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"You sure about this, doc?" Evan asks, studying the pictures.
David Parrish nods, confident in his answer. "Yeah."
Evan looks at the four panels, each a different stage in the life cycle of the common dandelion. "How 'bout you explain them to me." At David's curious look, he continues, "I like to get to know a little about the person and the tattoo, if it's a custom piece."
John glances up from where Rodney is squirming under his needles. "Translation, David: He wants in your pants," Rodney deadpans.
"McKay!" Lorne groans, fixing his focus on the paper in his hand. David turns to Evan, watching the deep blush take up immediate residence. Lorne finally raises his eyes and locks gazes with David. He silently, grudgingly acknowledges it with an eye roll and a wry smile.
"I'm a scientist," David says. He cuts his eyes at the sudden choking fit coming from the next station before turning back to Lorne. "It's how I met Rodney. He told me about about this place." David goes over the four pictures, explaining how together they not only visually describe his job, but are also a metaphor for life: infancy to adulthood to reproduction to death.
"Cool," Evan says, nodding, obviously getting it. Evaluating the plants, he says, "It'll take me a couple of hours to draw up." He rucks up the sleeve of David's tee shirt, explaining that he needs to size the area of David's bicep where he'll tattoo the four plants. (That he gets to look - and touch - is not at all mostly immaterial.) "If you want to do this one sitting, it'll take about four hours." David nods in agreement, so Lorne asks, "When are you free?" Before David can answer, he suggests, "Friday afternoon, maybe? Two o'clock?"
Knowing that Friday afternoon the botany lab will likely be very quiet, since it's the eve of a three-day weekend, David accepts.
"Good," Evan says, writing the appointment on his calendar. With a wry smile, he adds, "How about dinner afterward?"
"He'd love to," Rodney replies for David, earning three cries of, "McKay!" in unison.
Rodney plasters on an innocent smile and turns his attention back where John's finishing an elaborate Mobius strip tattoo on his calf. "Hey, can you add some greens in, too?"