Snitches get Stitches

“I need glitter.”

“I don’t have glitter.”

“But I neeeeed it!”

“I’ll go get it.”

Fiona rolled her eyes at Debbie before pointing sternly at Steve.

“Debbie does not need glitter, Debbie needs to be grateful for what she has,” Fiona told Steve. “You can’t give in every time she throws a fit.”

Steve held his hands up innocently.

“You heard the boss, Debs,” he said. “Besides, I think you look adorable just the way you are.”

Debbie was pouting and whining about her butterfly costume not being sparkly enough while Fiona tried to ignore her and get Liam fed.

It wasn’t Debbie’s fault, really. She was just a kid. But it still pissed Fiona off every time the kids whined for something they didn’t really need. Fiona was busting her ass at endless temp jobs to keep the lights on and Debbie was throwing a fit for fucking glitter?

“Just shut the fuck up!” Fiona snapped. The boys came down for breakfast and Debbie started her bitching again. Everyone looked at Fiona like she was the one who lost her mind.

Someone was knocking on the front door. Fiona was going to be late to work. And Debbie would not give it up.

“Debbie, if I hear the word glitter one more time then I’m going to rip your wings off and let Carl burn them,” Fiona told her sister firmly.

“YES!” Carl jumped in the air and pumped a fist. “Debbie, start cry babying again.”

Debbie was complaining about how mean Fiona was while Fiona handed Liam to Steve since apparently nobody else was going to answer the door.

Fiona threw the door open and paused when she saw the neighbor, Remus, smiling at her.

Fuck.

He actually had no right being so damn good looking. Even dressed up in a brown cardigan and tan pants didn’t take away that thrill of sex appeal that he just radiated.

“Morning, love,” Remus said. He held out a blue coffee mug filled with hot coffee. “I come bearing gifts.”

“Uh…” Fiona looked over her shoulder to make sure Steve wasn’t looking before she stepped out on the porch with Remus. Remus handed her the drink with a knowing smirk when she shut the door behind her.

“Thanks.”

“Of course.” Remus smiled again and Fiona took a sip of the coffee while she waited to find out why he was at her house at seven in the morning.

“Has anyone ever told you that you have the most beautiful eyes?” Remus asked casually. He tilted his head some while staring at her eyes. “I’d compliment your body, but I’m certain you get that every day.”

Fiona was not going to blush.

“Did you really come over here to flirt with me before I’ve even brushed my hair?” Fiona asked. She kept the mug cupped in both hands and held up by her face so if she did accidentally blush, Remus could blame the heat of the drink.

“It’s never too early to flirt,” Remus said. “But no, I actually came to ask if I could hire you today.”

Fiona raised a brow at him. “I don’t fuck for cash.”

“So you’d do it for free?”

Fiona’s cool demeanor cracked and she grinned at Remus’ quick comeback. It was flattering to be flirted with by the older, sexy, dangerous-seeming man. Even V said that she’d take a ride on Remus’ dick when they compared notes over a bottle of tequila.

“Quit eye-fucking me and tell me what you want,” Fiona laughed.

Remus grinned as well before glancing toward his house. Fiona saw his smile slip and felt worried for a second that something happened to Harry.

“I’m not sure if your brothers told you, but Harry has been… sick… for a few days,” Remus said slowly. Fiona nodded, she heard Lip bitch about it.

Supposedly Harry got shot when he went on a job with the Milkovich’s and had missed the last two days of school over it. Lip had spent the entire evening on Monday bitching about Harry hanging around the Milkovich’s.

Fiona accidentally caught Ian’s eyes while Lip was calling Mandy Milkovich every name in the book and they both had to bite their tongue to keep from cracking up. It was kind of cute, in a really confusing ‘Fiona didn’t realize that Lip was gay and she really wished he’d do something about it and shut the hell up’ kind of way.

“I heard,” Fiona said dryly.

“The thing is, I have to work today until three,” Remus explained. “And as much as I would rather not leave Harry alone, I’d prefer to not turn down the first opening the school has had for me either.”

Fiona nodded even though she didn’t see the issue. Harry was fifteen, he was a big boy. Also, it was incredibly hot that Remus was going to teach at the schools.

