A/N: I'm getting carried away with this AU, and I love it. Thank you to everyone who has taken time to read any of my fics. It's appreciated so much! If any of you are interested, I have two tattoos (or four done in two sessions) and twelve piercings.
Body Art
He isn't steady with the machine. It's the first thing Ludwig notices, but he doesn't particularly care. Feliciano is really just the shop boy, and doesn't want to be anything else. He enjoys art and can create beautiful designs, but he's so nervous with the tattoo machine that he doesn't think he can bring himself to ink them onto the skin of others. He prefers to draw them and leave the rest of the work to Berwald, who is gentle and can recreate Feliciano's designs with surprising ease. Ludwig is also a tattoo artist, but only tattoos mechanical or more technical designs. One of his arms is a sleeve of cogs and wires, almost like an arm of a robot. Ludwig designed them all himself; his other sleeve is wire and torn cloth, which his lover had designed while the two of them watched a rather violent war film one night. However, this isn't about creating beautiful designs or a new sleeve. Today, Ludwig wants Feliciano to leave a permanent mark on him.
Normally they try to persuade customers that a partner's name isn't the best idea to have inked. As easy as it is to find something to cover it up with, the problem is remembering that failed relationship has still been marked on your skin at one point. Not everybody can move on from that. However, Ludwig and Feliciano have been together one way or another for most of their lives. If things were to go wrong now, having something that the Italian had designed on his skin forever would be the least of the German's problems. He has faith in them though; he finds it difficult to express, but he loves Feliciano. Right now, as the other's shaking hand twists the machine across his skin, he hopes the other understands that offering up part of his skin for the Italian to leave ink on is the best way he can express his feelings.
Feliciano is scared about tattooing. He thinks he'd be scared of being tattooed or pierced if he had never met Ludwig, but it all seemed so natural now. He loves the look on Ludwig's face when the needle is on his skin, creating the latest cog or wire towards his beloved robotic sleeve. Every so often, as he dabbed the needle back into the small pot of ink, he'd look up to smile at his boyfriend. The German would look back with half-lidded eyes, hinting that this was his idea of heaven. Looking back down, Feliciano's eyes glanced over the slight bulge in Ludwig's trousers. Later would be interesting; Ludwig kind of had a thing for pain. Finishing the final line, he switches off the borrowed machine and decides it's time to admire his handiwork. He isn't disappointed.
There they were. The buzz of the tattoo had machine faded and Feliciano was finished. Ludwig looked at his leg, finding a detailed heart on his left leg. How the Italian managed to make something so simple look so beautiful he would never know, but it was wonderful. Reaching down to stroke the skin above the tattooed part, he found himself smiling.
Feliciano smiled at the tattoo, and then at Ludwig. Now his partner would always be able to take a piece of his heart with him wherever he went.