There's a German Shepherd with a bone between it's teeth on Vic's upper arm and below it, five digits that Eddie knows better than to ask about. If you ain't a number in the can you're never gonna be more than a number on the outside. You can practically smell it on Vic, on anyone who gets out of hard time without picking up any extra scars. Spend too much time keeping yourself to yourself where possible and you lose the ability to speak up.

Vic hasn't lost much else. He clearly made use of his exercise hours and he still scares the shit out of pretty much anyone meeting him for the first time, he just does it with fewer words. If anything, prison made him a better criminal.

"You sure you know how to do this?" Eddie doesn't take his eyes off the dog tattoo as Vic approaches with the brand spanking new tattoo needle he's just bought himself.

Vic shrugs. "More or less."

"What does more or less mean? You either know it or you don't, so which is it?"

"I know what I'm doing." Vic plucks a cigarette from his top pocket and lights up, settling himself on the stool next to Eddie's chair.

Eddie shaved his fucking arm for this. Up close, the needle looks frighteningly large though, the black ink rippling softly in the cartridge.

The tip of the needle brushes against his skin. Vic spares him a last glance, just to be sure he's not about to pussy out and Eddie knows he wouldn't grant anyone else the same courtesy.

"Wait!" Eddie shrieks, the second before the thing turns on. "Hold up, so you were using these things inside, yeah?"

Vic shakes his head. "Nothing so precise as this." He gestures to the dog on his upper arm. "Guy gave me this with a paper clip."

"So you don't really know what you're doing with that thing?"

"Eddie you gotta stop being such a little bitch about this. It's a fucking tattoo, it ain't like I'm trying to amputate your leg over here."

"Ink's just as permanent."

Vic breaks into a lazy half grin and winks at him. Eddie doesn't have time to blush before the needle first pierces his skin.

It's simultaneously more and less painful than Eddie was anticipating. The first couple of minutes sting like a bitch and then he kind of gets used to it, letting his mind go blank and his skin go numb. Vic's attention is glued firmly on his work, stopping the needle every now and then to take a drag on his cigarette.

There's something kinda intimate about the way he's zeroed in on Eddie's arm, his free hand coming up to steady his subject. Eddie takes a careful breath and wishes this weren't happening in his living room. The place is too small, cramming the two of them together like Vietnamese whores in a cargo crate.

Vic doesn't ask how he's doing, he doesn't ask if it hurts. Eddie's not sure he would have, even before prison. But he glances down and sees the picture taking shape, just the way he planned, and he knows that there's plenty of guys out there who wouldn't have been so lucky.

By the time Vic is done, Eddie's dick is half hard at the skin to skin contact and for lack of anything better to do. On his arm, a rough approximation of Vic's dog with a bone tattoo is imprinted over his freckles.

Vic lights up another cigarette. "Try not to fuck up the ink."

"How'd I do that?"

"How should I know?"

They lapse into silence as Vic cleans out the cartridge and runs his fingers along the barrel of the tattoo needle. It's clear which part of the proceedings do the best job of holding his attention.

But Eddie's eyes are still on Vic's tattoo, and his head is still wrapped up in the fact that he's got the same ink. That they match. His guts start to boil with embarrassment and his dick does some pretty incredible acrobatics as it rises to attention.

"Shit." Eddie curses. Vic starts to look back at him over his shoulder and his eyes go straight for the crotch.

Vic frowns. "You alright?"

"Just gotta...bathroom!" Eddie yelps.

He leaps out of the chair and barrels down the hallway. When he reaches the bathroom door he takes up the handle and pauses for just a second to determine if he'd being followed. He's almost disappointed when he's left to take care of his little problem all on his own.