Chapter Text
Simon
Penny is hovering. She wants to speak with me.
She finished with her last client over an hour ago and is finding stupid jobs to do around the shop now. I swear, she’s emptied the same bin at least 3 times.
I wish she’d spit it out, I can talk and tattoo at the same time. Walk and chew gum, too. I mean, not at the same time I’m tattooing, but you know what I mean. I’m capable of multitasking. She could just say what she needs to say.
Which means what she has to say is something she can’t say in present company. Meaning the stranger I’m currently tattooing. Jane? I think her name is Jane. I’m crap with names.
I set my machine to the side, wipe the client’s arm clean, and snap off my gloves, launching them into the bin. Penny will be excited by that, now she can empty the bin for a fourth time!
“All finished. Want to have a look?” I ask, cracking the stiffness in my neck. We’ve been at this 4 hours now. Not continuously, but even with regular breaks my whole body feels stiff and awful.
This bit is always tricky for me. I have to come out of my tattooing fugue state and remember to be a professional.
I’m shit at being a professional.
Show them the finished work, Simon. Explain aftercare. Take photos. Get paid.
You’d be shocked how many times I forget one or more of the above.
I gesture to the mirror hanging on the exposed stone wall across the shop. The customer, Maybe-Jane, goes over to inspect my work.
“Shiiiiit,” she breathes.
I’m good. My work is tight. The colors on this piece sit beautifully against the client’s dark brown skin.
“You like it?”
“I love it. It’s incredible. Like, I knew it would be good, but this is…” She gets a bit sniffly. That happens sometimes. It can be a cathartic experience getting tattooed. Sometimes it all comes bubbling to the surface and you gotta cry it out. At least, that's what Ebb always said. Hell, sometimes she'd share the cathartic cry with the client.
I hold out the box of tissues I keep at my station. She takes a couple and blows her nose.
Penny comes around the corner to see what all the blubbering is about.
“Nice colors, Simon,” she says. “That’s gorgeous.”
“Thanks, Pen,” I unlock my phone. I will remember to get photos this time. I will. I will.
“Mind if I take some pictures? Just of the tattoo, no faces or anything.”
“Yeah, yeah, of course,” Probably-Jane says, before taking one last look at her arm in the mirror.
It’s a fairly large piece that takes up most of her upper arm. I wouldn’t call it a half sleeve, but it’s close. Full fantasy, of course, that’s my specialty. That’s what they travel for. Most-Likely-Jane came here for a pastel unicorn rearing up against a glowing sunset. Both the sun and the moon are out at once and there are subtle blazes of starlight and magic surrounding the body of the animal. I got the color of the magical blazes perfect, no outlines, just a beautiful mix from white to yellow that almost seems to sparkle on her skin.
That’s why my clients are willing to travel, that’s why they pay so much. I can make it look like there is living, breathing magic inked into their skin. I press my magic into them. Pushing it deep into their skin. I let them keep some of my magic forever.
Penny holds out her hand. “Here, let me. I know you hate this part.”
“Thanks, Pen. I don’t hate it, I’m just rubbish at it.”
Penny laughs, snapping on our ring light. “Go clean up your station.”
Penny and Definitely-Jane (she said her name to Penny!) chat as they take pictures. Then I hear Penny explain aftercare with her usual no-nonsense style.
“It will itch. You will want to scratch. Don’t. If you fuck it up by scratching I’ll know and I won’t let him touch it up for free. He’s nice. I’m mean. I’ll make you pay.”
“Got it, got it,” Jane laughs.
Penny even gloves back up and wraps the client’s arm before taking care of the payment and tip.
Christ, whatever she wants to talk about must be bad for her to do all that.
The bell on the door rings and Shepard comes in.
“Hey Simon! How’s life?”
“Pretty good! Just finishing up here, and I can tell Penny wants to talk with me about something Super Serious. Are you here as backup? So I won’t go off?”
