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Buck is brave. He is . Buck has leapt from burning buildings, stood strong at gunpoint, dealt with the bureaucracy, and one time, when he was ten, he told his parents that he's actually not that into monster trucks. He's done scary things before.
So no, he isn't stuck at a standstill in front of a tattoo parlor, because that would imply that he is scared, and Buck doesn't get scared. He's simply being responsible and making sure that he's positive he wants to put permanent ink on his body. That's all.
The door swings open, a young woman holding it open for him. She looks bored, which okay, he hasn't been standing outside for that long. "I know COVID made a lot of workplaces have remote options, but you kind of need to be inside the building for this one."
"I know that," Buck says lamely. "I'm just... checking the facade. Looking at the mural."
The woman leans out and looks at the brick wall at the front of the building, where some wildflowers have been painted on, bright and sunny and one of the many reasons why Buck chose this specific parlor. She glances back at Buck. "You know there's no hidden meaning to them, right? They're flowers. I think you get the picture."
"There could be meaning!" Buck protests. "You don't know that! Maybe the painter chose pink tulips for a reason."
"You could ask him yourself," she responds, "seeing as he's the one who's going to be tattooing you, if you can get past the threshold."
His eyes go down to her name tag. May. "Is this supposed to make me want to come in?"
She shrugs. "You'll either get a tattoo or you won't. Whatever."
Buck thinks he might be more scared of this early-20s employee than he is of the concept of actually getting a tattoo. He thinks he might want to be her best friend. "Yeah, okay."
The inside of the building is more exciting than the outside. It's brighter than Buck had expected, with the same flower motif dancing around the walls on the inside, front desk carefully lined with artificial leaves and flowers. May steps behind it, pulling up a tablet. "I'm assuming you're the 10:15 appointment?"
Buck looks up at the clock above May's head, where it reads 10:32, and winces. "Yeah, that's me. Sorry, I'm usually more punctual than this."
"Well, you started 'admiring the mural’–" she does air quotes at this– "at 10:07, so some people might say you were early."
"Are you some people?"
"No," she says bluntly. "You're late. But Diaz is nicer than me, and his 4 PM called and said they were going to be late like a normal person, so he's still going to fit you in."
"Oh, joy." Buck's not sure he sounds enthusiastic enough, but May just raises a brow and keeps tapping at the tablet.
She slides it across the counter. "Finish signing in and pass me your ID to confirm your identity. You'll need to confirm that all listed information is correct, including payment method, and sign the day-of waiver confirming you've eaten and drank today, as well as absolving us from fault if you pass out or something. Tattooing is always a risk, and allergic reactions or infections may occur no matter how sterile our materials are. Additionally, please confirm that you aren't drunk and that this general weirdness you have is independent from any alcohol consumption."
Buck pulls his ID from his wallet and passes it to her, then takes the tablet and signs without reading. "Unfortunately, this is me stone-cold sober. Also I kind of feel like I'm signing my life away."
"Then maybe read the fine print next time," May scoffs, taking the tablet back and giving him his ID. "You'll be in Room C. Down the hall, on your left. Can't miss it."
Buck salutes her, immediately regrets saluting her, and ventures down the hallway. She was right; he really couldn't miss Room C, not with the delicately painted C on the door, large and filled with flowers. It's comforting in a way, knowing that whoever is about to do his tattoo is really into flowers.
Inside the room, a man stands with his back to him, humming as he preps something at the counter on the back wall. Alarmingly, Buck thinks he might recognize it as the Hannah Montana theme song.
"Uh, hi?" Buck says cautiously, trying not to spook him. "I'm your 10:15–well, 10:35 now. Your next appointment."
The man turns, and Buck immediately regrets coming into this building at all, because he's pretty sure that's his soulmate standing right in front of him. Dramatic, yes, but this has to be the most gorgeous man he's ever seen, wide brown eyes and floppy hair and all.
Maybe he's in love. Maybe he thinks this man would look great with a gold ring on his finger. Who's to say?
