Escapade | Daniel Seavey AU

12

It's 5:12 AM and I've never felt so nervous. I stared at my ceiling, hoping that staring at something with nothing would clear up my mind. It didn't. My head was racing with so many scenarios—worst case scenarios—for today's event, hoping it would be enough for me to chicken out from this predicament, but I knew that a part of me wanted to pull through with it.

Why? Because I already had an idea of what tattoo I wanted. Where I want it. It was simple, and probably won't hurt at all if I don't think about it, but will I pull through it?

Why did my mother agree for me to do this? I wanted to back down—hell, just the mere buzzing of the tattoo gun scared me for a moment, but when will I ever do this again? I'm going to graduate next year, I'm going to become an adult and isn't this something most teenagers want to do? I've got a parent's approval, so shouldn't I use that to my advantage?

One minute you were against this, and now you're considering—as your subconscious, I am quite confused. I'm just saying that maybe it wouldn't be such a terrible idea to get inked. I live only once, I have permission—might as well.

So later that morning at a more reasonable hour, I sat across from my mother at the table, breakfast in front of us as we ate in silence. "Have you considered?"

I nodded, chewing on the bacon in my mouth, "I did, but do you have to sign a permission slip or something?"

"Yeah, Brennan texted me that she'll be coming over with a slip printed for you," she explained, but some part of that statement caused my mouth to drop open, brows knitted together. My mother noticed, looking up and tilting her head to the side. "What?"

"Texted? You guys exchanged numbers?" I couldn't help but ask. I've known her for a little over a month and we'd been communicating through direct messages online, she never gave me her number.

"I didn't have an Instagram, so she gave me her number instead—told me to not give it to you though," she explained, "something about that you might get too attached."

I scoffed, "Attached, pfft." But I could see my subconscious in the back of my head, raising a brow towards me before repeatedly hitting its head against a wall. I continued with breakfast before cleaning up the dishes and headed back upstairs to get ready. Brennan would be hear an hour or two before lunch, since my mom insisted we out as the three of us.

There wasn't a place for me to say no since the one "attached" is my mother.

I changed into an orange jumper and black jeans once I was done with my shower, not bothering to do anything with my hair because it will dry up and with how nervous I am, I'll be frequently running my hand through my hair to try and calm said nerves. As I was pacing back and forth in my room, I could hear Brennan's laugh along with my mother's downstairs and contemplated whether to lock the door, ditching this idea entirely or go down and face it like a man.

"Come on, Daniel, it's just a little needle—the tattoo you want isn't even that big so chances of it hurting, is quite low," I tried to convince myself in my mirror, then a worst case scenario popped in, "but what if he forgot to clean the needle and the client before him has some sort of blood-transferred disease with no cure whatsoever—"

"Daniel, if you're done being a wuss, we need to leave," Brennan's taunting voice echoed from the outside of my room before the door slowly opened, her now cherry red hair peeking through before her eyes landed on me, a teasing smile on her lips. "Let's go." Her eyes then shifted to my shirt, the playful vibe faltering before she cringed. "Ugh, orange."