Tattoos Together || Larry Stylinson

Chapter 27

"Come on, tell me."

I kneaded my hands nervously and looked ahead. I couldn't look him in the eye right now. "I... we are going away Harry. Take a trip and -you will come back alone... soon."

I still didn't look at him, but I could imagine him frowning in confusion.

"What do you mean honey? You have to be a little more specific, otherwise I don't understand."

"Bubs... I'm dying. Soon, very soon."

He didn't say a thing for a long while and I didn't hold it against him either, I couldn't.

"Can't they do anything?" he asked at some point and I heard the sadness that threatened to choke his voice.

I smiled tiredly. "Yes, Harry, they could. But you wouldn't be happy with that, believe me."

He sniffed and put the plastic cup next to him so he could wrap his arms around me.

He reacted exactly as I imagined.

My throat felt dry and scratchy and I had the feeling of an iron fist clenching my heart with clinging fingers and squeezing mercilessly and with all its might, when I heard his pleading whimpers. It hurt not to get emotional, as well. But I made up my mind to tell him everything before I allowed myself the nakedness to shed even a single tear.

"You know, I argued with Mark. He wanted me to do the therapy, but I had another, special, request... Hazzie, I got a message from him tonight." I stroked his back while speaking and paused because I wasn't sure if I should keep talking. His slim body trembled, although he was noticeably trying to control himself.

"I'm going to kill myself with pills and under supervision, Harry. I know that sounds bad, but it's not. Not at all. That is my wish. I hope you can somehow accept that, honey. Even if I'm so selfish that I'm taking four to maybe even twelve months away from us. I hope you don't hate me now. We will travel abroad to do this, because euthanasia is illegal here..."

"When, Louis? When? I don't want to know any of this. Right now, I just want to know how much longer we have." He sounded desperate and that tone in his voice was like a knife that slowly cut me open from the inside. -These invisible wounds weren't bleeding and Harry, as an outsider, couldn't even see them, but they hurt so indescribably that I could have screamed.

"Fifty-seven days." I exhaled and closed my eyes, waiting for him to loosen his grip on me and hurry to run away. Just like I told him so often.

But he stayed.

He was now even looking at me directly, which I noticed when I opened my eyes again.

I felt this single hot tear that slowly ran down my cheek and seemed to stick to my lip. He put his hand on my chin and wiped it away with his thumb.

"Okay."

He whispered and the honey-warm sound of his voice covered the deep-seated pain.

We looked at each other wordlessly until he opened his lips and whispered in a strangely vulnerable way. "Let's make it a happy ending, okay? As you deserve it, so that you leave in peace."

I couldn't go in one hundred percent peace because I knew I would leave him behind. And yet it was the most perfect way for me to find an end, which is why I nodded in agreement, even if it wasn't entirely true which made me sob painfully.

Perhaps this lie, which hurt myself so much, was one of the last truths for him, which I otherwise would not have been able to offer him, but which I wanted so badly

He smiled blandly and pulled my face to him to kiss me gently. His lips tasted salty from the tears that had dried on them minutes before.

The kiss was certainly more passionate than it should have been, but it felt good.

The fist that held my heart with its clinging fingers loosened its iron grip more and more and with every little movement, the darkness that surrounded my thoughts was increasingly thinned. All the worries and sadness suddenly seemed to be a long way off.

-I just felt free.

-

"Man, no sooner are you there than you go again." Commented Edda, who was sitting on one of the chairs in the room with her arms crossed and watching Harry packing everything up. I sat on the bed and pressed a handkerchief on my arm where the nurse had just pulled my IV off.

Harry grinned cheekily and I was glad he could. That he was able to deal with it all so well.

"Don't think that you are rid of us little girl, we are coming to visit you."

I sat up to give Edda a hug, when I saw, that Harry was finished.
I would miss her.

"See you Louis, at the latest on the other side." She smiled serenely and poked me on the hips.

Harry also said goodbye with a hug and a short time later we were together in the elevator to the ground floor.

Lottie was waiting for us in the car, and when she saw us coming out of the building, she swung open the driver's door and jogged towards me to hug me tightly.

At least she already seemed to know. I really didn't have the nerve to explain everything a thousand times

"I love you, brother, come what may." She whispered into my ear and I breathed a peck on her cheek.

"It's gonna be alright, Lots."

Harry had already packed our things in the trunk and greeted my sister with a smile and a greeting hand before he got into the car.

I was glad that no one addressed the subject directly. Not even when we ate together. -Mason cooked while his girlfriend picked us up.

It was nice to be back home. Here, where everything was still so normal, where nothing had changed.

"We're going to the cinema, do you two want to come with us?"

Mason asked invitingly as we all cleared the table together.

"No, thanks, we need a little time for ourselves first." I refused.

"Oh, sure, we'll see you guys then... Mark is on night shift and Félicité is staying with a classmate. You're alone for the time being, if something happens, call, okay?"

Half an hour later, the two were gone and Harry and I snuggled close together on my small bed. My nose was pressed in the crook of his neck, smelling his amazing flowery scent.

I watched absently over his shoulder, out of the window, where it slowly started to dawn.

Harry pulled his feet under the blanket and rubbed it against my bare ankle, which led me to tighten my arm around him in response.

"Can we look at the stars again later?" He asked quietly and looked longingly out of the window.

"Of course, if that's what you'd like to do, Bubs."

I smiled on the back of his neck, fingers starting to draw circles lightly on his hipbone under the shirt.