Aerial

The Fifteenth Chapter

SURPRISE DOUBLE UPDATE! AGAIN!

Just as you suspected, your night was more like a fever dream than anything resembling actual, restful sleep. You climbed out of bed before the sun did, standing under the heat of the shower-head with your gaze focused on nothing in particular on the blush-tiled wall. It felt impossible to stomach your usual breakfast and it made you mildly nauseous when you considered the volume of food that Harry was probably consuming in that moment, so instead you swiped a banana from the bowl of fruit on the kitchen counter and decided to skate to work an hour early to give yourself some quiet time for grounding before he arrived.

The theatre is marvelously peaceful this early in the morning, the halls dark and quiet and most of the overhead lights still asleep to give off an even more profound feeling of enormity than usual. You flick a few on as you walk towards your dressing room, your palms sweaty and your heart ready to leap out of your chest as you pass the practice space that you and Harry will be occupying in just a couple hours. Your mind is shrink-wrapped in suffocating plastic by the time you swing open the door with the word 'Trapeze' scrawled in glitzy golden cursive, the sight of a tall, shadowy figure just beyond the other side of the door bubbling a strangled scream up your throat.

Obviously Harry wasn't expecting anyone to be there either because his first reaction is to fall to the ground on his back in full-on theatrics, his arms and legs hanging in the air like a stunned, dying beetle with an unlit cigarette dangling between his lips.

You clutch your palm to your heart and laugh at his exaggerated performance through the soreness of your throat, your hand reaching down to help him up from the ground, "you enormous idiot, get up."

Harry wraps his fingers around your wrist and halfheartedly attempts to tug you down on top of him, his dimple sinking into his cheek when you giggle and struggle against his playful haul. He uses your leverage to pop himself up off the floor, crossing the room in two steps to snag yet another bouquet of cheery sunflowers from the vanity. He pads towards you, sweeping his hair from his eyes and appearing deceitfully innocent when he chews on his bottom lip, "didn't expect you so fuckin' early. You usually don't get here 'til eight. G'morning." This time he is prepared for you to try to refuse his gift, so when you close your eyes and shake your head softly, he takes another step closer and breathes out a fragile plea, "c'mon. I'd give anything for another chance." The weight of your conversation last night had left residual emotional film on the lining of his stomach, having gotten a glimpse of exactly how painful this whole partnership and accident has been for you as well. He did dream of you just like he had promised, but it wasn't as sexy as he was hoping it would be. The sound of distant ocean waves breaking against sand kept him in a light, fitful sleep, finally deciding to drag himself out of bed around four this morning to surf and then spring for an uncharacteristically warm shower at work.

I'd give anything for another chance.

His words spark an uncomfortable memory, except they aren't words that you'd ever heard him say before. They're your words. Words that you had uttered to him in the comfort of his powerless unconsciousness while he laid to rest in a drug-induced coma with dried blood still clinging to his ear. You know for a fact that he was in a deep sleep because Bunny told you so, and now you're wondering if he's articulating a coincidence or if he's reciting something from the tangle of his subconscious. Perhaps Bunny was right about him being able to hear you, your little speech spoken through the haze of swampy and marshy oblivion having a hand in shaping his current adoration. Either way, the sunflowers held in the air between the two of you seem to glow to life with his confession, his grin matching their illumination when you pinch them from his fingertips with a tender expression of gratitude.

"What'd you have for breakfast, Cherry?"

You exhale a huge breath of air as you drop your belongings into a sloppy, atypical heap on your vanity before plopping the bouquet of sunflowers on top and then resting your hip beside them, "um, nothing really. I just brought a banana along with me. I didn't have much of an appetite this morning." You tend to babble when you're nervous about something, but Harry doesn't seem to mind, he's much too busy eyeing the spot where your skirt brushes your bare legs. You can hear yourself rambling and the habit irks the ever-living crap out of you, but you also can't seem to stop, "I took a long shower and then skated the roundabout way to work. I've already had two lollipops. I chewed them before they got soft enough and now my jaw hurts a little and my teeth feel scuzzy. What'd you have for breakfast?"