Shit. That's how Derrick's life was going after the accident. Hazy memories and scars he didn't need were splintering what was left of what he did remember. Derrick's tattoo shop seemed to get along just fine without him, his magic abilities were sh...
I looked up from the computer desk to see a tall man looking in the doorway of the tattoo store. The sunlight was bright enough behind his back that I had to hold up a hand to block the light, squinting at his silhouette. He walked closer to me and sighed deeply, a slight tremor in his voice.
"I want a tattoo."
I opened up our google doc scheduling sheet on the computer, typing quickly, "And what kind of tattoo would you like? We have a reference binder if you can't make up your mind."
He was staring intently at me, an icy blue gaze seeing through me. The hair at the back of my neck rose as I waited for him to say something.
The man looked...hollow if I could phrase it correctly. He didn't blink nearly as often enough as a normal person and his hair was so blond as to be white. It looked like an awful dye job. His brows were thick and dark along with his five o clock shadow.
"I want you to do it." He said quietly looking at me and then my hands, "I want a magic imbued one."
I hesitated, I wasn't officially back at doing tattoos yet. But I had been making some stencils...opening up my portfolio. Someone who would let me ink whatever I wanted sounded tempting. "Well, the magic imbued tattoos aren't cheap." I said, hoping he couldn't afford it.
He pursed his lips into a hard flat line still not blinking. "Money isn't a problem. Whatever you do I want it on my rib cage."
I flinched, "That'll be painful."
He blinked slowly, lips twitching in a humour I didn't understand, "I don't mind pain."
Okay. Was the money really worth it? There were a couple pain junkies who came in every now and then and I hated having to deal with them. They didn't want local anaesthetic and they always got tattoos in weird places. Ever since I'd created the temporary magic tattoos, some of them came in pretty often to get re-inked with the needle. I made Afi deal with those ones, at least they tipped nicely. For the most part though, Chrissa and I still got the big clients. I wondered if this guy would be a big client.
"Do you have anything in your portfolio that hasn't been done yet? I want an original."
I took out the laminated binder and handed it over to him, "the ones without any captions haven't been done."
He sat down in the seat, looking as much at the binder as much as he was looking at me.
"It's really great work you do." he said softly. "I'm excited to have your touch on my body."
This felt super weird. He looked up at me again, and pointed at the page, "I want this one." He lifted the book to show me a mechanical rib cage tattoo. It looked like an exposed view of a rib cage with metal and gears as opposed to bone and blood. If it were magic imbued the gears would turn beautifully.
# Writer's Note - An idea of the tattoo-> [source](https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/434245589052621327/)
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