And that's when Buck remembers what he's here for, and that his first impression of him is probably going to be some version of a panic attack, definitely with tears involved.
"Oh, hey!" The man says happily, as if Buck hasn't gone through both their marriage and their impending divorce in his head. "Glad you could make it! I'm Eddie, I'm the one you've been emailing about the design. Very thorough emails, by the way, I'm very impressed."
"I read that the more detailed you are, the better," Buck says, embarrassingly breathless, still standing in the doorway. "I'm—uh—I'm Buck."
"Hi, Buck," Eddie says, bemused. "Want to come into the room so we can get started?"
Right. For the tattoo. Because he's here to get a tattoo. "Yup. I'm walking in the room right now."
Buck isn't walking in the room. Buck is still standing in the doorway like a loser, because instead of his nerves about being close to a beautiful man overtaking his nerves about the tattoo, the two are both sort of compounding in him. He's not sure if this is the best or worst day of his life. He thinks he might pass out.
Eddie smiles at him and puts down what he was holding. He steps in front of Buck, offering out a sturdy hand. Buck is entranced and accepts, and oh god, the hand is warm and soft and larger than his, which does way more for him than he expected. He allows Eddie to steer him into the room, sitting him down on the tattooing bench in the middle of the room.
"So, when we emailed, you indicated you might have some tattoo anxiety," Eddie says kindly, as if he didn't just have to guide Buck into the room like a frazzled deer.
"I'm afraid of needles," Buck blurts out, graceless.
Eddie nods. "It's not an uncommon thing, people wanting tattoos and being afraid of needles. Trust me, we will make it work."
"Oh, I've always been afraid of needles," Buck says, because he apparently can't control his mouth, no matter how much he tells himself to shut up. "I had a ton of bone marrow extracted when I was a baby. Because my brother was dying of cancer. Haven't been able to handle needles since."
Eddie blinks at him, looking slightly dumbfounded.
"He's dead now," Buck continues, even though he is begging himself to stop talking, "yanno, on account of the cancer."
"I'm sorry?" Eddie says.
"Oh, it's okay, he died before I turned two," Buck elaborates unnecessarily. "Never really knew him. I knew the needles, though."
Eddie opens and closes his mouth. Buck dies a little bit internally. "Okay. Yeah. I'm really sorry that happened to you. My son had to go through a lot of medical procedures young, so I get that, but I can't imagine doing a bone marrow extraction on an infant so poorly that he ends up with a phobia. That's—yeah, that's pretty fucked up."
Oh, Eddie is a father. A hot dad. A DILF. Except it's more like a DILTGODWAEMAGOTBWUEOIAO: Dad I'd Like To Go On Dates With And Eventually Marry And Grow Old Together Because We Understand Each Other Inside And Out . Or something else equally as casual.
A dad who doesn't have a ring on, Buck notices. A small detail to store away.
"It's mostly fine now," Buck waves off, "except for the fear of needles. My therapist says this could be good for exposure therapy, but I've also been wanting a tattoo for a while."
"Then we'll get you that tattoo," Eddie promises. He reaches behind himself and grabs a tablet. "You wanted it on your ribs, right?"
Fuck. He does want it on his ribs, which are conveniently underneath his shirt, which is also where his pecs and abs are.
When Buck nods, Eddie gestures at his shirt. "If you're uncomfortable taking your shirt fully off, we can figure out a partially-off position, or I have a blanket you can drape over the rest of yourself."
"I'm comfortable getting off—taking off my shirt," Buck stammers. "No problems here. Body positivity!"
Buck pumps his fist and instantly regrets it. Eddie, bless him, pumps his fist back. "Awesome, man. I've got the final sketch here so we can confirm the design and size, then when you're ready, I'll get you shaved and put the stencil on."
He flips the tablet over, and oh , it's better than anything he could have imagined. Sure, it was a simple request; he knows that line art of a head with a heart in place of the brain isn't exactly groundbreaking. But there's something about seeing it in front of him, something about how the simplicity speaks for itself.
