When he first saw her, he was intrigued.
She was so different to every other girl. Perhaps it was the sarcastic smirk or the overload of black eyeliner or the tattoos.
It was her sixteenth birthday when she first got a tattoo (much to her mother's displeasure). The roses on her shoulder, for her mother. The mother who had never left her side when her father walked out on them, the mother who had supported her and promised to support her, always.
(When her father saw it, he had flipped out. And she had yelled right back, saying that he was the one who left her and she could do what she want. That hadn't been the most pleasant conversation the pair had ever had.)
That was her first tattoo. And she had many more.
Some were visible.
Some were not.
It was their first night together that Jesse traced his fingers over them, making her shiver under the sheet.
His fingers lightly danced over her bare ribcage, and she squirmed sleepily. "What's this one for, Becs?" he said gently.
"Lyrics", she murmured. "There's lyrics on my ribs and on my back. Music made me stronger, when my father left".
The grasshopper tattoo on her wrist made him wonder. Because, as far as he knew, Beca steered clear from all things remotely bug-like (her scream that had reverberated around the station when she saw a spider- a large one, at that- was not something he'd ever forget).
"Its symbolism", she told him, and he raised an eyebrow at her. "Grasshoppers symbolise moving forward and good luck, and they can only move forward. Like kangaroos".
(If he asked why she didn't get a kangaroo tattooed on her wrist, she would potentially hurt him.)
(Beca Mitchell was deeper than he realised.)
"That was my second tattoo", she said as an afterthought, yawning slightly.
Every tattoo that inked her skin she explained that night, Jesse tracing over it and inking it into his memory. He never wanted to forget that night, and he knew that he never would. She might be blind to her beauty, but he was not.
The headphone tattoo was fairly obvious, and he ran his fingers over it. The headphones around her neck caught his attention from the backseat of his parents' car, where he serenaded her (and she wasn't going to let him forget it. Although, she sang in front of a crowd what was essentially their song, but God help him if he brought that up), and she knew it.
"Music is your true love, isn't it?" he said softly, and she shook her head, merely blinks away from the throes of sleep.
"No", she mumbled. "No, it's not. It used to be". She wriggled closer to him and he pressed a kiss to the rose on her shoulder. "It used to be, but now you are. I love you, Jesse".
He loved her too. He loved her so much that it hurt.
(That moment was inked to into his memory, and his heart.)