Fiona had a very graphic image of playing naughty school-girl who was hot for teacher playing in her mind… Remus could bend her over his desk, Fiona would do anything to pass his class…

“And so I was wondering if I could pay you to… stay with him?” Remus asked hopefully, jolting Fiona from her fantasy. “I can pay you. Two hundred?”

Fiona hated to turn down easy money, but the septic job she had lined up paid double that.

“I have a job today, why don’t you ask Kev?” Fiona suggested. “He doesn’t have to work until noon and Ethel can hang out with Harry after that?”

“I…” Remus sighed and Fiona felt some empathy with him.

Teenagers were the fucking worst.

“Can this stay between us?” Remus asked Fiona with none of his usual flirty bullshit. Fiona nodded and Remus went on.

“Sirius left on Sunday,” Remus said. “He said some terribly cruel things to Harry that have had him in a wretched mood. He’s barely left his bed all week. He hasn’t gone to see his girlfriend, he’s ignoring calls from his cousin, he’s barely eating.”

Oh. It was a Monica on a down-swing type of sickness.

“And today is the anniversary of when his parents were killed and I’ve done no good with him and just thought perhaps you might have better success.”

“Me? No.” Fiona laughed. She was shit at dealing with depressed people. Even as a kid, she didn’t have the patience that a kid like Harry would need. It sounded like he was having a shit time and Fiona knew herself well enough to know she wouldn’t help either.

Remus looked disappointed in her response, but Fiona stopped him before he left.

“You don’t want me,” Fiona said. “Leave the cash on the counter and I’ll send your expert over.”

Because if any of the Gallaghers had the patience and know-how to take care of someone on a down-swing, it was Ian.

“I will kill you in your fucking sleep,” Lip warned his brother when they stepped on the porch together. Lip heard Fiona’s little bullshit spiel about Remus needing someone to hang out with Harry while he went to work and how Fiona volunteered Ian for it.

Ian didn’t know shit about about sick people or taking care of wounds. Lip didn’t care what first aid shit he did in his little group of Boy Scouts, Lip could deal with an injury a hell of a lot better than Ian could.

“Whatever,” Ian said. He held his hands up and grinned. “Tell Haaaaaarry I said hey.”

Lip flipped Ian off and then jumped the fence between the two houses.

It was bullshit that Mandy fucking let Harry get shot in the first place. He had no business running around with the Milkovich’s, Harry probably didn’t even know how to use a gun. Assisting on a robbery for some coke head that stiffed Terry? That was a suicide mission for Harry.

And then to send Ian to play nurse? No. Fuck that. Lip really thought Fiona knew better.

Lip let himself in through the front door and made his way upstairs. Neither of Harry’s uncles were home so Lip didn’t worry too much about being noisy. He was going to wake Harry’s ass up if he was asleep anyway, the douche had been avoiding Lip’s calls and texts the last few days and Lip wanted an answer for why.

“Yo.” Lip opened Harry’s bedroom door and stuck his head in. Harry was probably buried beneath the blanket on the bed, but Lip thought he was too quiet to actually be asleep.

Lip flipped the light on and scrunched his nose at the state of Harry’s room. Harry was usually a tidy person, always lining his shoes up by the back door at Lip’s house and rinsing off his dishes. But Harry’s room was trashed, literally. There were dishes covered in food on the dressers, an overflowing ashtray on the nightstand, and a shit ton of loose sheets of paper all over the desk.

“Harry?” Lip stepped in the room and went over to nudge the lump under the blanket. “Rise and shine, dude.”

Harry made a groaning noise and shifted beneath the blanket. Lip thought he heard him say ‘go away’ but Lip wasn’t skipping school to get kicked out.

“I can’t, your uncle said you’re sick,” Lip said. He counted to three in his head before he grabbed the blanket Harry was hiding under and ripped it off him.

Fuck.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

Lip thought that Ian was a stupid choice for someone sick, but Fiona meant that Harry was ‘sick’ and Ian would have been a perfect choice.

Fuck.

It didn’t take a genius to see that Harry was depressed as fuck. He just curled in a ball on his side after Lip took his blanket and Lip could tell from his greasy hair and general state that he was having a shit time.

