Chapter Text
Spring has been shying away for several months, a small tease as folks retire their warm coats just to be met with a new blanket of snow on their windshields the very next morning. So, as they grumble and rub their frigid hands together, they bring their coats and hats back out to plow snow. That is until flowers suddenly decide to bloom in their perpetually gray town, and the scarves and boots are forgotten until Fall.
Lars tells no one but himself of his trick of finding when the snow will thaw. The quiet of the night hums a different silence during this time of year. The packed snow loosens and creates more room for noise to flutter outside his window. It does so in a gentle succession, until he can hear the footsteps of the lone fox outside no longer pounce into sheets of snow frozen solid, but the warmer slush that is bashfully receding into Spring. No one hears it but him, he thinks.
He is in the quiet more often than others. Even as Margo makes ‘leisurely’ visits, with her shoulders pressed to her ears and her hair clumsily cascading out from loose berets. The cold makes her lips blushed as cracked as some sort of excuse spills as to why she stopped by. Whatever the reason, he would rather listen to Margo than the weather. He has had enough of his monologue with the snow.
Once Spring finally blooms, the path that lines the garage to the main house reflects it charmingly. Past his lumber, under his car, and stretching outward onto the farther patches of land of the property, flowers of pale assortment crane upwards from the brittle grass.
Shadows form fuzzy lines that replicate the same pattern of his dusty blinds as the morning sun rises. His eyes are likely bloodshot, he hasn’t been asleep since the early hours of the morning. It’s either Lars sleeps too much, or not enough. He can never find this sweet middle spot, it’s quite frustrating. He watches as the strips of light slowly move into his room, caressing the foot of his bed. He stays sat, his blanket neatly tucked over his lap and under his legs, his hands nicely intertwined atop it. He waits for the fog of his last dream and the heaviness in his limbs to fade away.
His footsteps make no noise as his thoroughly socked feet carry him through his morning routine. He will do his hair, he will have his breakfast, and, if he has time, do a bit of tidying up. He has to bring laundry into the house this week. He doesn’t mind doing it, it is one of those predictable tasks that leaves his linen smelling of lavender and vanilla, since Karin has told him he doesn’t need to buy his own detergent and can just use what’s in the house. The hairs on the back of his neck stand and his fingers and toes feel fuzzy as the satisfaction sets in that his newly tumbled sweaters radiate the fragrance. He feels like he’s floating, breathing a little easier with the scent accompanying him.
The feeling is well appreciated. It’s been about three months since Bianca passed, and he really thought he’d be filled with a sickening grief. But, he’s doing okay with it all, he thinks.
He’s still going to work, he’s finding himself having dinner at the house almost every night. Sometimes, he hears the baby cry from the second story in the late hours and knocks on the door needing to ask Gus to get her to stop.
Those times, Gus just takes a deep breath and bids Lars a good night.
The crying usually doesn’t stop for a couple hours, which is annoying.
Maybe it’s something from Karin’s family, because from all accounts, Lars was a very quiet baby.
And he has always stuck in the quiet.
After Gus drove south to go to school in Illinois when Lars was about ten, Lars didn’t feel all that much different. Gus’ room, which was often empty and cold, simply turned into a greater void. Gus always had friends to go out with, girls to flirt with, and an endless arsenal of after-school extracurriculars. Lars didn’t participate in any of those areas. So he was home, and Gus felt further and further gone by the day.
He used to stand at the foot of Gus’ door, he never had the initiative to grab the knob and properly open it. He would stare at the peeling white paint and not feel the time pass until he heard soft steps come up the carpeted stairs.
When he would hear Dad, the slicked gel on his struggling hairline was so vivid and pungent that he refused to use the same brand to this day. It makes Lars feel a bit sick.
At least the house smells of lavender and vanilla now.
As the day properly rolls in, Lars starts to notice just how quiet it is. He sits silently at his breakfast table, nothing but an empty glass in front of him, and there is nothing but chilling morning silence. The type of silence that makes his ears ring and his hands start to knead atop the linen of his pants.
He’s too often in silence, and sometimes that hurts, too.
He checks his clock, he has four minutes left until he will be officially late.
Until moments later, while his eyes are squeezed shut, he hears a fluttering knock.
Margo.
Lars quickly shifts in his seat, a sudden feeling of dread washing over his body as he tries his best to shy away from the curtains. An instinct that wracks his body as his eyebrows crunch together and his eyelids flutter.
But it’s Margo.
Margo, here to carpool. They both live by the lake, anyway, and he finally took up the offer after an admittedly short-pressing conversation in the office parking lot one day. He tried to excuse himself out of the favor by claiming he likes to get to work early before anyone. Kurt conveniently passes by, noting that he turns on the lights every morning, always without Lars’ company.
Lars takes the defeat, feeling a bit guilty in the lie. Margo drives them both to and from work now.
He shuffles quietly to grab all his work items and makes a meek appearance behind his door’s window. Margo is standing there, but her eyes are keenly preoccupied with observing the new revelation of daisies and violets littering the lawn. The concrete plateau, which was often leveled off by the obnoxious inches of snow, is now thawed and lined with uneasy sprouts and petals.
The door opens with a creak and Lars steps down from his doorstep, his winter boots tucked inside, as his dress shoes make an appearance out of the office for the better part of the year.
Margo’s eyes shoot upward, and her smile joins as quick as she can fix her gaze on Lars. She always looks at him as if he will have something exciting to say, a tinge of excitement framing her face in her perfect optimism. Lars doesn’t know where she gets the courage to show so much in her eyes, in her smile, and in the way she twists and shimmies her body like her mind sends ecstatic signals at any indication of glee. Lars’ chest does an odd sort of twist when he sees her. But not in the way that would usually make him feel sick, but like someone released a handful of bees in his heart and it’s pumping through the rest of his system.
He meets her eyes for a moment, but resorts to focusing on her nicely trimmed hair as it barely brushes her shoulders. The corner of his lips beg to widen and endear her with a smile, or his hand to flutter and express himself like hers may. But, most times he feels a heat rise in his face and a sharp inkling that he’s being hunted for the act.
He doesn’t know how. Yet, Margo is great at showing and telling how she feels, and she doesn’t seem to mind his lack.
She starts, as she often does with that pretty lilt, “Good morning Lars! Doin' okay?”
“You– your hair.” He sputters out. She won’t get what he means, he is so bad at this.
“What?” She answers back, quietly, calmly.
He makes the correction, “You cut your hair and it looks very nice, Margo.”
As his eyes bat up to see if she still has any interest to continue this conversation, he sees her tuck a bit of hair behind her ear. Her gaze strays aways from him, and her palm lands gently onto her lower cheek, “Thank you Lars, I like your sweater.” She emphasizes, “It’s a nice sweater.”
Gosh, there are the bees. Spring really has arrived.