"Shit"
Larson rolled his eyes and bent down to pick up the needles that had just crashed to the floor, sighing heavily as he threw them out.
"Fucking waste."
As much as he wanted to sit down and just breathe for a moment, he had a client waiting to have a needle shoved through their lip. Trying to look at the positive, he was grateful he didn't have any tattoos scheduled for today.
After spending far too much time "finding the right needle", Larson made it back to where his client was waiting. The girl was nervous, a quick glance earlier told Larson this wasn't a common thing for her. She had her lobes pierced once and a single ring in her nose. He wouldn't normally recommend that she go straight for the lip piercing, but he didn't much feel like arguing with the client. It was already enough work to explain to her why he would not pierce her with a hoop. That was always the thing he hated with new clients, they didn't know anything and acted like they knew it all.
"Ok, I've got everything set up, so just sit back and I'll get the jewellery ready."
Larson pulled on some gloves while the girl brushed her pastel pink hair out of her eyes. Larson suddenly noticed how long his own had gotten, the shaved sides were getting shaggy and his long mohawk was grazing his chin instead of his jaw. He blew it out of his eyes only for it to fall right back. He needed to do something about that soon.
He finally got everything sorted, and the piercing went perfectly. At least he thought so, the girl on the receiving end had a minor panic attack after it was over. As if realizing only then that, horror of horrors, other people would see the silver ball sticking out of her lower lip. Larson gritted his teeth and gave her a few comforting words through them.
"Who cares? Just have the fucking thing 'cause you like it. If someone doesn't like you 'cause of a little metal in your mouth, just forget about them."
Even though the encouragement was given in a mumble over his shoulder while he cleaned, it seemed to be enough to get the girl out the door and out of Larson's hair. Speaking of which, he took a moment to run his hands through the long top and examine it in the mirror. He couldn't help but catch a glimpse of the rest of his face either.
The bags under his eyes had only gotten heavier in the last few weeks. Whatever was going on with his health had been enough to seriously affect his sleep, and it showed. He'd always thought that invalids slept enough for three people. Apparently, that didn't count for chronic pain. At least, that's what the last doctor at the emergency clinic had diagnosed him with. The one before that had taken one look at Larson's tattoos and piercings and told him to lay off the drugs before Larson had a chance to say anything. He'd lost a decent amount of weight, but he thought it just gave him a better jawline, so he didn't complain too much. The skeletal look was in, and besides, it brought out the green of his eyes.
He started laughing at the last thought, not that it was funny, he just didn't know what else to think about it. But before he could go too far down the mental trail, he was hit with the pain.
He'd mostly been able to ignore it the last few hours. It was possible the multiple near-overdoses of drugstore painkillers affected that, but now it was too much. He slid down the wall, cradling his head. It wasn't localized too often, but it was almost better when it was. He could focus on the fact that there were still parts of his body that didn't hurt like hell. He tried breathing through it, but the pain was making him dizzy. Like someone was sanding the inside of his skull with a power tool. He drew his legs close to his chest and rested his head on his black leather pants, trying desperately not to throw up.
That was when he heard the bell ring.
It sounded to him like a gunshot had gone off, sending a spike of agony through his skull and down his spine. He bit his lip, almost biting down on the lip ring he had. He needed to take that out.
