Tattoos Together || Larry Stylinson

Chapter 1

Louis

I felt the pleasant, cold, metallic tip of my pen on my forearm. I watched my sketch slowly take shape.

In concentration, I crossed my legs on the closed toilet lid I was sitting on, when I took another close look at my drawing and fumbled with my left hand on my pocket.

The point of the needle stabbed my fingertip roughly, which caused a satisfied smile on my lips. I found what I was looking for. I carefully began to trace the lines I had painted with small, closely lined up stitches. The procedure was nothing new to me.

The skin around the puncture sites turned red and slowly a delicate rose-coloured mixture of wound fluid and blood began to emerge. I tore off a piece of toilet paper and dabbed it gently on the irritated skin to remove the offending liquid. Perhaps I had stabbed a little too deep this time.

At the same moment that I put the needle back on, the door to my toilet cubicle opened with a flourish. "Shit!" I cursed. In my shock, I had withdrawn the needle and maneuvered it out of the stranger's field of vision. I intuitively formed a fist around it and ruthlessly drilled the needle into my own palm. I looked at him reproachfully.

"I-I'm sorry." He stuttered confused and somehow disturbed at the same time.

To be honest, it was kind of my own fault. I had obviously forgotten to lock the door. I eyed him briefly. The boy in front of me was definitely two or three years younger than me. He had curly hair of medium length and green eyes that stared worriedly at my hand. He quietly cleared his throat.

"Your hand...uhm." His voice was actually deeper than I expected.

I frowned in confusion and now looked at my still clenched fist myself. The sharp, narrow metal rod had pierced my hand between my thumb and forefinger.

I hadn't even really noticed "Bloody hell." I whispered.

The curly-haired boy who was still standing in the doorway, gazing paralyzed at my pierced hand, turned pale as a sheet. I was annoyed.

What now? I asked myself. I was dissatisfied with the overall situation. Where the needle in my hand bothered me less than the fact that only a straight line of my motif was finished.

I sighed and realized that there were other problems for me than my half-finished tattoo right now.

The boy in front of me swayed and seemed dizzy. I didn't know how to react. "Okay Curl-Head, this looks worse than it is." I tried to calm him down and didn't even have to lie. For having rammed a sharp needle through a part of my body more or less violently, I felt remarkably little pain.

My attempt was not successful, he was still shaky. I got up off my seat and approached him. I carefully placed my uninjured hand on his shoulder and looked straight into his face. My own silhouette was reflected in his tear-stained eyes. "Hey, what's your name little one?" I asked. He wasn't shorter than me. To be honest, a good four inches taller, but he looked so helpless. Like an intimidated deer.

"Harry" he breathed. "Alright Harry, I'm the one who's allowed to hyperventilate right now. But I don't do it as you see. And do you know why?"

He avoided my eye contact and looked down at the floor in shame.

"Because it's not as dramatic as you think." I ended my speech, put two fingers under his chin, forced him to look at me and tried to put on a casual smile.

"You're going to take it to a doctor, aren't you?" Harry asked worried. "I'll come with you, it's my fault, after all"

I hardly had any other choice. I couldn't remove the needle myself. My stepfather would lose faith in humanity. All the years of preaching. When I was six, I jumped barefoot into a nail and he strictly forbade me to pull it out. My stepfather was a doctor and told me early on about internal bleeding from removing foreign objects. I doubted that a needle could do serious damage, but I really wasn't about to risk anything.