City. {Jaria fic}

There's a harvest each Saturday night
At the bars filled with perfume and hitching a ride
A place you can stand for one night and get gone

She wasn't quite sure how it had all come to this.

If someone had asked her what she'd be doing at age thirty, say, ten or eleven years ago, Aria wouldn't have thought in her wildest dreams that singing in a dead-end dive bar for shitty wages and even shittier clientele was in the stars for her. But things happened, she supposed, life happened. Woodcutting wasn't exactly a lifetime career after all the abuse she'd put herself through in her teenage years, and her body had eventually weakened too much under the strenuous labor to be useful anymore, muscles refusing to haul heavy loads and tendons screaming in protest at the repetitive motions of swinging an axe. They'd fired her just before her twenty-fifth birthday. It was either singing or starving after that, and she'd had enough starving to last her a lifetime.

Which is why she'd ended up in this bar, with its layer of grime on every possible surface, horrible lighting, and alcohol that was from anywhere but the top shelf. It wasn't anything special by any stretch of the imagination, but after five years the place felt a little like home, especially since home was a run-down studio apartment in a similar state of grunginess and disrepair. Turns out there wasn't much of a demand for vocal talent in District Seven, and beggars couldn't be choosers, so Aria had jumped on the first opportunity she could find, playing her tortured little heart out every night to a room full of smoke and booze and broken dreams that matched her own.

She'd always wanted to be a star.

Of course, Aria had always pictured herself in gorgeous evening gowns standing dead center on a stage at some opera house in the Capitol with standing ovations and roses raining down on her rather than sitting at a beat-up old baby grand in a threadbare cocktail dress with slurred catcalls and (rare, too rare) tips falling into the glass jar that stood next to the piano bench. But life didn't work out that way, and she was finally old enough to realize it. Old. She felt it more and more every day, worn-out joints creaking when she got out of bed and the very first traces of gray making their appearance laced within honey-colored strands. Mirrors had never been her friends, but that insistent, destructive self-loathing she'd used to struggle with so fiercely had mellowed enough with age to keep her from having an absolute meltdown (although she'd cried for a while when she realized for the first time that any beauty she might have ever possessed wasn't going to be around for much longer).

Maybe it wasn't the exact type of stardom she'd always dreamed of, but Aria couldn't deny the small degree of pleasure that her job brought her. It didn't take much to glow in such dim surroundings, but she did it anyway, voice soaring and fingers flying until people came from miles around to see the girl down at O'Flannegan's Pub who could play anything you asked her to if you gave her a minute or two to work on it. But people rarely made requests, too entranced with the musical creations she already had in her repertoire. You had to give the people what they wanted, it was an unwritten rule among performers, and it went without saying that the blue-collar patrons of this particular hole in the wall weren't much interested in Bellini or Purcell, so Aria had been left with her only other viable option.

She sang Julian's music.

God knew how long it had been since he'd walked away and left them there, but the notebooks still sat in her apartment, messy staves and notes and lyrics scrawled haphazardly over the paper that had yellowed a little over time. But no matter the state of its vessel, the music itself was still beautiful. And speaking of beautiful things, she could still remember the look on his face when he'd written every one of those heartbreakingly gorgeous compositions, brows furrowed in concentration and stormy eyes fixed on something only he could see as his hands flew over the paper and piano keys with equal amounts of agility and grace. Aria had never been much of a writer (words had always confused her, tied her tongue and heart into little knots unless she was singing them), but she had never ceased to marvel at what could happen inside of Julian's mind, how it could translate itself into crescendoes and interludes and breathtaking choruses that would constantly do funny things to her heart.

They were kids. They were stupid kids all wrapped up in a love that could never work out, and it took them ages of struggles and screaming matches and families who would never, ever approve to make them realize that they were on a one-way train ride to hell. So they'd both jumped off. To this day Aria could really never say what the beginning of the end had been, even though the end of the end, that last fight, that final slam of the door would be ingrained in her mind until the day she died.

She hadn't seen him in over nine years. Oh, she'd heard things of course, a wildly successful business, beautiful wife, couple of kids running around, more money than he knew what to do with. Nothing she hadn't expected. And perhaps she was more than a little bitter about it, that he'd left her alone in the dust after everything and that she was still alone now (would be forever if any more of those gray hairs started rearing their ugly heads), but really, sitting around and wallowing in the hurt wasn't going to do her any good. Some vodka, on the other hand...

Oh well, she decided, gathering up a sheaf of music that she didn't really need and folding herself into place on the bench, fingers brushing the worn ivory like they might a lover's cheek if one existed (she refused to call the idiots she let take her home on nights when she hated herself too much to be alone "lovers." They were therapy, and nothing more). This is how it is. Too late for change at this point.

And it's clear this conversation ain't doing a thing
'Cause these boys only listen to me when I sing
And I don't feel like singing tonight, all the same songs

He wasn't quite sure what the hell he was doing here.