He clears his throat. "Yeah, man, I think that's good."
It's probably the most composed he's been this entire appointment. Something in Eddie's eyes softens. "You did a great job explaining what you wanted. Super thorough. It was easy to work with. And you requested about four inches, right?"
Buck nods. "Yup, four. Four inches is good. It's big, but you don't want it too big, right?"
Oh god. Kill him now.
Eddie nods politely.
Buck plots his own escape from the country. "It's a good size for the design. If you want to go ahead and get your shirt off, I'll get that printed out onto the transfer paper."
As Buck takes off his shirt and folds it, he's at least grateful that he's developed a pretty solid exfoliating and moisturizing regimen in the past few years. He would have hated if he had met the love of his life without smelling like a babbling brook, or whatever it said on his bottle of soap.
Should he flex when he turns around? Or is that too much? Maybe he should just keep himself relaxed. But maybe he should also flex his abs.
In his indecision, when he turns back to face Eddie, he's aggressively flexing and relaxing his abs. Eddie is too polite to point it out, instead keeping his eyes locked on Buck's.
Fleeing the country might not be far enough. Buck is going to be the first man to colonize Mars.
"You'll have to get a little closer so I can shave you and put it on," Eddie says, gesturing towards him.
So maybe Buck is standing a healthy five feet away from Eddie. At least he's no longer flexing uncontrollably. He can redeem himself. He is not embarrassing.
He immediately trips over the leg of the tattoo bench and stumbles onto Eddie, who grabs him to steady him. And fuck, Buck can feel through the fabric of his shirt that Eddie is strong, and the tight grasp of his hands on his biceps makes him flush even more than tripping did.
"Whoa, you okay there?" Eddie asks, concerned. "Did you hurt yourself?"
"No, no, just my dignity," Buck sighs. He straightens himself up, and Eddie drops his hands. Buck mourns the loss instantly. "The tattoo?"
"Right!" Eddie brandishes a razor, something cheap and disposable. He runs it along Buck's ribs, up and down to catch all the baby hairs.
Delusionally, Buck thinks this may be the most intimate thing he's ever done, and yet it's perfectly innocent. Tattoo artists always shave the target skin, clearing the area for the incoming needle.
But maybe Buck is just a little more touch-starved than he thought, because the feeling of Eddie's hand lying gently on his back, coupled with the absolute tenderness he uses while shaving, tongue poking out between his teeth to keep the concentration to avoid nicking the skin, makes Buck feel a little lightheaded.
Eddie doesn't seem to notice, which at least means Buck is doing a better job at acting normal. Small victories. He tosses the razor and pulls up the transfer paper and a bottle of gel. "I'm going to rub some gel on then lay this on. Check the placement in the mirror after for me. I can move it as many times as you want; this is permanent, so don't be afraid to ask."
As if the shaving wasn't intimate enough, Eddie squeezes a bit of gel on his fingers and presses them to Buck's skin. Buck shivers because the gel is cold, and definitely not because the feeling of Eddie's fingers rubbing delicately over his ribs and skating just below his nipples makes him want to melt. Buck stares soundly at the wall through it, willing himself not to blush. Apparently his will is incredibly weak, as he feels his cheeks heated up anyways. But if he resolutely does not look at Eddie through it, then maybe he won't notice. Eddie seems hyperfocused on laying the stencil on his skin just right, anyways.
It's purple, on his skin. Buck finds he kind of likes the purple and almost considers asking for colorful line art, negating the months of planning that he has put into this moment.
Instead, he focuses on where it sits, how it looks at the various angles. Of course Eddie managed to get the placement correct on the first try. What else would Buck expect from his future husband?
"Yeah, looks good," Buck coughs. "Really good."
"Great!" Eddie says kindly. "If you want to go ahead and get on the bench, we can get started. I have a tray table there with a water bottle and some snacks in case you need it. This shouldn't take more than an hour or so of active tattooing, but there's plenty of time built in if you need breaks."
