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Callie sat impatiently in the small kitchen of their shared apartment, anxiously eyeing the soft hand-towel and bowl of warm water sitting on the table to her side.
“I’m sure it won’t be that bad, Callie.”, Marie reassured.
...The rubber gloves she was pulling on did not inspire confidence, however. Marie could tell.
“Okay, yeah, it’ll probably hurt. But you won’t have to worry about your shirt slipping and tabloids crucifying you for a stupid tattoo you never wanted.”
“I guess so, yeah... But how long is this gonna take?”
“Around thirty minutes, probably.”
Callie winced with a hiss at that, but relented. She held her eyes shut tight as her cousin wrung out the towel and brought it close to her side, but opened one cautiously when the stinging contact she was expecting was oddly absent.
Marie’s hand had stopped, pausing around a centimeter away from her skin.
“Callie, can you turn teal for a sec?”
“...Teal?”
“So I can make sure I’m getting it all. I don’t know how deep he etched this in... I’m hoping he didn’t, but he might have gone past the top layer of skin, and If he did, I wouldn’t be able to tell if your ink is still the same color as it..”
The thought of having to melt away not just skin, but the flesh beneath it made Callie’s stomach turn. The thought of not only the pain, but having to see under her skin, it was nauseating, and it made her feel even more violated than she already did.
Nonetheless, she focused for a moment, and her ink shifted to a bright teal. More of an aquamarine, really, but it was no time for semantics.
“I’m going to start now.”
Callie felt like she was going to bite through her own beak. It didn’t just sting, it burned. Marie patted her thigh, trying to ground her.
“It’s alright. It’s alright. We can take a break if we have to.”
“...No, it might heal if we did that... that’d just dragging things out. Let’s just get it over with.”
“As you wish.”
Another stroke of the towel. Callie was already whimpering. Splotchy blue was beginning to show in the gaps of her tattoo, where the skin was wearing down.
“You might wanna grab something, Cal. I’m getting close to breaking skin. You’re really not gonna like this.”
Callie couldn’t see it, but Marie had an expression of pure hatred as she said this. The fact she was marked, branded so deeply with some washed up freak’s seal was infuriating. To have anyone else claim Callie belonged to them... her fists clenched around the towel as if she was trying to crush it to death.
Yet again, the towel runs over her side. Tears were beginning to well in her eyes, and it was so difficult to breathe steadily she couldn’t even scream.
Marie looks up at her. It’s almost just as painful to see Callie like this, knowing she’s being forced to put her through this much pain. She set down the towel, already becoming stained blue and pink.
“Callie.”
Callie looks down at her, though she struggles to see clearly through tears and half-open eyes.
As swiftly as she can, Marie unties her tentacles. only around half as long as Callie’s own, and raises herself slightly to be face-to-face with her.
“Open your mouth, alright?”
“wh... Why?” Callie barely choked out, nearly hiccuping the words.
She held up the end of one of her tentacles, around two inches from Callie’s lips.
“Bite down on this.”
Callie grimaced a bit. Even knowing tentacles don’t have much capacity for pain, the thought of biting Marie felt... Wrong. But still, she trusted her, and held it as gently in her mouth as she could.
Marie picked up the towel once again, re-wetting it to keep it warm. Callie’s flesh was already exposed, and they both knew it would only be more painful from there on.
“Ready?”
Callie nodded reluctantly.
Another careful stroke, and another, yet another, Callie was damn near screaming into her cousin’s tentacle, biting down so hard Marie wondered if she was going to get an impromptu haircut.
“It’s fading, shouldn’t be much longer.”
Callie was so worn down she could only sob in response.
With each passing touch, another pitiful sound spilled out of her. She was definitely going to leave a dent in Marie’s tentacle, not that she minded, Callie is far more important than her hair.
One more stroke, nothing in sight but tender teal flesh. Marie pressed a kiss to Callie’s cheek, and stroked her still-trembling shoulders.
“It’s over now. All done.”
It took a moment for Callie to calm enough to unclench her jaw, coughing a bit as she did.
Marie brushed the tears off her face.
“Hold on for a second, I’ll get some bandages. We can get some ice cream after I wrap you up. Whatever you want.”
Callie choked out a weak “thank you.”, barely audible. It made Marie’s hearts ache.