When the bartender sets their drinks down, she smiles in a way that shows all of her teeth — perfectly straight, but yellow. Probably from nicotine, which she smells strongly of — and tells them, "You ladies have a wild night.”
She winks, as well, and Lily fights the urge to roll her eyes. It's not polite, she knows, but she's immediately frustrated with the bartender, though she has no real reason to be.
Lily has only known her for thirty seconds, but she has a tendency for disliking people, and is far too stubborn to change her mind once she forms an initial impression.
The bar was not Lily's idea, not her style, but Mary and Emmeline had forced her out of her flat, giving her little choice but to follow them out into the cold night.
"It'll be fun." Mary had said each time Lily opened her mouth, cutting her off before she could complain, "You need some fun.”
Lily thought the opposite. 'Fun' for Lily usually ended in trouble, and she had had too much of it recently.
Lily was trying to do better, to be better. Maybe then her sister would welcome her back into her life, maybe then she could make her parents proud again.
When Lily had emerged from her room earlier that night, wearing a yellow dress with flowers, Emmeline had frowned.
"What?" Lily had asked, self-conscious and hating herself for it, "You don't like it?”
"It doesn't look bad," Emmeline had said, "It's just very... innocent.”
Lily had swallowed hard, and turned her face away. "I'm not sure what you mean by that.”
Emmeline hadn't said anything else, but Lily could hear it anyway.
It's just not you. I don't understand why you're trying to be someone you're not.
She has heard those words before, when she was acting the exact opposite that she does now. Not from Emmeline, but from Petunia and her parents.
We're just worried about you. This is not who you are.
She could feel that same concern coming from her friends, and in that moment Lily had thought that she couldn't really tell who she was, then, if people said those things no matter which way she acted.
The night was slow, and boring, and Lily found herself at the bar more times then she'd have liked.
The bartender, Sirius (Lily had to ask for her name by the fifth time she went up there, it had seemed rude not to), was flawlessly juggling customers, and Lily decided to kill time by watching her; the quick movements of her arms, the way her tank top rode up slightly when she reached for a bottle on the top shelf.
She had watched Sirius greet customers all night, and send them away with drinks in their hands, each time saying the same thing. Have a wild night.
The voice at the back of her head, telling her to be careful, had faded into mere whispers about three drinks ago, and Lily found herself falling back into old habits, leaning forward on the bar, her finger circling the rim of her glass.
Once the line cleared, there was only Lily on the bar, along with a couple a few stools down who seemed more preoccupied with each other than with their drinks. Sirius turned her attention towards Lily then, swinging a towel by her shoulder.
"So," Sirius said, a mischievous grin forming at the corner of her lips, "You come here often?”
This time, Lily couldn't help but roll her eyes.
"Really?" She asked, raising an eyebrow at Sirius. "You couldn't get any more creative than that?”
Sirius feigned offense, placing one hand over her chest, and said, "Well forgive me for trying to make conversation!”
Lily scoffed. "Oh, please. As if you actually want to know about me.”
Sirius set her hands down on the bar, and looked Lily right in the eyes. A challenge, she recognized.
"And what if I do?" Sirius asked, "What if I want to know about you?”
"Why?" Lily countered, "So you can hit on me like you hit on every other customer? That's not gonna work.”
“I don't hit on every customer.” Sirius says, gaze still locked on Lily. The music is loud and the air is stuffy and Lily is feeling so much, too much to be smart.
“Yeah, right,” She says, leaning forward. She and Sirius are so close now, close enough that the smell of cigarettes becomes intoxicating. “As if you don't bat your eyelashes at all of them. Have a wild night.” Lily mimics Sirius's words, and she can taste the bitterness on her own tongue.
Sirius smirks.
Sirius smirks and it drives Lily mad, makes her want to jump over the bar and punch Sirius right in the face, or maybe kiss her, or maybe both.
“Upset you're not special, sweetheart?” Sirius says, and Lily is sure she wants to punch her. “A little jealous?”
Lily scoffs, hot in the face. “Shut up.”
Sirius looks unimpressed.
"What exactly have you been doing all night? You left your friends out there just to come sit at my bar and watch me." She said, with a look of triumph in her eyes.
Lily turned her hands into firsts, picturing them colliding with Sirius’ pretty little face, wiping that smirk from her lips.
"So tell me, Lily," There was something about the way Sirius said her name; like she was trying to eat it, devour it. There was even a glimmer in her eyes, like she was envisioning devouring Lily herself, too. "Who's trying to hit on who?"
Maybe it was all of the drinks, or the fact that Sirius' silver-gray eyes were so goddamn distracting, or how Lily couldn't help but drift her gaze to Sirius' arms and chest, but she found that she had no clever come back to that.
"I—" Lily sputtered after a few seconds of silence, "Or maybe I just didn't want to be a third wheel all night, and you were the only option.”
