Chapter 38 #2
"Why? Are you thinking ink on your dick this time?" Fly asked with a soft laugh, squinting against the sun.
Bolt's blue eyes twinkled mischievously. "No, but now that you ask..."
"For the love of Jesus, Mary and Joseph," Shamrock muttered, rubbing his temples. "How much overflow do you think I can handle?"
"Maybe you should get something on your dick, Sham?" Bolt suggested, waggling his eyebrows at him. "What about some lucky charms?"
Shamrock sat up, his laughter growing louder. "You want me to tattoo hearts, stars, horseshoes, clovers, blue moons, red balloons, pots of gold, fucking rainbows, and a unicorn on my dick? Saints preserve us."
"What are you afraid of?" Bolt shot back, grinning. "You won't have enough room for all of that?"
North fell back in the sand with an exaggerated groan, covering his face with his hands. Fly clutched his forehead and gut, tears of laughter streaming down his face, and Shamrock shoved Bolt into the sand.
"Fuck you, Bolt," Shamrock managed to say between his own laughter. "I swear to God, you're twelve."
“I do my best to not act my age. But no, no dick ink. My thought was some lightning across my back. Cool, right?”
Fly sat up, wiping tears from his eyes. "Lightning? What? Are you trying to be Thor now? Next you'll be carrying a hammer around."
“I’m already carrying a hammer around,” Bolt shot back with a grin.
North rolled his eyes but was smiling. "I've heard enough about your hammer for one day."
"What about you, North?" Bolt asked, turning his attention. "Still thinking about getting more ink?"
"I don't know," North said slowly. "Maybe."
"Maybe?" Fly asked, sitting up straighter. "What are you thinking?"
North hesitated, then looked at Fly directly. "Something... something for us and for Mei."
Fly's expression softened. "Really?"
Shamrock and Bolt paused too, the way men did when they recognized that real tone.
North reached into the pocket of his shorts and pulled out a folded sheet of paper. He held it for a second, then handed it to Fly.
Fly took it, unfolding it carefully.
North kept his eyes on the water. “The last time we were together we got ink, and it meant something,” he said. “It should mean something again.”
Fly looked up at him. “Then what is it?”
North turned, meeting his gaze squarely. “It’s us.”
“The hoop is the bond,” North went on. “Braided because it’s stronger that way. Three strands. No beginning. No end.” He tapped the mountain. “That’s me. I hold ground. That’s what I do.” His finger shifted to the feather. “That’s you. You read wind. You move. You see what the rest of us don’t.”
Fly swallowed.
“The star,” North said quietly, “is Mei. She’s still guiding us, whether we like it or not.” His thumb rested on the anchor at the center. “And this is where it all started. The Academy. The thing that tied us together before the rest of the world got its claws in.”
Shamrock let out a low whistle. “Geezus,” he murmured. “That’s not just ink.”
Bolt nodded once. “That’s a statement.”
Silence settled around them, broken only by the surf.
Shamrock cleared his throat. “Where would you put it?”
North didn’t hesitate. He pressed his palm flat over his chest, just above his heart. “Here. I carry things where they can’t be ignored.”
Fly nodded slowly. That tracked.
He looked back down at the design, then turned his own wrist over, fingers tracing the inside of his left forearm. “I’d put it here,” he said. “Inner wrist.”
Bolt raised a brow. “That seems deliberate.”
Fly’s mouth twitched. “It is.”
He flexed his hand, watching the tendons move. “This is the hand that steers. The one that remembers weight and angle. I don’t need the world to see it. I just need to know it’s there.”
North studied him for a long moment, then nodded. “That makes sense.”
Shamrock exhaled, rubbing a hand over his face. “You two are impossible,” he said, voice rough. “You know that?”
Fly folded the paper carefully and handed it back to North. “When you’re ready,” he said, “I’ll go with you.”
North took it, something like relief flickering across his face. “Yeah,” he said. “It wouldn’t be the same if we didn’t share this.”
Bolt had been quiet longer than usual, gaze fixed on the design in North’s hands. He shifted his weight once, then again, like he was deciding whether to step into deep water.
“You’re going to make me go there, aren’t you?” he muttered.
Shamrock snorted. “Didn’t even have to ask.”
Bolt shot him a look, then dragged a hand over his face. “All right,” he said. “Goddammit.”
He took a hard breath, the kind that came from somewhere low. His throat worked once, and when he looked up again, that guarded edge in his blue eyes had faded. His mouth softened, just slightly, like he’d stopped holding it in place.
“I never had a real family,” he said.
“Foster kid. Bounced around. Didn’t fit anywhere long enough to matter.” He shrugged, the motion small, almost reflexive. “My mouth always got me in trouble.”
