Everything you ever did is coming back around

musewrite

["Can you remember who you were before the world told you who you should be." – Danielle LaPorte]


The bell over the door clanged violently when Ronan shoved his way through, moving straight for the counter. He took no lingering glances at the art on the walls, nor was there any hesitation in his stride. He slapped the sketch he’d torn out of his book, edge ragged, on the counter and waited for someone to approach him.

It hadn’t been a particularly bad day, nor had it been a particularly good one. It had merely been a day after Niall’s death, another fatherless day for Ronan. Even minutes later, he couldn’t recall that detail that sparked the fight between he and Declan, simply that it’d ended with the promise of a black eye for Ronan and Declan’s blood dribbling down his chin from a split lip. If Ronan had been any other teenager more prone to throwing words rather than fists, he would have yelled You’re not dad! and stormed off.

Instead, it’d taken a fist fight with his older brother to prompt his storming off and he’d done it in a BMW that had once belonged to his father and now belong to a boy who couldn’t even drive it legally (but that didn’t stop him).

“Can I help you, Kid?” At first the man thought the kid was in the wrong place, or unclear about the age requirements to get a tattoo, then Ronan had turned his attention on him and the man had found he was clearly mistaken.

“I want that covering my back.” He splayed his hand flat on top of the sketch torn out of his notebook and pushed it toward man. The pen marks had been made heavy and dark, all clean lines and stark white spaces. It was a Celtic knot with all the pieces of Ronan’s dreams peering out of it.

“Big expensive piece,” the guy said, instantly intrigued by the drawing. His eyes roved over it, trying to identify each creature, each object and finding a new one peering at him all the time.

Ronan threw a wad of cash on the counter in response. His fake ID fell next. It said he was twenty-three. The man picked it up, giving it a careful once over. He glanced up to Ronan only to find that same, angry young man glaring at him. He nodded and jerked his head back toward the back of the shop as he collected the cash.

“Have a seat. We’ll get the top part of the knot done today.”

“No. All of it. Today.”

The man shook his head. “Kid, you’re gonna be begging me to stop after an hour.”

Eight hours later, not including several smoke breaks for the artist, Ronan’s skin was swollen tender and weeping blood, but his back was a work of art. The artist had curled the tattoo over and around his shoulder, some hybrid of a Celtic tribal tattoo, hooks creeping over his bicep sharp enough to catch something on.

“That what you wanted?” the artist asked, already fumbling in his pack of cigarettes.

Ronan had his head turned so he could see his reflection in the full length mirror. “Fuck yeah,” he growled, lips twisting into a smile that cut.

Declan was going to be so pissed.