{"id":370,"date":"2023-06-23T01:00:10","date_gmt":"2023-06-23T06:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/threewerewolves.com\/?p=370"},"modified":"2024-02-10T10:23:14","modified_gmt":"2024-02-10T16:23:14","slug":"needles-regret-and-questionable-decisions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/threewerewolves.com\/tourblog\/needles-regret-and-questionable-decisions\/","title":{"rendered":"Needles, Regret, and Questionable Decisions"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\ud83d\udd77\ufe0f The InkSink Parlor \u2013 Open Late, No Questions Asked<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The rain had just started to fall when the van rolled into yet another middle-of-nowhere city, the kind with more vape shops than streetlights and at least one billboard advertising \u201cDiscount Bait & Divorce.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They were two days early for the next gig. For once.
Naturally, that meant trouble.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGuys,\u201d Gabriel said from the back, holding up his phone like it was sacred scripture. \u201cThis place has a tattoo shop with 4.8 stars<\/em> on Yelp.\u201d
Cassie raised an eyebrow. \u201cOut of how many?\u201d
\u201c…Five.\u201d
\u201cUh huh.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thane didn\u2019t even glance up from tightening a power connector in his rigging bag. \u201cWe are not getting tattoos. We\u2019re getting groceries. Laundry. Sleep.\u201d
Maya: \u201cLame.\u201d
Jonah: \u201cCoward.\u201d
Rico: \u201cI bet he secretly has a tramp stamp.\u201d
Thane: \u201cI heard that.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gabriel leaned forward between the seats, eyes wide and conspiratorial.
\u201cWhat if we just… looked? No needles. Just reconnaissance. Come on. Be wolves of culture.\u201d
Mark, arms crossed and unimpressed: \u201cThis smells like a trap.\u201d
Gabriel grinned. \u201cSo does Thane after load-in, but we still take him places.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

The shop was tucked between a laundromat and a pawn shop. Its flickering neon sign read:
INKSINK \u2013 WALK-INS, MISTAKES, & MEMORIES.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Inside, it looked exactly like every tattoo parlor in the movies\u2014walls plastered with flash art, the scent of antiseptic and regret heavy in the air. A man with a lopsided mohawk and full-face skull ink looked up from a sketchpad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou the furry band?\u201d
Thane pinched the bridge of his nose.
Gabriel: \u201cThat\u2019s us!\u201d
Tattoo Guy: \u201cCool. I did a werewolf paw on a preacher last week. Midnight special.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Cassie picked out a microphone wrapped in a rose.
Maya found a flaming guitar on a poster and said, \u201cThat. But angrier.\u201d
Jonah, who claimed he was just here to watch,<\/em> somehow ended up pointing at a cartoon possum holding drumsticks.
Rico wanted a stylized wolf skull on his shoulder blade to \u201clook cool in profile shots.\u201d
Mark said nothing… and then asked if they had ink that would show under stage lights but not normal lighting. (They did. Of course.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gabriel?
Oh, Gabriel was ready.
He picked out a design he claimed he\u2019d \u201cseen in a dream\u201d\u2014a full moon, a claw slash, and a bass clef stitched together like some supernatural battle standard.
He wanted it on his back.
All of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tattoo Guy blinked. \u201cYou sure?\u201d
Gabriel: \u201cNo.\u201d
Tattoo Guy: \u201cPerfect.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

While the others got prepped, inked, and numbed into varying levels of existential dread, Thane sat in a creaky metal folding chair, arms crossed and glaring.
At one point, Gabriel leaned over mid-ink and stage whispered, \u201cCome on, Thane, even Mark\u2019s doing it.\u201d
Thane didn\u2019t move. \u201cMark got ultraviolet lighting cues tattooed on his arm. That\u2019s functional.<\/em>\u201d
Rico shouted from across the room, \u201cYou\u2019re just scared of needles!\u201d
\u201cI am<\/em> the needle,\u201d Thane growled, gesturing at a bundle of XLR cables.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Jonah nearly passed out twice and left with a smiling possum on his bicep.
Cassie\u2019s mic tattoo looked suspiciously like it was shouting.
Maya\u2019s flaming guitar had literal smoke curls tattooed in.
Rico? Rico looked like a horror movie album cover and was thrilled.<\/em>
Mark, when shown his under-UV ink lighting pattern in a dark room, simply nodded once.
Gabriel, shirtless and glowing with pride, looked like a battle-scarred lunar warlord.
\u201cThis,\u201d he said, spinning slowly, \u201cis how I ascend.\u201d
Thane: \u201cThis is how you get a staph infection.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They limped back to the van like war survivors.
Gabriel curled up in the backseat, whispering lovingly to his new ink.
Thane buckled in and muttered, \u201cNext stop, an actual hospital.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maya, flipping through photos on her phone, smirked.
\u201cTell me this tour isn\u2019t the best goddamn disaster we\u2019ve ever survived.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\ud83d\udd77\ufe0f The InkSink Parlor \u2013 Open Late, No Questions Asked The rain had just started to fall when the van rolled into yet another middle-of-nowhere city, the kind with more vape shops than streetlights and at least one billboard advertising \u201cDiscount Bait & Divorce.\u201d They were two days early for the next gig. For once.Naturally, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-370","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tour-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/threewerewolves.com\/tourblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/threewerewolves.com\/tourblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/threewerewolves.com\/tourblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/threewerewolves.com\/tourblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/threewerewolves.com\/tourblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=370"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/threewerewolves.com\/tourblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3238,"href":"https:\/\/threewerewolves.com\/tourblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370\/revisions\/3238"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/threewerewolves.com\/tourblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=370"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/threewerewolves.com\/tourblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=370"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/threewerewolves.com\/tourblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}