He reached out and traced the lines on the paper with one finger, careful, almost reverent. “I want lightning on my back,” he said. “Big. Spanning.” He paused, then added, quieter, “Not because it looks cool.”
Fly didn’t move. Neither did North.
“The light has a source,” Bolt went on. “For me, that source is the Navy. It hit, and it split.” His finger followed the branching lines. “That’s how lightning works. It doesn’t strike once and stop. It spreads.”
He swallowed, jaw tightening. “All those branches… that’s this.” He gestured between them. “It’s the brotherhood. The Teams. Guys who always have your back without conditions”
He blinked hard and looked away, scrubbing at his mouth like he was annoyed with himself. “That’s what it means to me.”
The surf rolled in behind them, steady and unbothered.
North nodded once. “That tracks.”
Fly’s voice was quiet when he spoke. “Yeah,” he said. “It does.”
Bolt glanced at the water, then back at the design, something settled in his posture now. “So yeah,” he said. “That’s the lightning. That’s mine.”
Shamrock cleared his throat. “Well,” he said roughly, “now I feel like an asshole.”
Bolt huffed a laugh, some of the tension bleeding out of him. “You are an asshole.”
“But I’m your asshole,” Shamrock shot back.
Shamrock had been leaning back on his hands, listening, letting the others talk it out. When Bolt finished, the surf filling the pause, Shamrock blew out a breath through his nose.
“Well,” he said, “since we’re apparently doing emotional strip poker…”
Fly glanced at him. “You good?”
Shamrock nodded once. “Yeah. Just—” He rolled his shoulders. “I already got some ink.”
Bolt accused, “You cheated on us?”
Shamrock hesitated, then shrugged. “My gran passed.” His voice stayed easy, but something in it had gone steadier. “She was very important. Showed me all I needed to know about my heritage. She was…lovely.”
He reached for the hem of his shirt and pulled it off, turning so they could see the back of his shoulder.
It wasn't a sprawling mural, but a quiet piece of himself. A gnarled tree trunk twisted across his skin, its roots digging deep. Nestled in the shade of those roots were four small shamrocks. Each one held a secret, a single initial etched into a leaf.
The ink was a constant, grounding weight, a reminder that no matter how far he roamed, he was rooted to them.
North stepped closer, reading them. “N. L. C. P.”
“Nico. Liam. Cormac.” Shamrock tapped the last one with a finger. “Penelope.”
“You have siblings. I didn’t know that. Thank you for sharing it.”
“She used to say family wasn’t about who stuck around when it was easy,” Shamrock went on. “It was about who put down roots and didn’t let go when things got ugly.” He shrugged again, like he didn’t want to make more of it than necessary. “So that’s what this is. Keeps me straight.”
Bolt nodded slowly. “That’s solid.”
North met Shamrock’s eyes. “Yeah,” he said. “It is.”
Shamrock pulled his shirt back on, the moment settling without needing commentary. “So,” he added, lighter now, “I’m good with just watching you idiots get more tattoos.”
Fly huffed a laugh. “Fair.”
The four of them sat there a while longer, the ocean steady, each of them carrying something different and realizing, maybe for the first time, that none of it had to be carried alone.
No one rushed to fill the silence.
Shamrock sighed, but he was smiling. "I hate you all."
"No you don't." Fly grinned. "You love us."
"Unfortunately," Shamrock agreed, falling back into the sand. "Unfortunately, I do." He eyed the water. "So, Fly," Shamrock said with that trademark smirk of his, “I've heard stories from Surf about you riding some heavy water.”
Fly didn't even turn to look at Shamrock, just kept his eyes fixed on the ocean. He'd been watching the waves since they arrived, calculating their rhythm like he was planning an insertion.
North watched the water with a familiar wariness.
It wasn’t chaotic, but that didn’t make it safe.
The waves came in with deliberate spacing, heavy and measured, each set holding its ground like an opponent that didn’t rush because it didn’t have to.
This break didn’t threaten. It waited. North had learned in BUD/S that water didn’t need anger to kill you.
It didn’t need to prove anything. It just needed time—and a single mistake.
This stretch of ocean felt like that kind of adversary.
Patient. Powerful. Entirely uninterested in who thought they could master it.
“But in all this time we've served together, I've never actually seen you ride a wave. I don’t like that gap, man. Friends know all there is to know, and brothers…well, there are no secrets."
That resonated hard in North. Fly turned to look at him, and a silent acknowledgment passed between them.
“You’re right. Secrets don’t fly with friends,” Fly said.
Shamrock’s blue eyes shifted between North and Fly. “Sounds like you two worked something out.”