Tattoos Together || Larry Stylinson

Chapter 11

TW: mention of rape/drug abuse

We stood in front of a tall multi-family house. The gray facade was already crumbling and in the back yard a couple of children were playing on a lonely, rusty seesaw.

I could hardly imagine what it was like to live here. It was somehow uncomfortable, but this place also exuded a certain charm, a strange romance.

Behind the rusty seesaw in the courtyard was a well-tended meadow in the middle of which was a wooden hut open on all sides with four benches and a fire bowl underneath. Instantly, the image of cozy campfire evenings emerged in my head.

If I looked further behind the roofed fireplace, I saw an archway on which vines grew, in front of a small overgrown allotment garden colony, which gave the impression that it had not been used for years.

Wild roses crawled over the weathered wooden fences, the grass grew knee high and some old cherry trees were scattered across the area.

"Hey mates." Harry greeted the three kids. Two of them, boys, came running right up to him and fell into his arms.

The little girl, which made an even younger impression, followed with slow steps and stopped in front of me, looking at me with big eyes.

"Harry, who is that?" She kept a safe distance from me.

"Hey honey. This is Louis. A friend of mine. No need to worry, he's very nice." Harry explained and knelt at the redhead girl's eye level. I couldn't make out how the two of them were related to each other, he treated her like a sister, but it didn't make any sense from a visual point of view.

The two boys, who were obviously twins but not Harry's brothers either, nodded to me and went back to play.

Harry had now picked up the girl I estimate is four. The little one had wrapped her legs around his waist and laid her head on his shoulder, not looking away from me.

He whispered something in her ear, which made her
giggle softly and pressed a kiss on her temple. Then he let her down and watched her run back to the boys.

When he was sure that the children were engrossed in their game again, he sauntered with me to the last staircase in the building.

"Who are the children?" I asked to break the silence between us.

"Oh, so the twins are the children of a friend of my mother's. The two of them are often here to eat when their mother works the lunch shift."

I nodded. I liked the seemingly open, hospitable, and outgoing nature of Harry's family.

"And the little girl..." Harry hesitated, trying to find the right words.

"Trinity is the daughter of Gemma's best friend... She's been in a withdrawal for years and Trin lives with us... mom has taken the custody. Complicated story."

"I'm confused now."

"Totally understand that."

"Does Trinity know? I mean about the withdrawal... of what actually?"

Harry sighed. Now that he had started on the subject, he had to explain it to me in full.

"Her mother was raped on the way home from a party when she was sixteen. I don't know the details; I don't want to. The fact that her tormentor got her pregnant came out too late and the chance to have an abortion was over..." I swallowed hard and sat down next to Harry, who had just sat on the raised stone in front of the front door to be able to talk in peace

"She never got through the thought. Responsible as she was, she ended her pregnancy without risking the child. Her family supported her, Gemma was there for her and mam did her best too. -When she was not doing well, she could always come to us as if we were a second family." Harry reported and I just nodded understandingly.

"When Trinity was born, we actually all thought everything would somehow find its order again, but in reality, Lina, that's her name by the way, couldn't even look at her child. Then everything happened very quickly... alcoholism, two suicide attempts, drugs... hard drugs."

"Fuck." I whispered, overwhelmed by what I just heard.

Harry just nodded.

"But why didn't the family keep Trinity... I mean Lina's parents."

"Lina didn't want that. Her mother found her half-dead twice in her room. The woman is traumatized and her father has not spoken to her since the drug thing. Lina said that she thinks her daughter will get the best care with us and grow up sheltered... The saddest thing in the whole story is that Trinity doesn't even know Lina or at least has no memories of her mother... But hey, her grandparents come to visit every weekend. "

It seemed like Harry was just putting the last sentence behind his speech to cheer himself up.

"You have to promise not to tell her about it, will you? She'll find out about it soon enough, now she's still a child. She deserves her light-heartedness."

"I swear."

Harry nodded, got up, held out a hand to pull me up, and ended up with his face less than two inches from my face. I felt his breath on my lips, he looked me straight in the eyes.

"You swear?" He whispered.

"I swear." I repeated, holding the intense eye contact.

I was no longer in control of my senses when I leaned forward. I longed for his soft lips. The memory of our kiss in the hospital was so vivid, so wonderful. I wanted to freshen it up, relive it, feel the tingling sensation.

I could remember many kisses in my life, many meaningless kisses, kisses from different girls, kisses as door openers for the satisfaction of my needs. Kisses with ulterior motives.

But that motive was missing now. I had no background thought as my lips pressed gently against his, moving cautiously and shyly at first, testing him to see how far he would go, whether he would reciprocate and after a few moments in which he seemed overwhelmed, he gave
himself completely to me, moved his lips in the right rhythm to mine and finally put a hand on my cheek to be closer to me, to fully enjoy the moment.

When he realized that the kiss would be over in the next few moments, his hand went into my hair, found support in them and made us stay forehead to forehead.

"So, you aren't gay, huh?" He asked cheeky, still a little out of breath.

"Shut up kid." I smiled. Happy in a way I didn't know before and pulled him close to me again to repeat what had just happened.

When we split apart again, he put his head on my chest.

"I think I had my first kiss now." He muttered wearily.

"Most likely." I whispered and stroked his back, between the shoulder blades.

At some point Harry breathed a fleeting peck on the tip of my nose and pressed the bell with the inscription Twist.

A faint crack could be heard from the speakerphone.

"Yeah?" A female voice asked.

"Ma? Its me and Louis." He grabbed my hand while mentioning my name. Then the door buzzer sounded and Harry pushed open.

I followed the curly head up the stairs. That typical cool, slightly damp cellar air lay in the stairwell. It smelled of tobacco and from the sixth floor also of food.

"Isn't there an elevator here?" I asked, tormented and completely exhausted.

"No, unfortunately only from ten floors... We just have nine." Said a happy-sounding woman's voice that made me flinch because I wasn't expecting it.

I stumbled and fell up the stairs.

Amused giggle.