And Lip did not deal with depression or shit times or anyone who needed comforted. Which meant that Ian was kind of the expert.

Lip didn’t know if it was the gay in him or Monica’s genetics, but Ian had always been up and down with his moods. He was worse than Fiona when she was PMS’ing.

And Lip’s dumb ass sent Ian to school and trapped himself into hanging out until Remus got back.

Fuck.

“Hey.” Lip poked Harry in the back. “Get up.”

“Piss off,” Harry said with a croak to his voice. He curled in an even tighter ball. “Please.”

Lip would love to. No amount of friendship in the world made him want to be there during some emotional episode of Harry’s and he sure as shit didn’t want to talk about feelings.

“I can’t.” Lip walked over to plop down in Harry’s desk chair and he spun himself in a circle for a minute.

“You hungry?” Lip asked.

“No.”

“Wanna smoke?”

“No.”

“You want to get drunk as fuck?”

“I… alright, yeah.”

Lip grinned and spun himself around in another circle. That was easy.

“Take a shower and I’ll find some food,” Lip told Harry. “I’m not holding your greasy ass hair for you when you start throwing up later.”

Lip didn’t do feelings, but he did do drinking those feelings away.

Ian wasn’t the only one to inherit shitty life skills from their parents.

While Harry took a shower, Lip nosed around the house. There was stuff for sandwiches in the fridge and booze just above it, so Lip moved those to Harry’s room. Then Lip peeked in the master bedroom and saw that it looked empty.

There were no clothes in the closet, no personal items on any of the dressers. Lip checked the nightstand where he stole a carton of cigarettes from before and found it empty as well.

Lip chewed the inside of his cheek.

On the one hand, he was fucking thrilled Harry’s dick-bag of an uncle seemed to have moved out. On the other hand, what kind of dick-bag moved out of the house their kid lived in?

Other than Frank and Monica.

Lip also looked in Harry’s other uncle’s room and laughed aloud when he opened the closet and found an entire row of pot plants in different growth stages. Remus was smart as fuck; Lip inspected the light setup he had and took mental notes for a stash in his own house.

There was also an entire drawer in Remus’ dresser filled with chocolate. Lip personally preferred chips when he had the munchies, but Harry’s uncle was in decent shape for a stoner with a sweet tooth.

After that, Lip started on Harry’s room. Lip had no logical reason to go through all the bedrooms, it was just a good way to get to know the neighbors.

Most of Harry’s room was normal shit. Clothes, sneakers… Lip snorted quietly when he saw a purple sheet shoved in the back of Harry’s closet. It was either some weird childhood security blanket or a sheet he stained and Lip wasn’t going to touch it either way.

The interesting thing about Harry’s room came from his desk.

All those sheets of paper that were tossed everywhere were letters, all addressed to Sirius.

‘Sirius, I’m sorry.’

‘Sirius, please come back. I didn’t mean it.’

‘Sirius, damn you.’

‘Sirius…’

Dude, fuck that.

Lip didn’t know what Harry was apologizing for, but he knew that he didn’t need to. Whatever Harry did or said was well-deserved, Lip was sure of it.

There was also a letter addressed to Harry on his desk, but it was in an unopened envelope and Lip didn’t have time to steam it and reseal it.

Lip was about to start flipping through a photo album when he heard the bathroom door open. He hastily closed the book and sat down in the chair to adopt a bored look before Harry caught him snooping.

Harry didn’t look suspicious when he walked in his room with just a pair of jeans hanging off his hips. Without the cast on his left arm or many clothes covering him, Lip could see a decent map of scars and injuries covering Harry’s body.

Lip liked scars, honestly. He thought they added some character to a person, like a tattoo but with a cool story.

“Fuuuuck.” Lip whistled when he saw the wound on Harry’s right hip. It looked good for a recent bullet wound, but it was still going to leave a nasty scar. “How’d you end up getting shot?” Lip asked.

He heard Mandy’s version at school and Mickey’s version second-hand through Ian. Mandy said that Harry tried to defend Terry from the dude they were robbing. Mickey said he was pretty sure that Harry went to kill Terry himself. Either way, it ended with Harry in a hospital telling a cop he didn’t know English.

Lip would have liked to see that part. Harry was an asshole when he wanted to be. It was hilarious.

