to him since he was sitting here with her, though, and realizing that since he'd returned to England, it was quite likely that no one would be able to read his story out for him, the way it was intended to be read from his tattoos.

Best to keep that to himself, though; he didn't want to get morbid when they were otherwise having such an enjoyable time. Besides, he still had a whole third of his tattoos to tell her about — and plenty of time to waste with her before his flatmate got home.

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   Jupiter Smith

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MJ made the most Alfredy of sets and then two years later she made it EVEN BETTER