Work Text:
Old-fashioned bells jangled as the door to the tattoo shop swung open. Achilles, backpack swung over one shoulder, grinned at the sweet girl sitting at the reception desk. Her feet were up, ankles crossed as she combed her afro while playing something on Youtube.
“Hey! I’m Briseis, can I help you?”
Achilles nodded, withdrawing a heavy vintage book from his bag. “I’m looking to get a botanical tattoo done, hopefully today?” He flipped through the thin, vein-pocked pages before coming to a halt and extending the book for her inspection.
Briseis scrambled for her red horn-rimmed glasses that hung from a chain around her neck in an odd fashion that reminded Achilles typically of old women, but looked very trendy and fun on such a happy woman.
“Sounds good!” she chirruped. “Let me see what we have available.” Scrolling through an Excel sheet and muttering to herself, she eventually swiveled the chair back around to Achilles. “Pat’s actually got a few hours available! You can start filling out the consent forms and whatnot if you want.” She extended a clipboard with her well-manicured, purple nails.
Achilles sat on a squat couch and checked the boxes, signed his name. “I can’t believe you’ve gotta have a form stating that tattoos are permanent,” he commented, handing the clipboard back to Briseis.
“You’d be surprised,” came a voice from behind Achilles.
He turned around to see what was probably the prettiest man he’d ever seen. The sleeves of his black v-neck were rolled up, revealing soft brown skin adorned with tattoos that disappear up his arms and curl around his wrists. Smiling at Achilles he said, “Hey, I’m Patroclus. What can I do for you today?”
What can’t you do for me- Achilles shut the hell up
“I’m gonna get this botanical illustration of a fig plant on my left thigh.” Achilles offered him the book, noting how Patroclus held it gently in his palms as he studied it. Like he knew and respected how old and precious it was.
“Gorgeous,” Patroclus remarked. But Achilles couldn’t exactly set aside the fact that Patroclus had been looking at him, not the book when he said that. His heart jumped a little. “How big?”
Mentally shaking himself, Achilles marked the size of the tattoo on his thigh with his hands. Patroclus nodded. “All right, let me just sketch this out and see how you like it.”
Achilles watches surreptitiously as Patroclus sketches the illustration. The motion of his hands is practiced, and honestly an art in and of itself. He couldn’t really stop himself from looking at the silky black hair that fell into Patroclus’ face like a curtain as he worked, the way his tongue stuck out a little bit between his lips in concentration. It was cute. He was cute.
Thankfully, Patroclus was a quick sketch. Achilles forced himself to actually look at the impeccable sketch instead of Patroclus’ impeccable face and say “Yeah, looks great!”
Patroclus led him back to a little cubicle of the shop, a tattoo chair covered in plastic wrap sitting in the middle. With a grand gesture, Patroclus urged Achilles into the chair. He rolled his shorts leg up so Patroclus could get at his thigh -- runner’s thighs, he thought, proud of the definition he was able to display for him.
Now, the fantasies beginning to simmer in the back of Achilles’ mind definitely had not included Patroclus shaving his left thigh, but hey. Take what you can get, right?
After the transfer was laid out, Patroclus asked if that was where Achilles wanted it, and Achilles yet again had to force himself not to say something inappropriate. Or just drool. Instead, he said “Perfect.” He made sure he was looking at Patroclus when he said it.
Patroclus, readying his ink trays and needles, asked, “Ready?”
One hand tight on the edge of the armrest, Achilles nodded. The noise of the machine gun filled his ears, making his nerves tighten that much more. But when Patroclus actually put the gun to his skin, he exhaled the breath he didn’t know he’d been holding. It felt like a cat scratch. “Not nearly as bad as I thought,” he chuckled.
“Never is,” Patroclus remarked, eyes trained on his thigh.
Achilles took a deep breath and slowly let it out, leaning his head back and gazing at the ceiling. The soft guitar from Briseis’ computer was a nice distraction from the buzzing of the tattoo gun. And really, he thought, once he got used to the sensation, it wasn’t too bad.