"I'll need breaks," Buck says seriously. "Like, a lot of them. You know those KitKat commercials? The 'give me a break' ones?" He sings the catchphrase and immediately cringes at how his voice, staying on theme, also breaks. "I'll probably need more breaks than you could get out of a Halloween bag of KitKat bars!"
Fuck, he is not smooth. Not even a little bit. He might actually be incredibly rough, which is impressive considering his track record.
As further proof that Eddie is probably an actual angel, he just laughs indulgently. "If that's what it takes, that's what it takes. It's really no big deal."
Buck lays down on the tattooing bench, the leather cool against the sweat-slick skin of his back. If he closes his eyes and doesn't think about it, he could actually just be laying on his couch at home, resting after a long shift.
Unfortunately, between the pop music playing over the sound system and the prep Eddie is doing off to the side to get started, Buck is actually thinking about it a lot.
Eddie rests a latex-wrapped hand on his ribs, cool and steady. "You used numbing cream this morning, right?"
Buck thinks back to that morning, when he slathered a dramatic amount of recommended numbing cream on his ribs, frantically rubbing it in and catastrophizing that perhaps one entire bottle wouldn't be enough to numb it.
"Yeah, definitely," Buck says casually.
Eddie hums appreciatively. "It always helps with the needle phobias. Would you prefer to be distracted while I do this, or do you want to try to handle this on your own?"
"On my own," Buck responds, because he can be brave and impress Eddie. "I think I got this."
"Alright," Eddie says. "I'm going to get started. Even with the numbing cream, you'll still feel pressure and some dull pain. Extent varies from person to person."
Buck nods. He knows that the ribs were probably a bold choice for a first tattoo when it comes to pain, but what's wrong with going all in.
Buck stares at the wall, where some flowers are painted around the door. Daisies, he thinks, pretty and light. Distracting for sure.
He hears the tattoo gun turn on and flinches.
Well, Buck would say he flinches. Other people may say he fully spasms and falls off the bench. But this is Buck's story, so therefore it's just a flinch.
"Whoa–shit, are you okay?" Eddie calls.
Buck, from his position on the floor, tries to maintain his dignity. "Yeah, totally fine. Completely fine. Just, uh, thought I saw a spider."
"Right," Eddie says slowly. "A spider. It had nothing to do with the sound of the tattoo gun, and how that might relate to your fear of needles."
"Exactly!" Buck clambers back onto the bench. "You've got it."
Eddie looks at him, a slight furrow in his brow, before it smooths out into a smile. "You know, my son used to be afraid of needles."
"Really?" Buck asks. He likes the way Eddie's face seems to light up when he brings up his son. "Why?"
"He's got cerebral palsy," Eddie tells him. He slides a hand on Buck's side, lets it settle right under where the lines of the transfer start. "He's had about three surgeries so far, and way more doctor's visits than I think I've had in my lifetime."
"That's a lot for a kid," Buck breathes. He thinks of Daniel. "Kids should get to just be kids."
"They should," Eddie agrees mildly, "but sometimes it doesn't work out like that. So he goes to the doctor, and they tell us he needs a second surgery, right? So he starts wailing, and me and his mother, we just go 'Whoa, buddy, what's happening?' And he tells us that even though he doesn't remember his first surgery, he remembers when they put the IV in his arm beforehand, and he remembers the pain after, and he just doesn't want to do it again."
Buck winces. "Poor kid."
"Right," Eddie agrees, nodding solemnly. "I wanted to just wrap him up and take him away from there. No doctors ever again! But he needed those procedures done so he could be healthy." He scoffs. "I couldn't exactly explain that to a three - yea r- old. All he knew was that when the doctors stuck something in him, he hurt."
"So what did you do?"
"A lot of crying," Eddie laughs, "followed by a lot of conversations with my late wife. She was really the smart one between the two of us. Me, at that point? I was wrapped up in too much trauma to be helpful. I'm a vet," he adds on, "so I wasn't really ready to handle someone else's emotions. But my wife, Shannon, she really helped."