With every high-end lounge in the world that he could have afforded to patronize, Julian had absolutely no explanation as to why he was sitting on a rickety stool looking at a bar that was coated with several colors, textures, and varieties of filth. It was clear enough that he stuck out like a sore thumb (his custom tailored suit might as well have been neon green instead of charcoal for as much contrast as it made to all the plaid shirts and blue jeans), even clearer that he wasn't all that welcome here judging by the apprehensive glares that were coming his way from every direction. And he couldn't really blame them. He wouldn't trust him either.

Maybe he was sitting in this hellhole because he'd always felt like a rich lifestyle was a lot like rich desserts - too much of it would make you completely sick. After thirty years of living there, Scott Manor had never felt like home and tonight was no exception; after the kind of day he'd had he just couldn't go back to damask curtains and Sienna nagging him for every goddamned thing under the sun and the baby crying and and and... at least not until he'd had enough quality time with his good pal Jack Daniels to make him a little more complacent towards everything that usually made him want to rip his hair out.

Sometimes he felt like fairytale endings were nightmares in disguise.

Julian wouldn't dare say so to anyone, because people tended to be so fucking stupid that they wouldn't understand what he meant, would insist that he was some kind of bad person because living the "good life" made him consider blowing his brains out at least once a day. No one ever seemed to process the idea that living a life that had been chosen for him didn't really seem like much of a life at all, but maybe that was just because underneath all the expensive suits and business deals and carefully-constructed exteriors he was still the same rebellious little shit inside that he'd always been. He couldn't help but smirk a little at the thought, taking off his glasses with one hand and rubbing at his aching eyes with the other. Getting old wasn't for sissies, and he'd finally begun the realize that when his eyesight started going, eventually degrading to the point where he was blind as a bat without the designer frames resting on his nose. Life in general wasn't for sissies, and he'd known that for a considerably longer time, even before fake happiness and forced composure when he was still an obnoxious teenager trapped in a thirty-year-old body.

It wasn't all horrible, he guessed with an internal shrug. There were perks in his life, little mercies that broke up the mundane existence of the day-to-day, mainly his kids. Julian loved Alba and Michael and little two-month-old Lynette more than anything else, and even though he couldn't say the same for their mother (marriages that were really business deals never seemed to work out), he was at least proud that he'd managed to provide a more stable family dynamic for his children than his parents had for him. Of course, it didn't take much to have a more stable family dynamic than the mess he'd grown up in. Eight siblings, half of them dead; Natalia forever ago after the chemo had stopped working, Helena three years ago from alcohol poisoning, Ander finally realizing what a dick he was and doing the world a favor by offing himself, Adrian and that awful wreck on that business trip to One...

Julian was one giant bundle of vices and unresolved issues and he'd be the first to admit it, a glass of Scotch in one hand and a cigarette in the other. Time had taken away quite a large chunk of his pride, large enough to make him able to acknowledge that sometimes he needed a smoke and a drink (or two or three) to keep him from going absolutely batshit insane - not that he wasn't already. After these few hours of his own time he'd go back to his normal life where almost everything was shit and he had to grit his teeth and keep his eyes fixed on the family photo that sat on his desk to keep from doing anything rash (throwing his filing cabinet through a window, lighting the office on fire... he had a lot of time on his hands to imagine these and other outcomes), but for now he would just sit here in this filthy dump of a bar and nurse his drink and try to forget everything that he was missing in this cookie-cutter existence that had been thrust upon him.

But how could he forget when that voice across the room was so damnably familiar?

He was genuinely surprised that a shady place like this would actually have a lounge singer on staff, much less one who was this good. Julian hadn't had time for music in... five years? Probably closer to ten. Being the executive of a major lumber company didn't leave much room for scrawling out compositions of the edges of legal pads, and anytime he'd even tried to sit down at the old piano at the Manor Sienna had given him one of those absolutely vicious glares and asked in an incredibly bitchy tone if he didn't have anything productive that he could be doing. So yes, the music was nice for a change, the smooth tone and skilled accompaniment and holy hell I wrote that song.

He hadn't realized it at first, but he did now, mind wrapping its way around the lyrics about sunlight in someone's hair and fingers intertwined and love, the kind he'd almost forgotten existed. Now distinctly more curious about the owner of that gorgeous voice across the room, Julian sat his drink down and hopped off the stool, turning around and craning his neck to see through all the smoke and awful lighting. "Well, I'll be damned."

How the hell was she still so beautiful?

Forget all the other questions he could have asked himself - why was she here, why was she singing his song, how many years had it been? No, he remained fixated on that one thought, watching the careful articulation of her fingers, the graceful undulation of the tendons in her neck as she reached for the higher notes (she had to work a little harder for those than she used to, he noticed, must have been from singing in a room full of smoke for a long time). Julian was more than aware that he should've turned around and gotten the hell out while he still could, but instead he edged his way through the crowd and away from the door, making his way to the piano just as she finished and a smattering of applause rose into the air.