She was getting angry, she realized. She was often getting angry even when the situation didn't ask for it. In a few short minutes the conversation had turned into a competition, one she had clearly lost, and Lily didn't like losing.
"Oh, was I?" Sirius said, looking more amused than anything. Lily wanted to wipe the smugness out of her face. "Of course, because this is an empty club with no one else around.”
She gestured around, looking at the hundreds of people that surrounded them. The bar may be nearly empty, but the tables and the dance floor certainly weren't. Lily could have very well found someone to dance with, to waste time talking to. Of course she could have.
Why hadn't she? She should have. She knew better.
"Fuck off." Lily muttered, sending Sirius a dirty look and getting up from her seat and leaving without looking back. She didn't turn around to look at Sirius, who she imagined was laughing now. "So much for a wild night."
ᯓ★
Lily goes back to the bar, because Mary and Emmeline are apparently hell bent on ruining her life.
She would like to say she doesn't look for Sirius, but her eyes immediately dart to the bar, only to find a blond haired man mixing drinks instead.
The new bartender is pretty, sure, but he’s also boring. Direct and to the point when she goes to order, and sparing no lingering eyes on the low cut of her dress.
A dress that had Emmeline smirking rather than frowning when she and Mary picked Lily up. A dress that had absolutely nothing to do with the butch bartender and her white tank top. Absolutely nothing at all.
Mary and Emmeline disappear, as they tend to in places like this. They don't do it out of malice, and really the whole point of them taking Lily out is for her to meet someone and not so that she can third wheel them the whole night, and it's not their fault that Lily hates everyone she meets and refuses to so much as dance with them.
So really, she doesn't blame Mary and Emmeline for sneaking off to some corner or another, but it does leave Lily with very little options.
The bar is a bust, and the music is subpar at best, and Lily really wishes she hadn't thrown out all of her cigarettes when quit smoking a month ago.
But just because she doesn't have any doesn't mean no one else does, and what's the harm in one more bad decision?
All it takes is one lap around the building — passing drunken girls throwing up their guts and couples up against the walls — for Lily to find a corner that smells of cigarettes and weed and trouble, and all it takes is one glance to find a perfect pair of silver-gray eyes already looking at her.
Sirius was harmless.
She was just another bartender who flirted with customers and smoked outside the bar while she was probably supposed to be working, a black leather jacket thrown over the same white tank top that she probably wore everyday.
On her own, Sirius was harmless.
The problem came when you added Lily and reckless ideas, her knack for ruining perfectly good things, and her tendency to run off while everything burned behind her.
Marlene was proof enough of that, she thinks. Lily really shouldn’t be here.
But Sirius had already seen her and Lily refused back down from their unspoken challenge, and so after a minute or so of looking, she went right up to Sirius and said, “What? No cheesy pick up line this time?”
Sirius merely raised an eyebrow. “And who said I was trying to pick you up? You're the one who came out here looking for me.”
“I was not looking for you.” Lily rolls her eyes.
Sirius shrugs. “Sure.”
“I wasn't.”
She lights another cigarette, and Lily's eyes follow Sirius fingers to her mouth, the intake of breath and the exhale of smoke. “Okay.”
“How would I even know you were here?” Lily asks, irritation showing through her voice.
“You wouldn't.” Sirius says, and then she looks Lily straight in the eye. “But did you want to find me here?”
Lily hesitates, which is the only smart decision she's made since meeting Sirius.
The thing is that in the low light, twirling the lighter around her fingers and leaning against the wall, Sirius paints a pretty familiar picture.
Lily thinks back to Marlene — to falling in love with her almost instantly, to moving too fast, to the tumultuous and probably toxic relationship, to the disastrous breakup that had her packing her things and moving to a different city.
She thinks of leather jackets and smoke rings and smirking lips, and she hesitates.
She was supposed to be starting over, supposed to make better choices. That was the whole point of moving, of calling her sister again.
Kissing a bartender she barely knows outside of a bar is not a part of the plan, and it goes against everything Lily is trying to be.
But what had she been looking for when came here? Even if it wasn't Sirius necessarily, Lily knew she would end up doing more than just bumping a cigarette off of someone.
She never does learn her lesson, does she?
It's easy, to reach out and take Sirius’ cigarette from her fingers. It's easy, taking a hit of it before putting it out on the floor. And it's easy, so easy, for Lily to lean forward and kiss Sirius.
Sirius’ mouth is on Lily's, her hands moving up and down Lily's back, and Lily forgets why she was trying so hard to be good in the first place.
So what if this is going to end badly? So what if her sister never wants her around again?
Lily is tired. She's tired of pretending to be someone she isn't anymore, she's tired of pretending like she doesn't like the thrill of it all, and all she really wants to do right now is kiss the smirk out of Sirius’ lips, maybe do a little more than that, and see which one of them is going to ruin the other first.
She kisses Sirius harder, pushing her back against the wall, and thinks, wild night, wild night.