“Someone had a gun and they pulled a trigger,” Harry said sarcastically. He walked past where Lip sat at the desk and dug through his closet before finding a long-sleeved black shirt to pull on.

“Thanks, smart ass, I never would have figured that out without your help,” Lip replied, just as sarcastic as Harry. “What crawled up your ass and died?”

“I thought we were drinking?” Harry said. He still had his wet hair dripping on his shoulders as he stomped over to the desk all pissy and snatched the bottle of scotch Lip found.

“Fine.” Lip got up just long enough to open the bedroom window and to toss Harry one of the sandwiches he made. Then he sat right back down at the desk and took a drink straight from a bottle of vodka.

“Let’s drink.”

It didn’t take long for Harry to be tipsy and talkative.

“Sirius moved out,” Harry said. He was sitting cross-legged on his bed with an ashtray on one knee, half a sandwich on the other, and a cigarette between his fingers.

“Good riddance,” Lip said. Lip had his feet propped on the foot of Harry’s bed and had his own ashtray balanced on his knee.

“He said he was moving to my dad’s house and came and took his stuff in the middle of the night.”

Lip took a drag off his cigarette.

“I thought your dad was dead?” Lip said. He was pretty sure Harry was an orphan, hence the whole living with the shitbag uncle thing.

Harry reached behind himself to grab his bottle of booze and raised his chin while he took a drink. Lip was apparently more drunk, or tired, than he thought because he was staring at Harry’s exposed neck and for no reason remembered the first time Karen asked him to choke her during sex.

Fuck.

That had been a good day.

“He is,” Harry said after he put the bottle down and hit his cigarette. “Fourteen years ago today, he and my mum were killed.”

“No shit?” Lip said.

Lip kind of felt like a dick then. If Harry wanted to lay in bed on the anniversary of the day his parents died, then Remus should have let him. And Lip should have left him alone.

Harry didn’t seem to want to be alone then though, he was already talking his head off while Lip was berating himself.

“Yeah… they were murdered, you know. They died and made Sirius my godfather and now he’s gone and they’re gone and I am alone.” Harry took another drink before he sighed down at the cigarette that burned itself out. “It’s shit.”

“I mean you’ve got Remus, right?” Lip asked. “He seems decent enough. I think he’s trying to fuck my sister though. But shitty taste in women aside, he seems cool.”

A hell of a lot better than Sirius anyway.

“He is cool,” Harry agreed. “He cut someone’s arm off for me.”

Lip waited for the rest of the information that would make make sense and when it didn’t come, he kicked Harry’s knee with his foot.

“What the fuck did you just say?” Lip asked.

Harry laughed, the first time Lip heard it in a while, and moved all his shit off his legs.

“Hold on,” he said.

Lip waited and swore to himself that if Harry came back with a human arm then Lip was out of there.

Except Harry returned with a human arm and Lip didn’t move.

“What the fuck??” Lip didn’t know where the hell the arm came from, but Harry threw it to him and it was definitely human. It was fucking disgusting. The skin was cold and felt scaly and Lip tried to wipe off the dried blood on the forearm to see what the black mark beneath it was.

“That’s from the bloke that killed my parents,” Harry said, sounding cheerful as fuck about it even with the slur in his voice. “Remus broke in to a prison and cut it off him.”

“Why the fuck are you two so obsessed with cutting off arms?” Lip muttered. And where the hell did they hide a human arm when Lip had been looking through the house?

“Wait.” Lip had to scrub hard to see anything under the blood and he saw just enough of the black ink to recognize it. He looked from the arm on his lap to where Harry had pushed his sleeves up some and part of his tattoo poked out.

“Dude, are you in a gang or something?” Lip asked. “What’s with the gay ass matching tattoos?”

All at once, all the little bit of amusement on Harry’s face disappeared and he quickly pulled his shirt sleeve down.

Lip was really killing it. It was a good thing he didn’t want to be a therapist or something fucking lame like that, his clients would probably all do a backflip off the overpass.

“Hey, nevermind, forget—”

“I didn’t want this mark.”

Lip shut his mouth and raised both eyebrows at that. It was a badass tattoo on Harry’s arm, but Lip realized all at once that Harry did spend a lot of time keeping it covered while Lip went shirtless as often as he could to show his ink off.