What to do? What to say after a decade of not knowing whether she was dead or alive? Julian noticed with a nervous little pang behind his sternum that she was skinny, almost as skinny as she'd been back when... God, had there even been a back then, a cold winter day in the woods and a couple of hostile kids learning to let each other in, learning to love? There must have been, but it sure didn't feel like it. Not now. Not when he looked at her and noted the worn state of her clothes, that complacent look of someone beaten down by the world. This couldn't be that same girl with the fire in her eyes and the defiant smirks that screamed you'll never stop me without her ever saying a word. It couldn't be, and yet it was.

"What's a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?" The bill was out of his wallet and falling into the tragically empty tip jar before he even knew what he was doing. And then she looked up, the recognition sparked in her eyes, and for a moment, just for the most infinitesimal moment, Julian was a lovestruck kid again. "It's been a while, Ria."

Here in these deep city lights
Girl could get lost tonight
I'm finding every reason to be gone
There's nothing here to hold on to
Could I hold you?

She had always remembered the little things.

The big events, that god-awful family dinner or the whole business with his mother pretending to be a creepy, murderous stalker to scare her off - they all seemed insignificant compared to the little details. His laugh, the scent of pine and old spice, sweat-slicked skin on summer nights with nothing but crickets and shared breaths as an underlying symphony, the scar on his cheek that made a dimple when he smiled - those were the things worth remembering, even though time had a funny way of taking them and twisting them and watering them down until everything was foggier than she would have liked it to be. And he was different than what she remembered, more careworn and with an air of grudging resignation about him. And of course he looked a bit older, just like she did, worry lines starting to appear on his forehead and those magnetic storm-cloud eyes locked onto her from behind a pair of glasses that hadn't been there before. He looked refined. Distinguished. Not like Julian. And Aria wasn't sure how she felt about it.

"It has. Almost ten years," she mumbled, furious at her breath for catching in her throat, for her fingers messing with a lock of her hair like some hormone-crazed teenager. She was bitter, she was angry. So why couldn't she just do what she wanted to do and tell him to go fuck himself? "How's the wife and kids?"

And that at least had some of the affect she'd wanted, she noted, watching his eyes dart away from her face (could that be shame she saw? Regret?) and lock themselves on the dirty floor instead. Aria had never been much of a sadist but making him squirm after all these years had a sense of justice to it, especially when he had something happy to go home to while she had her empty apartment and a petulant, cranky cat that only loved her when he was hungry.

"They're fine," he muttered back, digging around in his pocket for a while before pulling out his wallet and flipping it open to reveal a picture of the three most beautiful things Aria had ever seen in her life. They all looked exactly like him (maybe their mother just had weak genes), dark hair and wide gray eyes and sharp, elegant features that made them look ethereal, positively angelic. "That's Alba, she's six. She loves to play piano. Michael, four, loves eating things that he shouldn't and playing in the mud. And that's Lynette. She's two months old."

She wasn't sure exactly why, but her fingers reached out of their own accord and brushed across the smiling faces, tracing two-dimensional high cheekbones and smooth complexions and those trademark Scott slightly-lopsided grins with a tenderness that she hadn't thought she possessed anymore. "They're beautiful."

And they were (because how could any child of his be something other than beautiful?), so stunning and unexpectedly alluring that she couldn't look away from the photograph. And as much as she hated to acknowledge it, Aria's eyes subconsciously began swapping out some of their features for others, changing one or two pairs of gray eyes to hazel, adding a spray of freckles over the cheeks, giving the oldest girl lighter hair and a bit more substantial build... These could have been mine. Ours. For the first time in quite a few years she experienced the ghost of something she'd almost forgotten, that crippling pain that would hit her like a locomotive at random in those first few months after he'd left. All of life's could-have-should-have-would-have-beens were mean, hurtful little bitches, but she'd at least learned to push them down over time so they didn't keep her up at night anymore, staring at the empty space next to her in the bed and asking the universe why until the word was seared into her brain with a maddening permanence.

Not now, though. All those memories of collapsing into tears at the slightest provocation and feeling so damned empty all the time (she still did, but fighting through it was better than letting it drown her like she used to) bubbled frighteningly close to the surface in that moment, refusing to dissipate until the picture disappeared back into his pocket. And even then they refused to leave entirely, sending familiar stabbing sensations into her chest when he looked back up at her, that same old smile playing at the corners of his lips. "Thanks. So how are things for you?"

Oh, not much. I'm just thirty years old, stuck in a dead-end job and the same shitty apartment I've lived in forever. I'm alone in every sense of the word and there are still mornings when I wake up and miss you so much that it's all I can to do even breathe.

"I'm all right." She tried to smile, she really did, but the motion was so rusty on her lips that it came out closer to a grimace, her eyes leaving his face and traveling back to the worn piano keys. "No husband, no kids. Don't want anything holding me down, you know? My body pretty much gave up a few years back, so I had to get out of the woods and find something to do to make some money. This place isn't too glamourous, but it's a living."

Aria could see the pity in his eyes, and she hated it.

She'd always hated it, ever since they were kids and he'd pulled the whole you're something fragile that I have to take care of crock of bullshit, anything that might have passed for chivalry only managing to piss her off to the point of snarling at the world that I can do it myself, dammit.