Work Text:
“Hey. Are you getting up today, hon?”
Max started to mumble a response, but was startled by a hand touching her shoulder. Her eyes snapped open to see wide, green irises looking at her inquiringly. She scanned the girl sitting on the edge of the bed and noticed that Rachel hadn’t done her makeup yet and was still wearing just the underwear and old button-down she’d worn to bed last night. Chloe, who normally slept on that side of the bed, was nowhere in sight.
“Good morning,” Rachel chuckled. “Didn’t mean to scare you.”
Max brushed her bangs out of her face and rubbed her eyes. “What time is it?”
“About noon. So I guess I should’ve said ‘good afternoon.’” Rachel pulled the corner of the blanket back to lie down next to Max. After snuggling in close, she continued, “Chloe was going to wake you up when she left for work, but I told her to leave you alone. She’ll probably come home on her lunch break anyway”
Right. That’s where Chloe was. At her new job at the tattoo and piercing shop down the street. Rachel’s parents couldn’t help pay the rent forever, after all, and Chloe was stuck with a photographer and a model who were both waiting on calls for possible work opportunities.
“We have the whole place to ourselves. What kind of crazy shit should we get up to?” Rachel asked before kissing Max’s forehead softly.
Max resisted the urge to say, “You could keep kissing me if you want. That’s something we could do.” Instead, she muttered, “I’m not really a ‘crazy’ kind of person.”
“Don’t I know it.” Rachel kissed Max’s cheek, then traveled to her neck. As she planted one more peck right above Max’s collarbone, she let her hand slide up Max’s shirt and to her rib cage.
Max buried her face in the crook of Rachel’s neck. She was getting more and more used to Rachel’s affinity for physical affection. The girl couldn’t go for a few minutes without touching Max, Chloe, or both of them. She was the reason they’d all started sleeping in the same bed every night, despite each having their own room in the apartment (not that Max or Chloe was complaining about it).
“You should get a tattoo right here,” Rachel murmured as she slowly rubbed her thumb over Max’s ribs. “And now Chloe can do it for you.”
Max shrugged- or she shrugged the best she could while lying down and having another person practically on top of her. “What would I even get a tattoo of?”
“Hmm. I don’t know.” Rachel moved back slightly and propped her elbow up so that she could rest her head on her free hand. “Maybe something to do with photography? Maybe a little Polaroid picture?”
It wasn’t a bad idea at all. Max was just hesitant after hearing Chloe talk about why the rib cage was one of the most painful parts of the body to get tattooed. “You have to get your first one somewhere where your skin is thick. Ribs, wrists and ankles hurt like a bitch,” she’d explained.
Rachel didn’t care to think about which tattoo placements would hurt the most. She was still talking a million miles a minute. “Would a pretty scenery picture be too basic? Oh, you like animals! You should pick a favorite and have that be what the photo is of!”
“I’ll think about it,” Max promised. She started to stretch and mentally prepare herself to get out of bed for the day, but Rachel pulled her hand away from Max’s side and held it up.
“Wait a sec, let me do something.”
She sat up and reached for something on the nightstand. When she turned back, Max realized it was a marker from her stationary set that she'd left there.
“Wanna see what it would look like?” Rachel asked the question so fast, it almost sounded like a single long word.
“Sure, let’s see your art skills.” Max trusted Rachel’s drawing ability enough, and she wasn’t about to turn down the offer when she was looking back at her with those pleading eyes.
Rachel grabbed the corner of the blanket and dramatically threw it to the other side of the bed, so that it was no longer covering them. She moved down the bed slightly and gently pulled Max’s sleep shirt up to her bra line.
Max must’ve made an involuntary sound of some sort, because Rachel suddenly looked up and gently asked, “You okay, Maxie?”
Max nodded quickly. She wasn’t about to admit that the feeling of Rachel’s soft, delicate fingers brushing against her stomach was giving her some other, more intimate thoughts.
She watched as Rachel pulled the marker cap off with her teeth and, with it still hanging on the edge of her mouth, began her masterpiece.
Max shivered as Rachel carefully drew a square for the inside of the photograph, right where Max’s ribs met her stomach. The border around it came next. That was the easiest part.
Rachel let the cap fall into her lap so she could ask, “Did you think of something to put in it?”
“I like your suggestion about using an animal,” Max replied. “Can you draw a deer?”
“Hell yeah, I can draw a deer for you.”
Rachel went back to marking, and Max went back to observing. It was cute how Rachel would get so enthusiastic about even the smallest ideas. It was one of the things Max admired most about her.
“This might look kind of weird,” Rachel remarked. “A Sharpie is thicker than a needle and this is not that big of a space for me to work with.” She paused to survey what she’d done so far. “What if I made the deer’s head peek out of the photo a little bit?’’
