los inocentes
;;
Some girl croons into the microphone, singing about sleeping bodies and rolling stones. Her voice is a little too loud, the guitar a little too flat; but it comes together and mixes with the smoke in the air, with the smell of liquor and the quiet murmur of corner-table conversations, so that the overall effect is charming but grimy, intoxicating, captivating in the way that only late Friday nights on the quieter side of a college campus can be. The song's got just the right balance of sex and dreams to make for perfect background music.
And because she's alone tonight, swaying to those bedroom lyrics, with eyelids dropping and a heavy week hidden behind them, Aquarius can afford to focus solely on the music. All she needs to think about are the lilts in the singer's voice, the gentle tilting of the room, the soft skin on the back of her hand, the lazy swaying of her hair — she can just sit back and let the sound wash over her, listening to her heart's content and beyond.
It's in this half-limbo that he finds her. Slides right into the stool by hers, snaps her from her daydream and doesn't give her a second to catch her breath. Paradoxically, his voice blends with her muddled thoughts in all the ways his physical presence disrupts them. Quiet, a little breathy, a little rough. "What're you having?"
Aquarius looks him up and down without trying to hide her interest. Dark jeans, light shirt, black leather jacket, a barely-there smile, and cold, cold eyes — he's a last night waiting to happen, some materialisation of the way her apartment door sounds when it slips shut at two in the morning. She waves her hand in the air, brushing his offer away, not in the mood for the loneliness his mouth would no doubt taste like. "Nothing for me. I don't drink."
"You don't drink?"
"No."
"Seat taken?"
She glances down at the chair he's currently sitting on as he he crooks two fingers in the air in a silent call to the bartender. "Not really," she murmurs like an afterthought.
The barkeep takes his order like he's a regular, throwing him a small grin and gaze passing over her like she's not even there. Aquarius doesn't mind, though — the entire body of reasoning behind her coming here, purposefully off the beaten road, somewhere she wouldn't bump into anyone from her morning classes or afternoon lectures, is to be glanced over in exactly that sort of way.
"Name?"
She almost wants to ignore him for asking in such a rude way. "Aquarius," she sniffs, huffing when he just breathes out a laugh.
"Name, not star-sign."
"Oh, like I've never heard that before."
He smells of cigarette smoke, faint but unmistakable, and it makes her want to wrinkle her nose. His forearms, easily resting on the tabletop, are dark underneath the rolled-up sleeves of his ridiculous jacket. It's not unusual exactly, not in this part of the city, but the dark skin grabs her attention anyway, in such a way that when he turns to her again, she has to distract herself.
"Antares?" she reads off his red shirt, pursing her lips.
"Me," he smirks lightly. When he offers no further explanation, she cocks an eyebrow at him and lets her gaze divert to the stage.
Her drink arrives, and he hands it to her without flourish.
"What is it?"
"Cranberry and seltzer, splash of lime."
She downs it in one, and winces.
"What?" he asks.
"I can't stand the burn."
His chuckle is confused as he gestures to the glass in her hand. "You saw him pour a virgin."
"The fizz," she clarifies, sliding the glass back towards the barkeep with a nod. Aquarius wrinkles her nose at him, making prolonged eye contact for the first time. "Way too sweet. Eugh— disgusting."
The singer must have adjusted her tuning while Aquarius was drinking. The guitar now sounds, if anything, a little sharp; the set's completely ruined as far as she's concerned. When her attention turns back to the Antares guy, she realises his eyes have been on her through her brief distraction.
"You don't like sweet, you don't like fizz, andyou don't like alcohol." He settles his elbow on the table, resting his cheek in hand and leaning towards her, eyes still on hers. "You must be hard to shop for."
It makes her laugh. "Only in bars."
.
Two hours later, when the barkeep quietly murmurs to them that lock-up's in ten, Aquarius doesn't know why she lets the words tumble out of her mouth. She had no plans of taking any relations with him outside the bar, outside the minutes spent talking under the spell of sad music, but she went ahead and ruined any plans of anonymity by asking him if he wanted to spend the night. Just like that, ruined it all.
