Tattoos Together || Larry Stylinson

Chapter 2

I was breathing hard. It felt like stones lay on my chest and slowly but surely crushed me. I tried to open my eyes, but my lids were too heavy.

"He wakes up. I think he wakes up, mister!" a rough voice babbled excited. I couldn't assign it to any person at the moment. Possibly this was because I heard everything around me like if a cotton ball was stuck in my ear. I grimaced, at least as far as my paralyzed muscles would allow. The talk around me had triggered tinnitus and the beeping in my ear canal got louder from second to second

"Does he have pain?" the unidentifiable voice asked.

I felt the resistance holding my eyelids slowly subsiding. The bright light that caught my eye when I blinked carefully was too intense and bright for me for the moment. I grumbled dissatisfied.

I finally managed to keep my eyes open.

"Loueh!" An excited voice shouted from somewhere in the same room. I was awake, but obviously not fully sane. I looked around. Suddenly I was staring straight into a pair of green eyes.

I was totally overwhelmed with the situation.

"What the fuck are you doing here?" I asked in a slurred voice. "Nobody needs you here Harry, we don't know each other, I really don't want you with me right now. If I want to babysit, I go to my neighbours, at least I get paid by them." I was angry.

Harry wrinkled his nose, ran his curly hair and put his hands in his lap.

"Harry, maybe you should go now. Please excuse Louis' behaviour, this is probably the aftermath of the anaesthesia." Mark's voice came out of nowhere. I hadn't really realized that he was also in the room.

Harry placed his fingertips on my wrist briefly, tentatively, but I pulled it straight away and glared at him indignantly. He pressed his lips together and nodded understandingly. "Sorry Lou."

"Never call me Lou again." I hissed.

Harry turned to Mark. "Sorry for him being upset about me." Then he turned and left the room without looking at me again.

"Louis!" Mark said sternly when Harry was out of earshot. "Do you know how disrespectful you were? Harry was so worried about you; he was here all night and didn't want to move from your side."

"He was whot?" I asked and couldn't believe what I was hearing. Was the curly haired now my personal stalker? "Who let him in here anyway?"

"He's your friend, Lou."

"How long did I sleep? I must have missed something important." I asked a non-ironic counter-question.

My stepfather seemed deeply confused. "Harry said so ... it sounded kind of believable and he made a nice impression. Too bad Louis, but you never really introduced me to your friends anyway. I should have known better."

So, the innocent, good little boy with the angel hair had lied.

I grinned stupidly at this thought.

"It's okay, maybe I really overreacted. At least a little."

"Harry isn't that bad at all, he just overwhelmed me." I said to Mark, when the doctor put the bandage back on me some time later in the treatment room. It just suddenly gushed out of me. I feared that it sounded exactly what it was: Accurately crafted words that I had thought about for what felt like hours. I came to the conclusion, that I should make my stepdad think I have social connections. Then at least he didn't have to worry about that anymore.

Mark gently ran a hand through my hair. "You really don't have to justify yourself Lou. We're focusing on your hand now." He looked at the doctor expectantly, apparently waiting for her to start talking about the further treatment steps.