“Like an optical illusion?”
“Exactly.”
After a moment, Max leaned her head back and closed her eyes, letting herself be relaxed by the sound of Rachel’s humming in her ears and the feeling of their makeshift tattooing utensil on her skin. Given enough time, she could’ve fallen back to sleep like that.
Suddenly the light scratch of the marker stopped and Max felt movement on the bed. She opened her eyes to find that Rachel’s face was now right above hers, and she had her hands on either side of Max’s abdomen.
“Hey, pretty girl. Are you going to check out your new ink or are you too sleepy?”
“I’ll look,” Max assured. “You have me trapped, though.”
“Is that really so bad?” Rachel asked as she retreated back to her previous spot.
“I guess not.”
Max had to sit up halfway to get a good look. Just as she’d said, Rachel had drawn a doe slightly outside of the photo’s outline, strategically placing the nose right at the edge of it so the line wouldn’t be visibly going through its face. She’d added a couple of other things as well: a bird perched on the top of the photograph and a butterfly, complete with a dotted trail behind it, flying near the doe’s face. It didn't look bad at all, despite Rachel's worry.
“I gave her some friends.” Rachel pointed to each of the extra creatures she’d added to the design. “Anyways, it’s cute, right?”
“Very cute,” Max agreed. She ran her hand over the ink and thought about what it would look like if she got it tattooed for real. Maybe a little bit of pain would be worth having something one of her girlfriends had designed on her body. Or she could move it to a different spot, somewhere the skin was “thicker,” like Chloe had told her.
Satisfied with her work, Rachel laid herself down next to Max again. “I should do this for a living if modeling doesn’t work out,” she mused.
“Modeling will work out,” Max told her. “You’re a natural in front of a camera.”
“That is the best compliment a girl could receive from Max Caulfield.” Rachel placed an arm over Max’s stomach and pulled her closer. “And you're right, it has to work, so we can be the photographer-and-her-subject dynamic duo.”
“Right.” Max didn’t point out that many of her recent photos were of Rachel anyway. And most of the ones that didn’t feature Rachel were of Chloe. She didn’t need to be a professional photographer yet to see the beauty in the people around her, and Rachel didn’t need to be a professional model to BE beautiful.
The two of them sat in comfortable silence for a few moments before a sound elsewhere in the apartment made them jump. Both girls relaxed again when they heard Chloe’s voice call out, “Anyone home?”
“We’re in Max’s room!” Rachel yelled back.
A few seconds later the bedroom door swung open and Chloe walked in, taking about two steps before she stopped and asked, “Am I interrupting something?”
Max realized the hem of her shirt was still halfway up her torso. She quickly moved to pull it back down, but Rachel gently grabbed her hand to stop her from doing so.
“Chlo! Opinions on my awesome idea that Max went with because she loves me?”
Chloe kicked her boots off and sat down cross-legged on the bed. “That’s rad as hell. Very fitting for you,” she told Max. She squinted at the image. “Did you guys use the marker I used to graffiti the school bathroom with?”
“No, dumbass.” Rachel playfully shoved Chloe’s arm. “It’s from a stationary set. We’re not animals.”
“Debatable.” Chloe turned her attention back to Max. “So, are you thinking about getting it done for real?”
Max shrugged as she freed her hand from Rachel’s grasp and finally pulled her shirt down. “I don’t know. It’s gonna be a commitment and a pain.”
Rachel suddenly perked up again. “Oh my god, you know what you should do?”
“Another one of your ideas?” Max asked tentatively.
“When you were a kid, did you ever do those temporary tattoos that were supposed to be waterproof?”
“Holy shit, I forgot about those,” Chloe said thoughtfully. “I did them all the time, but I could never convince Max to do them with me because she was scared they wouldn’t ever come off.”
“We were eight! Eight-year-olds don’t know anything!” Max exclaimed.
Rachel giggled and poked at Max’s rib, causing Max to laugh a little bit as well. “What I was saying,” she continued, “Was that you could do that. It lasts longer than just drawing on your skin normally, so you could see if you actually like having a tattoo there. If you get bored of it, you know not to get it done for real.”
“And if not, come down to the shop,” Chloe added as she laid down on the other side of Max from where Rachel was. “I think I can give out friends-and-family discounts after I’ve worked there for three months.”
“Speaking of the shop, how is it so far?” Rachel asked.
“Glad you asked, I’ve already got a couple of things to bitch about.”
It looked like Max wasn’t getting out of bed and getting ready any time soon. She really couldn’t complain, though. Getting to be in between the two people she loved most wasn’t a bad deal.
Researching how to do waterproof temporary tattoos would have to come later.