"She sounds like she was a really special woman," Buck says sincerely.
"She was," Eddie says, leaving it there. "And together, after a lot of talking, we figured out that we couldn't really take away our son's fear; however, we could try and replace the association with something he liked. So, every time he needed a shot, or he had to get a procedure done, we would read to him. He was really obsessed with this kid's book at the time, Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. We would read it together every time, and we'd do these silly little voices, and he'd be laughing and laughing and wouldn't even realize the needle went in until it was already done."
Buck can see it, this soft and sweet and slightly harrowed Eddie leaning into a little kid, holding a picture book and tracing out all the letters with him. It makes him a little wistful. He doesn't really remember anything from his own procedures beyond an aching loneliness. He doubts his own parents were so warm with him, even when he was too small to know anything was happening at all.
"Your kid is lucky to have you," Buck says softly.
"I like to think I'm lucky to have him," Eddie answers.
Eddie pinches at his skin. "So what makes you happy? What are some things you like? I'd offer to pull out a copy of Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, but I think that's probably slightly under your reading level."
"Depends on the day," Buck jokes. He sinks into it, lets a bit of comfort wash over him. "Honestly? I've been really interested in botany lately. Trying to get a little more oxygen into my apartment."
"Yeah?" Eddie asks, and this time, the buzz of the tattoo gun fades under the sound of his voice. "Tell me about it. What have you been growing?"
It's easy now for Buck to ignore the sensation of the needle pressing into his skin, dulled by the genuine interest in Eddie's voice. He feels the pain, sure, but he lets himself spill out, babbling about the fiddle-leaf fig that he's been battling to keep alive for months, the mother-of-pearl he hung from the loft just to break up the space, the various succulents he's scattered throughout his apartment that his friends have gifted him, their names etched into the bottoms of each pot like a well-wish.
He does need the breaks, pausing every time panic builds in the lull of conversation. Eddie grants them and fusses over him adequately, making sure he eats and drinks. It's nice to be cared about, even in such a temporary way. Buck finds that with each sip of water, Eddie feels a little bit more real to him, but no less otherworldly.
Eventually, the needle turns off for the last time, and Eddie guides him to stand. "I can't undo anything, but if you want anything added on, I absolutely can. I want you to leave the appointment today happy."
Buck thinks he will, actually, regardless of the tattoo. He knows he's actively bleeding right now, courtesy of thousands of pokes of a needle, but he feels a little more healed than he was when he was frozen at the building's stoop.
And there, in the mirror, Buck is breathless. The outline of a head with a heart where the brain should be; Buck thinks there's nothing that's felt more like him.
"It's perfect," he breaths.
He can see Eddie flush a pretty pink through the mirror. "I'm glad you like it."
"I'm glad it was you," Buck says, because he's been a little bit cracked open, and he can't help the way the earnestness seeps through. He shakes his head, righting himself. "Here, let me pay you."
He does pay Eddie, all in cash and with a healthy tip to finish it out. Eddie thanks him profusely, babbling gratitude through the application of the second skin, aftercare instructions, and all the way to the front door.
"Seriously, you don't need to tip that much," Eddie tells him, stopped just before the door. "It's unnecessary."
"You made me feel safe," Buck says simply, like that's all that matters. "Let me at least do something for that in exchange."
He stands then at an exit, at a precipice, at a beginning and end, with the potential to be either. And Buck is brave. He is. So he says, "Look, Eddie, you can absolutely tell me to fuck off if you want to and no harm done, but can I maybe take you out for dinner sometime? Maybe you could give me your world-famous rendition of Chicka Chicka Boom Boom."
Eddie breaks out into a grin, all wild and lopsided and full of heart, and oh, Buck is absolutely fucked. "Well, A told B and B told me that maybe I'd really enjoy a night out with the really endearing guy I just tattooed."
And Buck is gone on him before it's even begun, but that's okay; he's got plenty of time to find himself with Eddie by his side.