Color My Life with the Chaos of Trouble

Olivia has this tendency to spontaneously decide to drag Ash along with her to random places, whether or not he actually has any interest in going. She claims it’s because she likes the company, but Ash suspects that she’s just trying to find new ways to annoy him (he loves her, though, very dearly, as best friends do). It’s on one of these particular days that Olivia determines she wants to get another tattoo, and of course, since it seems her life goal is to transform him into a remotely more social being, she kidnaps him and makes him accompany her even though all he really wants to do is relax and watch TV and catch up on his reading on his day off.

“I’m tired,” he complains when Olivia tries to persuade him.

“You can sleep when we get back,” she reasons. “This won’t take all day, y’know.”

Ash makes a face and Olivia’s face falls into a pout. Her eyes are wide and she’s making this adorable puppy dog expression at him, and Ash can feel his will cracking. He can never manage to say no when she’s looking at him like that.

“Please?” she asks.

Ash sighs and gives Olivia an exasperated look. “Fine,” he agrees, mostly just to get her to stop bugging him about it.

Olivia cheers victoriously and tells him that her appointment is at two. Ash grumbles to himself and buries his nose in his worn and battered copy of The Great Gatsby, which he’s currently rereading for something like the tenth time. He also has an essay to write, which he technically could use as an excuse to get out of going with Olivia, but he doesn’t really want to write that at all, so he decides to put that off till later.

At around one-thirty, Olivia drags Ash up and ushers him off to actually get dressed (he usually just sits around the apartment in sweatpants and a hoodie) and then they head out and Olivia hums cheerily, linking her arm with his. The tattoo place isn’t far, just a fifteen or twenty minute walk from their apartment building, and the weather’s nice, so Olivia insists that they walk.

“You could get a tattoo too,” Olivia suggests on their way there. “Weren’t you talking about getting one the other day?”

Ash shrugs. “I think I remember saying I wasn’t sure about it,” he says. He’s been entertaining the idea of getting a tattoo for a while now, actually, but that’s all it is, an idea, something he considers every now and again but nothing solid (with the proper persuasion, however, he could probably decide to get it and not regret it one bit).

“Well, you should,” Olivia insists. “This guy’s really cool and he’s so awesome at doing tattoos. He did my last tattoo, you know.”

Ash shrugs again and says he’ll consider it, and Olivia looks satisfied enough with that, probably knowing she’ll be able to talk him into it once they get there. Ash makes a mental note not to let her because he’s letting her talk him into way too many things these days, and he’s pretty sure that’s not really a good thing.

The tattoo shop Olivia brings him to is just this little place, something you probably wouldn’t notice if you weren’t looking for it. It’s small, and the walls of the waiting area are covered in a mural of bright colors and fantastical designs. There’s a girl sitting behind the counter reading a comic book, her feet propped up on the counter, and she looks vaguely familiar to Ash, but he can’t quite place where he’s seen her before.

The girl glances up from her comic book when Ash and Olivia walk in and smiles at them then she calls over her shoulder to the back room, “Lucky, your two o’clock is here.”

There’s a pause and then a voice shouts back, “’Kay. And I thought I told you not to call me that.”

The girl giggles and looks over her comic book at them. “He’ll just be a minute,” she says to them. She’s wearing a pair of black motorcycle boots.

A few minutes pass and Olivia chatters on about something or another and the girl behind the counter keeps reading her comic book, humming quietly to herself. Ash still can’t figure out why she looks so familiar. Then the door to the back room opens and some guy walks out with a bandage wrapped around his bicep, evidence of a fresh tattoo, and there’s someone walking right behind him, presumably the guy who owns this place, ushering him out with a cheery smile.

“Aja, I’ve told you a million times; get your feet off the counter,” the tattoo shop owner says, and Ash is a little in shock.

It’s because this guy’s tall and his skin is tan and his hair is black and his eyes are very, very blue. It’s because he speaks around a smirk and the almost flirty swing in his voice and he has letters tattooed on his knuckles. It’s because he’s Lucian, and Ash doesn’t know what to do now that they’re running into each other outside of the coffee shop (and suddenly Ash knows why the girl behind the counter looks so familiar too, because she came to Jitters that one day when Lucian couldn’t make it).

“Hi Olivia,” Lucian grins, and then his eyes flick to Ash and one of his eyebrows arches upwards. He sounds rather pleasantly surprised when he says, “Ash.”

Ash can feel Olivia’s eyes on him when Lucian says this. He can feel her gaze, heavy with the notion that this must be the guy that Ash has been obsessing over for the past few weeks; there’s no one else this could be.

“It’s funny not seeing you dressed like a barista,” Lucian comments and he smiles like it’s a good thing. “Have you come to get a tattoo as well?”

“No,” Ash says quickly at the same time Olivia says, “Yes.”

Ash glares at Olivia, who looks at him with an expression that screams are you serious? Olivia sighs and looks at Lucian imploringly.

“He has this really cool design; he just needs some convincing,” she says, and Ash hates the way her voice is brimming with innuendo on that last part. Except for maybe he doesn’t hate her because then Lucian smirks and his eyes are shimmering with the same tone as Olivia’s voice.

“I’ll see what I can do,” Lucian says to Olivia. He motions behind him and says, “Why don’t you guys come on back, and I’ll see if I can talk Ash into it, okay Olivia?”

Olivia grins victoriously at Ash as if she’s already won, which maybe she has because Ash isn’t one hundred percent sure he’ll be able to say no to Lucian for long.