He started looking around the cubicle at all the artwork taped to the walls. Gorgeous sketches of morning glories, a hyper-realistic snarling lion, an eye nestled in a cloud.
“Are these all yours?” he asked.
“Mm-hm,” Patroclus hummed. “Couple of them aren’t even tattoos I’ve put on people, just ideas I’ve had, things I wanted to put down.”
“I love those wings,” Achilles said, pointing to a bit of paper by a cabinet. It looked like it’d been torn out of a notebook at some point, a jagged edge of paper with feathery bird wings sketched on it in the lightest pencil.
“Thank you. I always liked those, thought they’d look nice on someone’s ankles.”
“I may have to come back later then,” Achilles said, grinning.
Patroclus smiled up at him and Achilles thought his heart might explode. “Let’s finish this tattoo first, shall we?” he chuckled. “May I ask, why figs?”
Achilles’ eyebrows furrowed and he looked over at the ink trays. “I’m a botany student at university. I’ve always loved the vintage illustrations. The figs themselves… I don’t know. I like the taste, how they look. The leaves are so unique. I dunno.”
Patroclus pulled the tattoo gun back to look at Achilles’ thigh. “I can see that,” he said, resuming stroking the needle down a leaf. “I used to be an art studio major, y’know.”
“Oh yeah? I bet you aced all your classes.”
Patroclus barked a short laugh. “Yeah, not quite. University wasn’t for me. Too much stress on my mental health. I dropped out my sophomore year, decided I needed to find something that worked for me.”
“That’s… amazing,” Achilles admitted, unable to find a better, not so ‘obviously coming onto you’ way of putting it.
“You don’t need to say that,” Patroclus said. “I turned out all right.”
“No, I mean it,” Achilles blurted. “In my family, college was just something you did. It wasn’t even an option, it’s just what comes after high school. I can’t imagine just… not doing it. So many people look down on you if you don’t have some sort of ‘higher education,’ it’s so bullshit, college isn’t for everyone. I don’t know. I really admire being able to recognize that.”
Patroclus gazed up at him, a puzzled wonderment in his beautiful brown eyes. Achilles stifled the urge to run his hand through those soft black locks, that probably wasn’t proper tattoo etiquette.
The hours passed before they knew it, Patroclus regaling tales of art school as Achilles sat in rapt attention, Achilles detailing the countless times he’d gotten stuck in the underbrush trying to grab a sample for a botany class. He actually had to blink a few times when Patroclus set the tattoo gun down and said, “There you go, all done. Take a look.”
Achilles looked down. It was exactly like the original illustration, the muted green of the leaves melting into the fresh dark reds of the figs. He smiled wide. “It’s beautiful,” he murmured. “Thank you so much, you did spectacular.”
Patroclus nodded to himself, eying the tattoo. “Actually, I’m super proud of this one,” he admitted. “I don’t get to do softer pieces like this too often. Would you mind if I took a picture for the shop’s Facebook?”
“Please, go ahead!” Achilles said, happily vibrating in his seat. “That’d be cool!”
Patroclus pulled out his phone and snapped a photo. “Perfect.” He sighed, smiling, then shook his head a little and straightened up. “Okay, Briseis will go over aftercare instructions with you when you pay up front, and just keep this on it…” He taped a cover loosely over the tattoo. “Thanks for coming by, Achilles.”
“Thank you.” Achilles didn’t quite know what else to say, when there was really nothing more to be said. He gave Patroclus one last smile and left the cubicle.
Briseis slid a bill over to him and started explaining the care instructions as Achilles swiped his debit card. The receipt printed slowly, and when the tip section comes up, he calculated 20% and scribbled it down. In a moment of impulse, he wrote at the bottom “Thanks, Patroclus :)” and his phone number. Briseis smiled when she caught sight of it as Achilles left the tattoo parlor, and got up to give it to Patroclus.
When Achilles got home, he looked at the shop’s Facebook. The most recent post was a picture of his tattoo, captioned
Botanical fig illustration, done by Patroclus for Achilles. Thanks Achilles for coming by the shop today! This was a very fun tattoo. p.s: You should definitely come by for those wings sometime. :)