"maybe"

"do you work here?" came a voice from directly in front of sebastian. he didn't look up from where his fingers weaved over and under each other, a blur of tan on the ebony and ivory keys. he watched them, only half-listening to what he was playing, with disgust. his fingers were long, longer than average, and every time he looked at them he felt like he needed something from them, or for them, or something.

"hello?" the voice came again, louder this time, and a delicate hand waved itself vigorously in front of where sebastian was playing. this hand, unlike his, was small, with thin fingers that looked deathly pale in the perpetual gloom that tended to surround corner bars. slight traceries of blue veins wound their way to a dainty wrist that poked out of the sleeve of a worn-looking flannel.

sebastian glanced up to meet the eyes of the aggressively waving hand and felt his stomach lurch uncomfortably. sebastian had continued his playing throughout his analysis of what he was sure had to be the prettiest hands he had ever seen, but his fingers stopped abruptly in the middle of a new piece when he first looked into those electric blue eyes.

he felt a shock go through his system, as if his entire body were igniting, combusting into the bare elements of himself; atoms, and simple chemicals. he could feel a buzzing in his veins, as if those eyes really had electrocuted him. all he wanted was to fall into a beautiful abyss with nothing but this stranger's arms to hold him, to keep him afloat.

"quit fucking staring. it's rude." sebastian watched the stranger with the delicate wrists furrow his arched eyebrows slightly and cross his arms, burrowing his beautiful hands underneath his oversized shirt. "i asked you a question. do you work here?"

sebastian could feel himself beginning to nod, and quickly corrected himself, blinking rapidly and trying to shake the haze that came over him. "no. i... i only come in to play on weekdays."

the stranger's features softened slightly. "yeah, that's what i'd figured out," he murmured quietly, seeming to look over sebastian.

"sorry?" he questioned. figured out? what the hell is that supposed to mean?

• • •

sebastian's a physical therapist who hates his hands, instead preferring to use them to play piano in dim-lit bars, with a burning desire to be anywhere besides his hometown. quinn's an injured dancer with a big mouth who frequents sebastian's bar just to watch him play and demands too much from everyone around him

or

quinn offers to change sebastian's life in exchange for late-night therapy in hotel rooms

{ten part story.}