Nah, Cole wasn't bothered. He considered it a cool way for his conduit-ness (terrible word, but he had no other way of explaining it, even to himself) to manifest. Better to get tattoos then a forked tongue or swamp monster scales or something like that. At least all the tattoos looked badass and fun! It was all good with him, just a bit... weird. Zeke had commented the most on the phoenix whenever they had downtime in New Marais, but it was so rare that Cole never had much of a chance to try and figure out what he felt about it's meaning. The phoenix was a creature that was loaded with so much symbolism, and most of it he would never to apply to himself.
When the letters were brought up, Cole immediately felt his heart seize. It was perfectly understandable that Cas was curious about them, as that was the only tattoo he hadn't intentionally motioned to. But that didn't make talking about it, ever briefly, any easier.
"They're the initials of my girlfriend." He couldn't bear to say 'ex-girlfriend' or anything of the sort. Trish had forgiven him, had wanted to be with him again, to go back to how they used to be... "Trish Dailey. The woman I was gonna marry." Cole's eyes had fallen to the ground and only then rose up again to look back at Cas. "She died." That was about all the detail he wanted to go into concerning that.
The caduceus on his forearm was also in honour of her, but that was a tattoo he'd gotten before her death. Something of a celebration for her becoming an EMT and saving livesβhe'd been so proud and so happy for her. It was her life's work... in her death he was going to do his damnest to keep that up for her. No matter what.