Background Noise [HS]

EIGHTEEN

It was just past eleven in the morning and the sun was out, enveloping the cool wintry earth in warmth. Harry and Violet were fast asleep on the living room sofa, her curled into the left armrest and he, taking up the remaining space with the length of his long frame sprawled over the cushions. The pair fought relentlessly the night before, stubbornly, only giving up surrender in the form of sleep—in giving in to exhaustion. No one moved; they swore not to step foot into the bedroom out of selflessness for the other, staying where they were the whole night through.

Consequences would come from such stubbornness but it was hard to care when you cared more for another. Harry wanted his company to be comfortable. Violet wanted her host to stay in his own room; she could take the couch, and would. He didn't put up much of a fight. The truth was, Harry was exhausted. Sleep was something unseen for weeks, sometimes months. The price to be paid for the medicine, he was told. Pills that would only treat, not cure.

A temporary fix that no longer seemed worth it, anymore.

Violet came to awareness gradually, like waking from a pleasant dream unable to be remembered. In her hazy state of sleep, the dull material she was met with upon waking was startling. The foreign, woven cloth wasn't that of her father's couch and it certainly didn't resemble her mother's, either. And so when her eyes came to adjust, Violet reared back from the armrest, blanket falling to land in a bundle around her waist and legs. With a blurry look around the room, a look at the blurry boy with his ankles crossed and hair a mess against the cushion he lied on across from her.

Harry.

Eyelashes at bed upon the bones of his cheeks and mouth pursed in a pout so as to allow soft breaths to pass, he looked anything but the serious, stern man he always did. This was a side of him not so easily seen through a conscious state; there was no control to be had during sleep, no urge to put a mask up for the world to see, for he was at peace. Violet left him that way—asleep on the couch—before venturing into the room that housed nothing more than a suitcase packed to the brim and an empty bed.

Begging to be relieved of the pressure so, the contents of the suitcase were strewn about the floor around the luggage. In search of the plastic zip lock bag that held her travel toothbrush—the one she used between homes—Violet made somewhat of a mess upon the floor. This was how her room looked back at her father's place: suitcase situated in the middle of the room, various articles of clothing strewn messily about the floor. And it was not out of laziness but a hidden bitterness that she refused to use the furniture there as storage for her things.

It made packing up easier, especially if she was in a hurry; Violet would just have to collect her things and go.

As soon as the plastic came in contact with her palm, everything was gathered in a mass heap and tossed back into the suitcase. Lid slammed over the top of the mountain she'd made, Violet ventured into the bathroom and commenced with her morning routine. This situation felt no different from her second home, only, there was no one there to push her away, no one to force her out.

Harry was but a shifted image of the way she left him, still asleep and in the same position, only the blanket around his shoulders had fallen some. Violet returned wearing a different t-shirt, having changed for the new day. The TV remote was swept off the coffee table. She plopped onto the couch beside the sleeping figure, careful not to wake him as the screen before her burst with newfound color. The volume was just loud enough for her to hear the intellectual ramblings of Spencer Reid coming from the speakers.

She smiled at the gawky yet adorable character before her. This distracted her from the slight movement in the room, from the slight shifting of weight along the other side of the couch as Harry's subconscious worked to make him more comfortable. It was not until the blanket fell to the floor that she noticed, blue eyes tore from the television to observe his repositioned figure. He'd slid from the armrest and instead brought his hands together beneath his cheek. Body curled like she often slept—knees collected upwards.