“Ha! Yup. Nailed it.” Shepard flops down on Penny’s tattoo chair and pulls out his phone. We all met a few years ago at a tattoo convention in Omaha he helped organize. We had no clue why we were invited, but it felt big-time, until we actually got to Omaha and realized nobody in their right mind calls Omaha big-time.
Penny got Shepard from it, though, and we got to meet and tattoo some interesting people. All-in-all an 8/10 trip. (I was a bit let down by the Cheesecake Factory in all honesty. It was not a factory of cheesecake by any definition. And the chips were soggy.)
Penny sees my client to the door and swings the sign to closed.
“Alright, Penny, what is it?” I ask. She holds out a fat stack of bills for me. I don't bother counting them and lock them up in the cart at my work station to worry about tomorrow.
She sits down on her rolling chair and clears her throat.
“Simon, you’re my best friend in the entire world.”
“Are you two moving to the states?!”
“Hell no, my dude, the healthcares too good here! If Penny wants to move to the states she’s gonna be doing it on her own,” Shepard says, without looking up from his phone.
“Then what is it?” I ask, sitting down heavily on my own rolling stool. I roll closer to Penny, for some reason this feels like a conversation we should be close for, even if I don’t know what we’re talking about yet.
“You know how we’ve been discussing bringing in a third artist to the shop? Someone with a complementary style who could help round us out?” Penny’s voice sounds optimistic, but I know she’s hiding something.
“Aw, shit, it's an apprentice isn't it? We agreed no more apprentices after the Phillipa disaster.” I shake my head.
And what a disaster it was. Penny took her on as an apprentice, but you’d think we’d hired her to be my personal shadow. She was always in my business, underfoot, and uncomfortably creeping into my space. She was a step away from getting chucked out on her arse when she up and disappeared. Total and complete silence. She wouldn’t return any of Penny’s calls, wouldn’t respond to texts or emails, nothing. No communication. We knew she was fine because we saw her in Tesco a couple weeks after she ghosted us.
After that we both agreed, no more apprentices.
“He’s not an apprentice. He’s licensed. And good. Really fucking good, Simon. It’s kind of a big deal he even agreed to meet with us. He’s back in the UK looking for a shop to work out of, so I offered to let him come by and take a look.”
The bells above the shop door jangle.
“Sorry, shops closed, mate,” I call out before turning to see what idiot wandered in despite the closed sign clearly on the door.
I stand, and my rolling stool crashes to the floor at my feet.
Baz. Baz fucking Pitch.
Penny
Ok, so this is not going as badly as I thought it would. Nobody’s thrown a punch or invented a new combination of profanities so vile it’s made me throw up. They’re just standing there staring at one another.
“What the fuck is he doing here?” Simon growls.
Alright, so maybe it’s not going great, but it’s not as bad as it could be.
The last time these two were in a room together they nearly wound up at A&E. That’s been years though. Surely that’s all water under the bridge now? Surely.
Simon and Baz were roommates first year when we were all at art college and, disastrously, shared studio space next to one another. It ended about as horribly as humanly possible. They were petty and cruel. Simon broke the nose off a bust Baz was sculpting. Baz pushed Simon at the top of a staircase causing him to drop a finished canvas down the stairs, ripping a hole in it. Simon retaliated with a dead rat left in Baz’s box of oil paints. And the cycle continued. And continued...
In retrospect, perhaps this was a bad idea.
No. No, this was an excellent idea. These two idiots somehow both wound up working as tattoo artists, that has to mean something, right? It feels like a portent. Here Baz is, back in the country and looking for a space in which to work, us looking for a third anyway. It just makes sense.
Baz is clearly willing to put it all behind him. If I can just convince Simon to do the same.
“I said, what the fuck are you doing here?” Simon snarls again.
“Snow. You always were eloquent.” Baz raises his eyebrow at Simon before walking surely over to me and extending his hand.
“Lovely to see you, Bunce. Thank you for the invitation.”
“Nope!” Simon spits from where he’s standing. “I’m not having this.”
