The Saints' Devil

V

In the short amount of time Charlie had been there, she had become very close with Frank and, as much as he hated to admit it, Frank had slowly begun to consider her an actual friend which had somehow led him to be very protective of her.

"Clip this up," he snapped at her, catching the hood of the car before it could come crashing down on the back of her head. "It's an old car, prop the hood up with this," he told her, handing her a skinny little pipe. 

She smiled sheepishly at him. "Sorry about that," she said, laughing slightly to herself. 

He walked over to his station, glancing down at his overall to notice that the hood had ripped a massive hole in his sleeve, revealing his tattooed covered arm, particularly the tattoo of a demon fighting an angel. The sudden sight of it had ripped open a wound in his heart that still haunted him and he froze for a second.

"Oh, did it rip your overalls?" Charlie suddenly asked from beside him, causing him to turn around rather slowly. "You have tattoos?" she asked, her eyes catching sight of the red and black ink. She continued to stare at it and he fought the sudden anger that rose within him, fought the need to gouge her eyes out just to get her to stop looking so admirably at them. "Shit, Frank, you cut yourself," she said, catching sight of a long scrape down the back of his forearm, snapping him out of the sudden rage he had felt.

He watched her move to the other side of the garage to grab the first-aid kit and rushed back, propping it open on the hood of a car and pulling out an alcohol wipe. "I didn't think it scrapped you that hard, why did you stop it from falling?"

"It would've bashed your head in if I let it fall," he said, suddenly realizing how it sounded. He hoped she would just ignore it but she, instead, looked up and smiled brightly at him.

"You were worried about me?" she asked, receiving a rough grunt in reply. She chuckled happily. "So the big mysterious man has a soft spot for small women who are in danger?"

He scoffed. "Drake hardly works here, you're the last employee. I was protecting my business."

"Sure, sure. Whatever helps you sleep at night, Frank," she teased, laughing to herself. "Roll your sleeve up," she told him, holding a cotton ball soaked in rubbing alcohol. He was hesitant. He stared at her and slowly rolled it up, only barely enough to expose the scrape. 

"You don't gotta bother," he told her, more for his sake for he had a strange fear over his tattoos, not over the ink itself but over the memories attached to them that seemed to scream at him.

"Oh, shut up, will ya? Can't you just accept someone's help?" she said, rubbing the scrape quickly to avoid having the sting last longer than necessary but he hardly noticed any burn. "How many tattoos you got?"

"None of your business."

"Oh, come on, don't be a stick in the mud. It's just a conversation topic."

"Not a conversation I want to have."

She looked at him confused, stopping her movements. "Are your tattoos...bad?"

He tensed, keeping his head turned away from her. "I said it's none of your business."

She rolled her eyes. "So, you got some demons attached to them, don't you?"

His head snapped to her, his eyes narrowing through his mask, but she was more focused on cleaning his wound and bandaging it up. "What makes you--"

"Hold your breath, Frank," she sighed. "I won't ask any more about it so just relax. I get it, mind your own business," she said, mocking his deep voice at the end. "We're friends, right? I was just curious but I can see now that curiosity did, indeed, kill the cat."

 "Why the hell do you wanna be my friend so badly?" he snapped, standing and rolling his sleeve back down once she had finished. "Ain't nothin' good gonna come out of it."

"People don't become friends to get something out of the other, Frank," she said, chuckling lightly. "Plus, I feel...unwelcome in this club. You, although you were kind of an ass in the beginning, you were the only one to actually make me feel like I have a place here, like I am welcome." Her little confession gave him a funny feeling in his chest and he looked away from her. "Aw, Frank, don't be so bashful," she laughed, watching him flip her off which only seemed to fuel her laughter.

The sound of her laugh caused a sudden heat to spread on his neck and he cleared his throat. It pissed him off how he was acting like some hormonal teenager around her. 

"Hey now, that's not very nice to do that to your friend, Slipknot," she laughed joyously, watching as he moved back over to his station. "Hey, Slipknot," she called, watching him turn his head slightly to glance at her. "You think you could give me a place to stay?"

*

"Okay, why are you acting like my mom, right now," Charlie asked, leaning back in her chair as she watched him pace the garage.

"I thought you got a place in the clubhouse."

"Well, I refused it because I wanted to get my own place but I've been having a hard time finding one so I've been sleeping behind the garage this whole time."

"How the fu--"

"Calm down."

"Why didn't you tell Fury?"

That's when she leaned forward, sighing heavily, her head falling in her hands. "Look, I've already been giving Fury hell and the club. You guys actually managed to get stuck in something I was running away from and, currently, Fury is trying to fix it," she explained vaguely and, from the look on her face, he knew not to pester further into it. "I couldn't ask him or the club for anything more."

"So you wanted to be friends to get a place to stay?"

"No, no!" she said, standing to her feet, an awfully sad look on her face making him feel bad for even saying the words. "That's not true. I became your friend because I really wanted to. It wasn't to get something from you. I'm only asking you because I...I don't know. I just trust you, okay?"

He stared at her, completely conflicted. 

"Where are you going?" she called after him, watching him grab his leather jacket and head for the door. 

"For a ride," he called, sounding extremely pissed, forcing her lips to shut rather quickly.

Maybe it wasn't good timing on her part.