His answering smile, the embarrassed little huff and averted eyes as he nodded to the wall, was satisfactory consolation.
.
Later again, when she's had her fill of his lovely dark skin and he's left tiny bruises on the inside of her thighs that she'll have pay hell for trying to explain to her swim team, Aquarius finally lets herself think what she's been putting off since she didn't tell him to fuck off when he approached her earlier that night: maybe it's fate. 'Cause sure, it's late and she's had a long week, and the music was magical and the singer's voice was perfect for a romantic first-meet, but something made her talk to him, right? Something made him come up to her even though he admitted he usually never approached anyone. Something brought them together tonight, surely.
But of course, at the same time, she's twenty-something and living in a city that doesn't know her name, and just had shiver-inducing sex with an attractive, quietly-spoken stranger. And he's got those dark eyes she's always had a weakness for, and they both laughed over his stupid leather jacket on the walk to her apartment. So it's just as likely — far more likely, probably the truth if she doesn't lie to herself — that it's a moment spent in post-coital bliss where she lets her scepticism sleep, just for then.
And as wonderful as that one moment is, that one moment where she can think things like maybe it's fate without rolling her eyes or throwing herself into some arbitrary activity to forget having thought so embarrassing. She can think to herself that she would like to get a stranger better, or maybe pretend that they aren't strangers at all, and be okay with it.
.
"I lied," he breathes against her hair.
Aquarius scoffs into his skin. She wants to tell him that he sounds like he's purposefully trying to be vague and that's obnoxious as hell but there's a part of her, probably the same part that could think stupid shit like 'fate' without curling up in a ball of shame, that doesn't want to scare him away. So she puts a lid on the bitchy response, and instead says, "Oh?"
"It was too much." His free hand traces patterns into her back as he grazes up to her neck to tangle his fingers in her hair. "You wouldn't have let me sit down if you had known, so I didn't really have a choice, you know? And I didn't want you to say no. I had to talk to you."
Aquarius makes a discontented little noise, pointedly ignoring the small jump of her heart at his words, and turns to rest her chin on his chest so she's looking up at him. "What are you talking about?
When he looks down at her, he's smiling like a fool. "You're Aquarius."
She frowns. Makes to move away. His hand tightens suddenly — she doesn't even have time to gasp, and then his palms are warm on her cheeks, his fingers cupping her jaw, curling around her ears, bringing her face right up to his. She gasps out a shallow breath, staring at him in confusion.
"My name's not Antares." His forceful hands juxtapose with his wide, boyish grin. His dark eyes shine; she can see herself in them. "I'm Scorpio."
She blanches for a moment before common sense catches up with her. "Your star sign?"
"My name."
Most of Aquarius wants to hit him over the head. Part of her is staring at him with a deadpan expression, disbelieving. And her fingertips, the pads of which lightly trace his pectorals in lazy circles, whisper to her in warm voices, 'it's fate'.
"...I bet people give you a hard time for that."
"You tell me."
She rolls her eyes, but she's smiling and probably traitorously red in the face when she lets her own hands cup his face and pulls away to glance out the window. "Unbelievable. You dirty liar. You should have told me."
"You would've made me leave."
"I would not—"
"And said something silly like 'I don't believe in fate'."
Aquarius' eyes snap back to his. His gaze is serious, but his lips are twitching like he's barely holding back a smile. "And you do?" she breathes, hardly believing the words are coming from her lips.
"Not at all." He thrusts his hips against hers while at the same time trapping her legs with his and flipping them over.
Aquarius gasps, then shakily breathes out a laugh and glares up at him playfully. "Unfriendly."
"Who said I wanted to be friends?"
This time, when his fingers grip her waist and he grinds down, all the while smirking at her in that maddening way, she isn't laughing. Maybe some voice in the back of her head is murmuring sweet nothings like fate and knew it and of course, and maybe, as she pulls him down for a kiss and huffs an exasperated laugh into his mouth, she's agrees with herself.
Because sometimes, things like this happen, too.
.
.
notes: self-indulgent college-kid trash. ; - ;
listen to the stripped version of ghost by halsey and cry some tears for all the cynical aquariuses out there. (me. cry for me.)