Freedom & Chrome || Book 1 ENGLISH

Home sweet home... or so

Ash couldn't say he missed being home again. Home...that he even still called this shithole like that. He stood with his motorcycle a few hundred meters in front of the camp and watched the hustle and bustle of the clan from a distance. His bike was already completely dusted and that would not get better the next days. Not without reason nomads always got themselves only used cars and motorcycles, here remained nothing maintained and clean anyway.
For Ash, however, the timing couldn't have been better that V had shown up in his city. It saved him a lot of time and nerves trying to find the clan. He was sure that V wouldn't have left the clan behind so easily if Ash had just written to him. After all, he hadn't shown up at his brother's home in three years and who knew what V was like these days, maybe he didn't even want to see his brother anymore. However, the reunion barely a week ago left him in a positive mood. Maybe finally getting V out of here was going to be easier than he thought, and if Kaden wanted to, he could come right along. The two were stuck with each other anyway, it would almost border on a miracle if Ash returned to Neyon with V only.

He wondered if V had announced Ash to his parents. Actually, he had little desire for stress right after his arrival, there would be enough of that when their golden boy would come with him to the spoiled city. He was already looking forward to these discussions...not. Although, just a little bit, he was.

He took one last breath, shook his head, still at the disbelief that he was really here, and drove the last hundred yards to camp.

V couldn't really sit still at all, and slowly even Kaden was running out of ideas on how to get V quiet. He hadn't seen V so fidgety in a long time. As promised, V's parents knew about Ash, and as Kaden had correctly guessed, they hadn't been thrilled about it. But not because their son would come back, but because the last fight still hung deep in everyone's mind.

"Can you hold still for once?" hissed Kaden annoyed, giving V a pat on the bare shoulder. He'd been trying to get the foil of V's tattoo off for minutes now, but his friend kept sliding back and forth in place or leaning back to look through Kaden's window out to the driveway.

"Sorry," V laughed, finally sitting still. Kaden exhaled in relief. It was much easier this way. He applied a layer of cream after the huge sheet was finally off and looked at the artwork on V's skin. Carefully, Kaden stroked his fingers along the lines that stretched from V's shoulder blades to his lower back. It was really fucking cool. "Does it look good?" wanted V to know, who turned his head back a bit, but logically couldn't see anything of his new acquisition.

"Almost as good as you," Kaden grinned, and V playfully wrinkled his nose.

"Wow, that was cheesy."

"I know," Kaden laughed, reaching for his holophone that lay beside him on the bed. He knelt on the mattress so he could capture as much of the tattoo as possible on camera, then handed it to V. As he did so, he laid himself over V's left shoulder and wrapped his arms around his torso. "Look."

V took the phone and smiled proudly all over his face. The three birds circled the compass at the perfect distance, creating a beautiful symmetry across his upper back. V liked how dynamic the tattoo looked with the abstract style and the gradient lines. "That had definitely been worth the pain."

"What pain? You fell asleep during it," Kaden snorted indignantly.

"Yeah, but it stinged a little," V shrugged, with Kaden on his back and handed the phone back to Kaden. "You should remember this position, though," V suddenly grinned slyly, stealing a long kiss from Kaden. Of course, Kaden immediately understood what V was getting at and his stomach tingled with excitement.

"Oh, don't worry, I will," he bit V's lower lip and then sat back on his butt. Bandit's bark, in fact, sounded at just the right time outside the camp. Whenever Bandit sounded the alarm, it meant someone was approaching the camp. At the moment most of the people outside the camp were at their work in the surrounding settlements and towns, only a few scouts and parents with their younger children were still in the clan at the moment.