“So why’d you get it?” Lip asked.

“Er…” Harry stalled and took another long drink, probably dragging his scrawny ass from tipsy to shit faced. Lip just lit them both another cigarette and tossed the arm in his lap on the floor.

Harry nodded when Lip passed him a cigarette and got a thoughtful look on his face. Okay, it was a drunk look, but Lip grinned at the way Harry looked like he was thinking harder than he ever had before.

“I, er… so that bloke, Tom, has a gang,” Harry started slowly. Between his accent and slur, Lip had to lean forward to be sure to catch every word.

Gangs were common in Chicago, Lip almost joined one once, but Harry just didn’t look like a gang-banger.

“Soo Tom had a gang and everyone in his gang has the same tattoos,” Harry went on. “And, er… they don’t really like me much. They—” Harry was rubbing his left arm while he looked over Lip’s shoulder with his eyes far away, “they thought it was funny to give me this tattoo. So… so I wanted to take my bloody arm off, get rid of it, but then Remus went and cut Tom’s arm off instead. Does- does that make sense?” he tacked on nervously.

“Yeah,” Lip said, unintentionally quiet.

It did make sense.

And it was fucking sick.

Lip smoked his cigarette while Harry stared at nothing, thinking that through. First off, tattoos hurt like a bitch, so Lip couldn’t imagine that Harry had a great time having his entire forearm covered. Also being made to get a tattoo sort of implied a fucked up level of actual torture that pissed Lip off to imagine. It was fucked up to mark Harry as part of a gang that killed his parents. In a way, it was the perfect torture which made it that much worse because Lip suddenly felt like cutting off a guy’s arm wasn’t enough payback.

And Harry trying to cut off his arm to remove a tattoo was the dumbest shit that Lip ever heard.

“Wanna cover it up?” Lip asked Harry impulsively.

Harry shook his head and then blinked at Lip with big green eyes that looked surprised.

“It is covered,” Harry said.

Lip grinned. “Not with your shirt, dumbass. I’ve got a tattoo gun.”

Harry looked excited as hell for just a second before he slumped back down.

“I don’t think it can be covered,” he said, all mopey.

He wasn’t wrong. It was a huge ass tattoo in thick black ink, it probably couldn’t be covered…

… but it could be changed.

“Don’t fucking move,” Lip told Harry as he stood up. He swayed some, a little more drunk than he thought he was, and pointed at the sandwich Harry barely touched. “Eat or whatever, I’ll be back.”

It didn’t take Lip long to get his tattoo kit from where he hid it in the attic. It had been under his bed ever since someone traded it for some weed last summer, but then Carl tried to tattoo himself and Lip had to move it.

Lip dug around in Debbie’s room after that to get a pack of markers too. Lip wasn’t a bad artist, he’d done a few little tattoos for some of his buddies. If Harry could sit still, Lip thought he had a decent shot at changing tattoo he hated.

“Take your shirt off,” Lip ordered Harry when he returned. He put the black case with the actual ink and gun on Harry’s dresser before sitting on Harry’s bed with the package of markers.

All Lip meant to say was for Harry to pull his sleeve up, but it would be easier to see it all without any fabric bunched up and covering his arm. Harry didn’t even ask why before he pulled his shirt off and tossed it to the side.

“Let me see your arm.” Lip grabbed Harry’s left arm and placed it across his leg. There was an angry and jagged scar forming in the crook of his elbow from where Harry tried to cut it off, but the stitches were gone and it looked a lot better than Lip expected it would.

The tattoo itself was massive and flawless. Lip couldn’t find so much as a single crooked line.

“Were you unconscious when you got it?” Lip asked. He ran his finger across it and caused goosebumps to raise up on Harry’s skin, but the tattoo was perfectly smooth.

“Held down, actually,” Harry said emotionlessly.

Lip glanced up at him and saw that Harry’s expression had closed off again so he quickly grabbed a green marker from the pack.

“Let’s add some color,” Lip suggested. He started coloring in the blank areas on the snake wound around the jaw of the skull. Lip didn’t need to see the color to know where to tattoo at, but he thought it might take that blank look of Harry’s face.

