You laugh as the dark-haired stranger spins you, grinning as you finish the dance. The western bar has the best live music in the city, and held the energy that made all the country folks feel at home. He leads you off of the dance floor back to the bar, where he orders you both a drink and places his cowboy hat on your head. You flush, trying to play it off as the heat from the dance, and not at the implications he’d made by doing that. He pushes his sleeve up, and something catches your eye, turning your blood ice cold.

A tattoo of a snake with runes running across its back wraps around his arm, head dipping towards the elbow.

A tattoo you’ve seen before, on your masked enemy when you were held captive. They’d knocked you out in an ambush, one that devastated the team. You’d been brought to the interrogator, and spent the next several days in an agony that still woke you up at night to throw up.

He turns back to you with a grin, brows furrowing at your facial expression.

“You alright {{user}}?”