“Simon, please.” I try to make my voice forceful, not whiny. I thought we would be past this pettiness. I also thought Baz might be a little later. I did tell him 6:30pm and it’s barely a quarter past now. A little more time to get Simon ready might have been helpful, but the toothpaste is out of the tube now. The shit is out of the cat. Baz Pitch is in the studio.
“Simon, take a deep breath. We’re all adults, we’re all professionals. And—” I narrow my eyes at him, hoping I come off as intimidating, but worrying he sees through me. “We’re co-owners of this shop, so I have as much a right to invite someone here as you.”
Simon crosses his arms across his chest and continues to glare at Baz.
“This is my husband Shepard.” I gesture over my shoulder. Shepard jumps up and reaches out to shake Baz’s hand.
“Nice to meet you, Baz. I’m a big fan of your work.”
Baz holds Shepard’s hand, turning it over to look at the tattoos that crawl up his forearm and disappear under his shirt. I’m responsible for those. The black vines roping up his arms, interspersed with runes, all crisscrossing and weaving together until they reach his heart.
He’d been cursed with some truly hideous, disconnected tattoos on his arms. I brought it all together with the vines. He says I worked my magic on him. I just have an eye for it. I’m good with coverups. I’m good at reworking someone’s tragic ink into something beautiful.
“I’m a fan of your work as well,” Baz says, eyeing Shepard’s tattoos, before turning to smile at me.
I can’t help but smile and feel flattered. Baz was always very charming. To everyone but Simon, that is.
“So, this is the space. It’s not massive, but it’s a good size. Like I said in my message, we’re off the main road so we avoid most foot traffic, which I know you were interested in.”
Simon snorts. “You too good for walk-ins, Pitch?”
“You’re too good for walk-ins, Simon.” I shake my head at him before turning back to Baz. “We’re appointment only and have no plans of changing. We open our books quarterly and spots fill up fast.”
Baz nods. I know I’m bragging, but I deserve it. We deserve it. We’ve worked hard to get where we are. If I don’t toot our horn, who will?
“My waitlist for a cancellation is about 100 people deep at this point. Simon, what about yours?”
He’s still glaring at Baz, but he manages to unclench his jaw long enough to spit out the word “80.”
“Hmm, well, that’s big of you to admit yours isn’t as large as Bunce’s,” Baz responds archly, and Simon turns so red I’m surprised smoke doesn’t start pouring from his ears.
“Shepard assists with email and bookings sometimes, but mostly we handle our own social media, websites, and clientele.”
Baz nods. "I appreciate that autonomy."
“Let me show you the shop, then.”
I give him a tour, which doesn’t take long. It’s a modestly sized but extremely nice space. We’re an open floor-plan studio with some exposed stone walls and brickwork. There's lots of plants hanging from the ceiling and spilling down over the walls, or standing in tall pots helping separate our work spaces. Simon takes care of those. We have some of our framed prints and original art hanging around the shop, as well as shelving units with curios. Simon has an easel and we both have small drafting tables towards the back, which we use as our studio to work on our 2D art.
There’s a tall wooden bookcase towards the front waiting area with large art and reference books, and more plants. We have a teal velvet settee by the front window for waiting customers and their friends, and a small counter that holds our portfolios and a stack of business cards which we use when booking new clients or discussing art. There's a display rack up at the front which contains our art prints.
It’s a nice shop. It looks classy, it smells nice, and it’s clean. We appeal to a certain niche clientele. This is not the place your 16 year old cousin went for her tramp stamp of a butterfly. No flash. Nobody else’s art. Just us. Everything custom.
That’s all the stuff a client would care about though. Baz cares about how the sausage is made, so I show him our autoclave and sterilization equipment, the storage closet with spare cleaning supplies and overflow materials. He avoids looking in Simon’s direction, which is good since Simon is still giving off big “GET FUCKED” energy.
Baz nods and follows me around the shop, asking all the right questions about our cleaning rotation and supplies. I can tell he’s impressed when I show him the record books we keep for the autoclave and the cleaning schedule for the shop.
“Most everything is disposable now, but you know. We like to be safe.”