“Alright… how do we change this?” Lip murmured to himself after finishing making the snake green. “I could put a fucking top hat on the skull…”

“No! Wait!” Harry had been drinking with his free hand while Lip colored and he sounded drunk as hell. “Add antlers!” Harry cried with a smile so bright that it made his eyes sparkle.

“Why antlers?” Lip laughed even while he began drawing antlers on top of the skull. A drunk and stupid Harry was better company than moody and depressed.

“My dad liked deer,” Harry said factually. “Oi! And flowers! Can you draw lillies? My mum’s name is Lily. And a moon! For Remus!”

Lip had to concentrate very hard on the drawing to keep from fucking up any of Harry’s requests. He drew some lily flowers around the bottom of the skull that he would use reds, pinks, and purple to color in and then a quarter of a moon peeking around the antlers.

“And- er… can you draw some stars?” Harry asked.

“For Sirius?” Lip guessed. Sirius’ name was literally a constellation, but it was Harry’s suddenly quiet voice that gave it away.

Harry shrugged and looked past Lip.

“Yeah.”

“Fine.” Lip had a decent memory of constellations, the Sirius one was easy enough since it was shaped like a dog. “I’m not tattooing these stars on though,” Lip warned Harry, keeping his eyes on Harry’s arm. “He’s a fucking dick and you deserve better.”

Lip had been fucking around when he signed his name in a little cursive font down by the lilies, he was just doing something to lighten the mood.

It worked, Harry laughed.

“Is it a work of art now?” Harry asked. “That’s an artist thing, right? To sign their work?”

“Hell yeah,” Lip agreed. “Alright, let’s take this party downstairs so I can use the table.”

Harry was stumbling as he went down the stairs and Lip was relieved that he agreed to the tattoo before he got hammered. Lip had to clean the table off and lay down a towel for any ink or blood.

“‘S this going to hurt?” Harry asked once Lip had his machine and ink cups set up.

“In the state you’re in? Probably not,” Lip laughed. “You didn’t catch HIV or something from Mandy, did you?”

“No, Remus tested me for STDs,” Harry said. He glared at Lip then, the least threatening look Lip had ever seen. “Mandy isn’t dirty, quit saying she is. I think I love her.”

Lip kicked on the tattoo gun and laid Harry’s arm flat.

“Of fucking course you do,” Lip complained under his breath. “Don’t move.”

It took a few hours to do.

Lip took a couple of breaks to smoke, piss, and get a drink. But Harry didn’t bitch about it once, not even when Lip started shading.

Harry asked him to go ahead and make the constellation permanent and Lip was too buzzed to fight it.

And when Lip tattooed on his own signature right on Harry’s wrist, he blamed the booze for it.

“Brilliant.” Harry was staring at his arm with fucking stars in his eyes when Lip finished and cleaned it off. Harry turned it left and right, inspecting it from every angle.

Then he looked at Lip, who had to sit right up against him to tattoo, and he smiled.

Harry smiled so fucking happily right in Lip’s face.

And just like Lip later blamed his addition to the tattoo on the pleasant buzz he had, he blamed his next move on it too.

Lip raised his hand slowly, staring directly in Harry’s eyes, and softly placed it on the side of his face. When Harry’s smile faded but the look in his eyes didn’t, Lip leaned in…

“Fuck.”

Lip was the one who jumped away when someone knocked on the door just before Lip’s lips touched Harry’s.

What the fuck was wrong with him?! Was Ian fucking contagious?

Harry actually fell out of his chair when Lip jumped away and there was a moment - the most uncomfortable moment of Lip’s life, including the time his dick decided to take a nap during a hummer - where they just stared at each other.

“I gotta go,” Lip said. He didn’t even bother grabbing his shit, he just needed the fuck out of that house.

Lip booked it through the house and shouldered past whoever was knocking on the door - some tall red-head dude - and then he just started running.

Fuck.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

What the fuck was wrong with him?

Lip stopped under a bridge and bent over to hold his knees and catch his breath.

It was the liquor.

Lip was drunk, he hadn’t been laid in a while… his brain was too fucked up to realize that Harry was a dude.

None of which explained why Lip later felt pissed off by whoever had been beating on Harry’s door.