Chapter Text
"You’re telling me you’ve never drawn a single thing on yourself?" Nesta leaned across the kitchen island, eyebrows arched as she flicked a stray fleck of blood off Emerie’s shoulder. "Not even a stupid little heart?"
Emerie rolled her eyes, twisting the cap off her beer with a practiced flick of her wrist. "Why would I? It’s not like my soulmate’s out there doodling masterpieces for me." She took a swig, the cold bite of the drink cooling her earlier win. She hadn’t bothered taking the bloodied wraps off her knuckles. The euphoria was just too good to give up. “Plus, doesn’t it have to be painful as fuck?"
Who the fuck needed romance when they had lines of people to get beat up?
Across the room, Gwyn snorted from where she was sprawled on the couch. "Bullshit," She said, tossing a crumpled energy bar wrapper at Emerie’s head. "You’re just scared they’ll judge your terrible handwriting."
Emerie caught the wrapper mid-air without looking and flicked it back at Gwyn with a smirk. "Handwriting? Please. My soulmate's probably some accountant who'd faint if I drew a dick on my arm." She stretched her legs under the counter, her bare feet brushing against Nesta's shin. "Besides, you really think some cosmic ink pen is gonna magically make my life better? Nah. I'll stick to things that actually exist, like my left hook."
Gwyn sat up so fast her hair nearly gave her whiplash. "That's because you've never tried!" She scrambled off the couch, nearly tripping over a dumbbell left haphazardly by the coffee table. "My cousin's best friend's roommate met her soulmate last year, she banged her pinky toe on something and wrote a recipe on her leg on the same day, and she freaked out when she got a response on her arm. They're married now."
Nesta rolled her eyes but didn't interrupt, lazily swirling her wine. Emerie snorted. "Sounds like a terrible rom-com.”
“You have to agree with Gwyn though. It does exist.” Nesta scrolled through her phone screen, then held it up with a smirk. A photo of her sister’s forearm filled the display, in elegant handwriting spelling 'stop stealing my sweaters'. Below it, in different handwriting, 'never' was scrawled in what looked like eyeliner. "Exhibit A, Feyre Archeron." Nesta said dryly.
Emerie squinted. "Could be just written by her." She traced a faint scar on her knuckles before finally muttering, "Even if they're real, they're gonna be impossibly rare. " She flicked the beer cap between her fingers in habit. "You really think I’m gonna waste time doodling on my skin for some godly lottery ticket?"
Nesta didn’t even glance up from her wine. "You say that like you wouldn’t lose your shit if your soulmate did draw something on you."
Gwyn, now perched on the counter defying physics, gasped dramatically. "Oh my gods, imagine if they did! Right now, while we’re sitting here! What if—"
Emerie cut her off with a sharp wave of her hand. "What if I go get a tattoo right now for celebration?"
Nesta coughed into her wine, a small lack of composure. "You're joking."
"I never joke about tattoos," Emerie cut in smoothly, already sliding off the stool. Her bare feet hit the linoleum with a smack. "Come on, Nesta. You've been nagging me about 'expressing myself' for years. What's more expressive than a full-back piece?"
Gwyn nearly toppled off the counter from the comical shock on her face, almost in horror. "You're not serious."
Emerie rolled her shoulders, feeling the muscles pop in her back, with a laugh, already halfway to the door. "Dead serious. Let's go before I chicken out." She grabbed her leather jacket off the hook, shrugging it on while Nesta and Gwyn exchanged a long, silent look behind her back.
"Fucking finally," Nesta muttered under her breath. She snatched her keys off the table with a sly grin that really made Gwyn remember what happened last time she had flashed that devilish smile. "I know a place. It’s no walk-ins, but the owner owes me a favor."
Gwyn scrambled after them, shuddering at the memory, "Wait—you can't just—what design are you even getting?" she yelped, hopping on one foot as she tried to yank her sneaker on.
"What design?" Emerie threw open the front door, the hinges groaning in protest. "Does it matter?"
Gwyn nearly face-planted into the doorframe, one sneaker half-on. "Uh, YES?"
"Something that PR won’t kill me for," Emerie called over her shoulder, already halfway down the stairs, eyes lighting up with a devilish idea that made Gwyn’s head alarms go off. "Or something that'll make the maniacs scream next match."
Maniacs as in fans. Or more specifically, the lesbians.
"No need to feed them," Nesta snorted, slamming the car door behind her as they piled into her shiny Koenigsegg, a gift from her sister for saving childbirth or some shit like that. "They're already unhinged."
Gwyn twisted around from the passenger seat, her knee digging into the center console. "You realize tattoos are permanent, right? Like, forever permanent? What if your soulmate's bond's active?" Her face morphs into comedic horror. "What if they’re allergic to ink?"
Nesta snorted. "Yeah, Emerie’s soulmate wakes up covered in ink and their first thought is ‘ah yes, histamine response.’"
Emerie smirked, drumming her fingers against the car window. "Perfect. If they’re dumb enough to panic about tattoo allergies, I don’t want ‘em."
"Alright, let's get this over with," Nesta said, tossing her keys onto the counter of the tattoo parlor with a clatter. The shop smelled faintly of antiseptic, the walls covered in flash art of floral, animals, shapes and patterns and surprisingly an oddly out of place soup sketch. Emerie side-eyed Nesta as her eyes glanced at the poster, but Nesta rolled her eyes and muttered, “Don’t ask.” The artist, some burly guy geometric tattoos along his forearm barely glanced up from his phone before recognizing Nesta and dropping the phone immediately, straightening his posture a little and standing up. “Welcome ladies. How’re we doing?”
Nesta looked at him up and down. “Fine. Where is he?”
