Background Noise [HS]

SEVEN

Like all things, he regretted it.

Now stood in the foyer of his flat and back to his own devices, Harry sought out the bottle of pills sat on the windowsill above his kitchen sink. The length of his fingers popped off the cap with expertise. There was desperation in the way he craved the little pills that swirled around the translucent capsule. A glass was filled with water from the tap and placed onto the counter. Tilting his head back, Harry popped a few more of the pills into his mouth than originally prescribed.

Washed them down with the water, regretted it even more.

Alcohol gave him the newfound strength he desired so, heightening his numbed emotions and setting his veins afire. Everything was felt more deeply, this way. Normally he would go off and find a girl, take her home. Live out the euphoric high and crash of it with a bit of sex in-between. Sometimes, the sudden increase of blood pressure and heart rate caused by booze would grant him sleep, oddly enough. It would only take a romp in the sheets and a crashing down from both his toxic and sexual high to exhaust him enough for rest.

Sometimes that's all he wanted: sleep.

It was sad, the habit formed of finding someone every night. The experience was beneficial to both parties, though they sought climax while he sought what came after.

Harry's streak was broken the night before. Looking back on it, he wondered if things would have gone differently had he declined Violet's advances to help him. No one ever attempted the act before, only her. Had she not gotten to him first, perhaps another would have scooped him off the street. Driven him to their home with a hand wrapped around his thigh, inching forward with every mile erased of their journey. When it came to the club, women's intentions failed to surprise him. He knew of what they wanted, but he also knew what he needed.

His sanity came with a price, it seemed.

And he was ashamed, for he took to using people, in a way. There were no strings attached, no introductions, no exchanging of names before or after everything was said and done. It was pathetic, how he didn't even know Violet's name. How she believed herself to know his. Though, she only knew that of his last-the one he used on stage.

Styles had become a persona, a facade that presented itself to those that lacked the desire to know anything past it. It was his introduction at Club 102, and it just kind of stuck. Harry held little appeal, but Styles? It was edgy, different. The pairing of the two was far too personal according to his employers, so he would undoubtedly have to choose one over the other. Styles won out, in the end. It became his mask, something to offer to people without crossing personal boundaries. The name gave off a certain demeanor about it, made him appear more mysterious.

For years, he went by his surname rather than his first. He couldn't remember the last time someone called him Harry. Perhaps his mum on the last day he'd seen her. Surely the name chosen by her was hidden away in one of the voicemails littering the phone of his flat, waiting for him. For the day he would gain the courage to reconnect with her, if only her voice on the other end of a line. Would she be ashamed to find out that he responded to the given name of his father's bloodline quicker than his first?

Perhaps.

Fingers meeting at the bottom of his lip, Harry stalked over to the phone sat beside his bed. There was hesitation in bending down. The length of his hair fell in a mop over his face before he pushed the curly tendrils back, repositioning the mess of it over his head. Silk shirt loose on his torso, the top drooped as a result of the gravity that came with reaching for the telephone. Chest barren to the void in his apartment, he slowly pressed into a button with the pad of his index finger.