“Mmm, yes,” Baz nods, finally sparing a glance in Simon’s direction.
Simon’s flopped down on his tattoo chair now, not the rolling one he sits on when working on a client, but the plush chair for the client. He’s cranked it flat and is laying on his back, one leg splayed out over the side of the chair, arms behind his head. His shirt is rucked up a bit, revealing snatches of colorful tattoos on his stomach.
“Where do you envision me working?” Baz asks, looking around the shop.
“You know what I envision?” Simon starts. Oh no.
But he doesn’t continue. He rolls his head to the side to look at Baz, still laying down on his back. Still looking like he couldn’t give less of a fuck and yet somehow, simultaneously, giving all of the fucks.
The two hold eye contact for a long, tense moment, Simon where he’s laying, Baz where he’s standing.
“Perhaps this was a mistake,” Baz says, still staring at Simon.
“Yes, perhaps it was,” Simon replies.
“Please, guys, could we try to be civil? Could we at least consider this?” I plead. Shepard reaches out and squeezes my shoulder. I needed that. “No, you know what? We’re going to be better than civil. Simon, get out your iPad.”
“The fuck?”
“Get out your iPad, you’re going to look at Baz’s website. If his work doesn’t convince you, nothing will.”
Simon huffs and puffs and Shepard, helpfully, passes me my iPad with Baz’s website already loaded on it.
I love that man.
Simon
I know what Baz’s website looks like. I’ve seen his art. Of course I have.
It’s like everything else about Baz, isn’t it? Bloody brilliant. Perfect. Infuriating.
All he does is blackwork. His tattoos all look like etchings, like Albrecht Dürer woodcut prints. And it makes sense, because that’s what Baz does, his art form outside of tattooing: etchings. Printmaking.
I mean. Come on. Etchings? Etchings?! Who even does etchings anymore, other than Baz? How is that still an art form? Ridiculous posh wanker, can’t even paint in acrylic or oils like a normal person, has to do etchings on copper plates. What a berk.
His linework is otherworldly, though. I don’t know how he does it. How he manages to avoid massive blurring and fading when they heal is beyond me. I’ve seen pictures of his healed work and it’s still gorgeous, even his early stuff, even years later.
I’ve kept up with his career. I know he moved to Berlin to try and partner with a big gallery there for regular shows of his etchings. I know it didn’t work out, which is why he’s standing in my studio now.
This is why I didn’t want to look up Baz’s website on my iPad. They’d both see it was bookmarked. See his name in my search history.
It’s purely professional. Gotta study his stuff to see how he does it.
I look thoughtful and pretend I'm seeing his work for the first time. I nod as Penny points out things I’ve seen before. Baz is startlingly silent throughout.
I’ll give him a compliment. One. That’s all he’ll get from me.
“Your linework is precise.”
“Thank you, Snow.”
“Simon. My name’s Simon.”
Why does he never bother to use my first name? It’s obnoxious. Everything about Baz is. His obnoxious shiny black chelsea boots, his straight-legged black jeans that he probably gets tailored to fit like that. His stupid black jacket that's definitely designer and cost more than everything I’m wearing. Probably more than my best tattoo machine. At least his obnoxious hair looks better now, he used to slick it back when we were in school together. He’s letting it fall around his face in waves. It looks better that way. He looks more approachable.
Well, as approachable as he could possibly look being a completely pretentious artist who makes etchings and charged €200 an hour at the place he worked.
It's not far off from what Penny and I charge per hour, but still.
Penny is staring at me expectantly, a pleading look in her eye.
“Fine. But I’m not moving my shit around to make space for him.”
“Well. It’s yours if you want it,” Penny says, beaming at Baz.
Baz
It’s mine if I want it.
Well, Bunce, there’s an awful lot I want in this shop right now, so what exactly are you offering? A workspace? A job? A chance to start over? Another glimpse at the delicious curve of Simon Snow’s stomach as he lays prone before me?
Yes to all of the above, please.
Crowley, this is a terrible idea.