His eyes furrowed in question, pausing as a look of puzzlement crossed his face. A look of recognition and something else passed his face, “Ah, boss’s out today unfortunately.”
“Well tell him to come back.” Nesta’s tone ate and left no crumbs.
He gulped. “Well…yes—alright, of course, I’m sure he’ll understand for his lover–.”
“His what?”
“Lover. He said—”
“Oh fuck—no. No. No. We’re not—” For the first time Emerie’s ever seen Nesta, her composure was broken, almost comedic expressions flashing across her face like an emoji powerpoint. Eventually, she just gave up, dragging a hand over her face and sighed into her palm. “Tell him I’ll kill him if he doesn’t get here in ten.” She walked away to sit in the lobby area, crossing her arms.
“Oof,” Emerie whistled. “Well, you know, there’s a river in Egypt…” Even though she didn’t know the man, she’d already decided she liked the audacity. Whoever made Nesta Archeron pissed off was on her gold star list.
Gwyn snorted and leaned in closer, like enjoying some tasty gossip. “She didn’t deny it though.”
Emerie smirked. “So she’s in loooove.” She dragged out the o in a sing-song way, just to ragebait Nesta.
“Shut up.” Nesta’s voice echoed from across the room, annoyed.
Gwyn rolled her eyes. “She’s embarrassed.”
Emerie chuckled before looking back at the employee. “So…does that mean we have to wait for him or…?”
The employee shifted uncomfortably, sending a spark of glee through Emerie. Oh, how she just loved to make men uncomfortable. “No, no, of course not. He’ll be here shortly—no worries. But I could get started whenever you’d want.”
Emerie shrugged. “Alright.”
Gwyn sighed before leaning against the counter. “Are you sure about this?”
Emerie looked at her with a smirk. “Yep.”
Gwyn elbowed her ribs. "No second thoughts?"
"Nah," Emerie joked, rolling her shoulders like she was stepping into the ring. "Just thinking about how pissed my lil soulmate's gonna be when they wake up tomorrow with a gorgeous masterpiece plastered across their back. They should thank me instead of being mad. It’s a free tattoo, for god’s sake." She put air bubbles around the 'soulmate' sarcastically.
Gwyn groaned, pressing her hands to her face. "Oh gods, what if they're like...a preschool teacher? Or a CEO? Or—"
"Or a celebrity?" Nesta cut in, strolling across the room with a binder of sketches in her hand. "Imagine waking up with some stranger's ink sprawled across your back right before a photoshoot."
Emerie scoffed half-heartedly, already shrugging off her jacket. "If they're a celebrity, they can afford laser removal."
Gwyn rolled her eyes. "Think about your soulmate."
Emerie rolled her eyes back at her. "Oh please. It would be some dumbass shit luck to have your weird bond get activated by a tattoo."
"So, what’ll it be?" the tattoo artist cut in, wiping his hands on a clean towel before pulling out a sketchbook. "Got something in mind, or you wanna browse the flash?"
Cassian, apparently who was the ‘boss’ and ‘Nesta’s denied love’, was unavailable for the week. Which pissed the latter off to no end, unsurprisingly.
Emerie leaned over the counter, her fingers drumming against the glass display. "Something that’ll piss off my nonexistent soulmate."
Nesta settled on flipping through a binder of designs. "How about a dagger through a rose?"
"Nah, too cliché," Emerie scoffed, flipping past the page.
Gwyn snatched the binder from Nesta’s hands. "If we're going through this, we might as well just design it ourselves."
Gwyn grabbed a A4 piece of paper from the tattoo artist's counter. "Okay, okay—just hear me out," she said, already sketching rough down the center of the page. "Imagine this: a spine. Not like, a literal spine, idiot." She directed the last sentence at Nesta’s suspicious expression, glaring back at her side-eye.
Nesta leaned over her shoulder. ”Add wings," she murmured, tapping the paper. "But not angel wings. Like you know, yeah, yeah there."
Emerie snorted, but she was already peering at the sketch, her arms crossed over her chest. "You two are ridiculous." Still, she nudged Gwyn's elbow. "Put a heart at the bottom."
The needle’s final buzz faded into the hum of the shop’s overhead lights. Emerie exhaled through her teeth, her fingers unclenching from the edges of the tattoo chair. "Done?" she muttered, her voice rough like she’d been holding her breath for hours, in which, she pretty much had.
The artist wiped a final streak of ink from her skin with a damp paper towel, then leaned back to admire his work. "Done," he confirmed, tossing the towel into the bin with a wet plop. "Feel free to go look before I bandage it."
Emerie stood with a groan, her back pulsing in time with an ache as she shuffled toward the full-length mirror propped against the wall, grabbing the towel provided to cover her chest. Nesta and Gwyn crowded behind her, their reflections wide-eyed in the glass.
Emerie twisted slightly to get a better look, and then she froze.
A fucking masterpiece.
"Wait until the maniacs see this," Nesta said, grinning as she leaned closer to the mirror. "They're gonna lose their goddamn minds."
Gwyn smacked her arm. "Stop objectifying her."
"I'm not," Nesta shot back. "I'm appreciating art."
"Okay, but seriously," Gwyn whispered, her breath hot against Emerie's shoulder as they huddled around the mirror, "what if your soulmate wakes up tomorrow with that staring back at them in their bathroom mirror?"
"Assuming they're real," Emerie directed a pointed, unimpressed side eye at Gwyn, "They'll probably think they got blackout drunk and made terrible life choices," Emerie muttered, twisting further to admire the intricate wings spanning her shoulders. "Which, honestly, same."
Nesta snorted, tapping her phone against her palm. "I'm saving this and selling it for big bucks."
ps: i imagined it smth like this:
