Background Noise [HS]

TWENTY-SEVEN

It was a lot to take in stood in the small space of a bathroom she'd last been in a month before. There was the man responsible for her distress weeks prior suddenly returned, uprooting the feelings she'd made a point of burying in their time apart. Thinking them to have been packed in deep, Violet was left speechless, unable to fathom just how the hands that held her managed to reach them in such a short amount of time.

Managed to reach her even now—after all the digging.

Reacquainted with parts of her crushed beneath the rubble, Violet found it something of a miracle that this thing between them emerged to see the light of another day after having faced dark depths for weeks. It was terrifying—how strongly she felt for Harry. And only to realize it there, stood before the man himself.

She needed time to adjust.

Not yet ready to face the morning light, Violet slid from his hold and moved toward the sink. To contradict the feelings of abandonment, she craved his temporary absence, one she could be sure of being short-lived, far from permanent. These were things that needed to be thought over, alone and out of persuasion's reach. He would not be swaying her.

Harry appeared beside her in the mirror, watching on as she turned a fidgeting mess, strand of hair tucked delicately behind the curve of her ear. The firm press of his palms along the cold marble was familiar—a reminder of the nights he stood there, gazing back at his own reflection. That man was a cracked image among perfect glass; nothing but a shell of something empty, filled only with longing and a bit of air between two lungs. And he did not live so much as slowly die standing there, gaze surpassing the steadiness of palms splayed along marble countertop, eyes shot to hell.

That man was someone he wished to never be again. It seemed plausible with her stood alongside him there in the mirror, distracting from such places; a bit of light in the dark. Violet was the saving grace of his life—what little he had left—and there would be no more ignoring it. No more pushing her to the back of his mind like everything else, for she was always on it, demanding spotlight.

He was done denying her—of his touch, his kiss.

His heart.

Violet could have all the light she wanted, though the bulbs were destined to burn out, bright and hot and fragile as they were.

The weight of what weighed heavy on his mind made her troubles seem trivial—charmed by his words, confused by his actions, wondering whether she was doing the right thing by staying there. Whether Harry mirrored more than just her physical stature; if they were equal counterparts in this whole ordeal. These were the things she worried over, felt blindly, back turned to an issue of greater worry.

With hair draped like a curtain and eyes drawn low, Violet missed the tremors.

The flickering.

"Violet," he murmured, nose drawing a line in her hair. After sharing such an intimate moment the night before, Harry was so sure she was beginning to warm back up to him but there she was, stood like stone. "You're being quiet toward me. Why?"

Despite the falsely projected lack of interest and maintained distance over the course of previous weeks, Harry now vied for her attention in the form of drawing away, tantalizing gaze locked on her face. It was from this that he tried to draw out a reaction—something, anything so long as it was not her dumbfounded stare that wrought havoc on his withering composure.

"What have I done now?"

Blue eyes peered upward as she reached for the fabric spanning over his lower belly. Harry drew closer with the slight tug, conscious of things left unsaid. The butterfly tattoo took on a form of life beneath her touch, wings spread and flapping against the cage of his ribs.