highlander_ii

"Harvey Reginald Specter - you stop right there," the deep voice boomed down the hallway.

He froze. Anyone would when their dad used that tone. Arms still in the air where he was tugging his shirt on after his shower, he froze. He should have known. He should have known he wouldn't be able to keep it a secret long enough. He should have goddamned known. He would roll his eyes at himself if he thought it wouldn't be misunderstood as rolling his eyes at his dad.

Shirt half-on, he stood in the middle of the hallway, two steps from his bedroom door. Waiting. Waiting and wishing the hallway was a few feet longer. Wishing he'd gotten out of the shower a couple minutes sooner. Wishing his bedroom was a few feet closer to the bathroom.

A sudden scuff of fabric across his wrists startled him. The strong, saxophone-playing finger poking into the back of his shoulder was more than a hint. "So, are you going to explain to me what this is?"

Harvey stood still. He didn't even turn over his shoulder to look. He knew exactly what his father was talking about. Pretending he didn't wasn't possible. Not with his father. Gordon Specter was not a man you could lie to. Not easily. And certainly not if you were his son. So Harvey didn't even put up the effort.

"It's a tattoo," Harvey answered.

"I see. And where did you get this tattoo?" Gordon asked, voice flat and matter-of-fact.

"At a tattoo shop." Harvey wasn't being a smartass, just giving the simplest answer.

He could feel Gordon nodding behind him. He didn't need to see his dad to know that. "And, tell me, Harvey, how old do you have to be to get a tattoo without parental consent?"

The interrogation wasn't going to get easier. It would be less difficult if he could lie to his dad, but he couldn't. Not since he was six and the kid who had been his best friend couldn't help from crying after they'd been playing catch in the house and broke a window. In their defense, they'd only been playing inside because it was raining. That hadn't gone over well as a good enough reason with his father.

"Eighteen," he answered.

"How old are you Harvey?"

This wasn't a question from an adult who didn't know and was trying to be cute. This was the question from a father very close to handing down a pretty decent punishment. Harvey knew this from experience - for example, the aforementioned window.

"Four months shy of being eighteen." Wasn't that a kicker? He'd kept the thing hidden for two months. Four more to go and he would've been home free.

Gordon's hand landed firmly on his shoulder. It felt a lot heavier than he remembered. "And that would mean, what?"

"That I'm not old enough to get a tattoo without parental consent." It sucked pointing out all the reasons he was probably in a lot of trouble.

"I see. Now, I could ask you for the name of the shop where you had it done, but I think we both know you won't tell me. And while I do admire that sort of loyalty, Harvey, you are still in trouble. You know that, right?"

"Yes," he said, voice barely above a whisper.

"So, first, you're going to park that car of yours and enjoy the fresh air as you walk to wherever you need to go for the next six months. You get to keep playing ball, but..."

Harvey knew that was only the beginning. He tuned his ears, listening to every word. There would be no repeat of the handed-down punishment, but there would be an expectation that he adhere to every letter.

"...not allowed to pay your brother to do it for you. Are you with me so far?"

Harvey nodded. "Yes, sir," he said. The 'so far' part of that scared him a little.

"Now, I don't know how you managed to pay for it, but I'm going to assume you didn't kill anyone or commit any other crimes to do so -" Gordon paused long enough to get an affirmative from Harvey on that. "So, you will do enough chores around the house each week to earn back twice what you paid for the tattoo and half of that goes into savings for when you go to college," he added. There was another bit of a pause, followed by, "Oh, and one more thing - you promise me that you won't get any more tattoos until you sign with a Major League team."

Now Harvey did blink and turn to look at his father. "What?" he asked and he would blame some form of hysterical hearing difficulty on why he would need that repeated.

"When you play in the majors, you can get another tattoo." He'd never heard his dad sound so serious before.

Harvey's mouth gaped for a moment. "O-okay." Sure, it had been his plan (dream even) to play for a Major League team after college, but this was a hell of a promise.

"So, you promise to not get any more until you sign a contract with a team?"

Harvey nodded at his dad. "Yes, I promise. But - why?"

"I figure, if you want a tattoo bad enough after this, you'll work your ass off to go pro so you can get whatever the hell you want. Though, you'd better hope you sign with the Yankees kid, or you're going to need to get one hell of a cover-up."

He heard his dad laughing to himself as he made his way back down the hall toward the stairs.

"Oh - and don't let your mother see that or you'll be in more trouble than you already are." Then his dad disappeared down the stairs.

Shit. Had Marcus clued him in? Or did Harvey just have shit timing getting out of the shower? Hell, knowing his dad, he'd found out a week ago and had kept waiting for Harvey to tell him about it. That hadn't been on Harvey's agenda. He'd planned to hide it for those six months and then stop worrying about it and let his dad find out after that. He should've known he couldn't get something like this past his dad for six damned months.

Now, on top of trying to still keep his mother from finding out, he had to do every chore in the house for the next eight months to work up enough money to pay the damned thing off. (Into savings, since he'd used his allowance and some extra cash he got cleaning up with his friends at poker to cover the tattoo in the first place.)

This was going to be the most expensive two-hundred dollar tattoo.