A COLLECTION OF LILY AND JAMES
Author: Queen Nightingale
Rating: M (For swearing and sexual content)
Pairing: JPLE
Author's Note: This will be a three-shot, but if there's enough demand I might make it into a full story. Dedicated to LikeAVision, and FollowThisRhythm.
Call the roller of big cigars,
The muscular one, and bid him whip
In kitchen cups concupiscent curds.
Let the wenches dawdle in such dress
As they are used to wear, and let the boys
Bring flowers in last month's newspapers.
Let be be the finale of seem.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.
- The Emperor of Ice-Cream by Wallace Stevens
It started with a bang, just like everything else in her life.
It wasn't a subtle pop, like a heated kernel, but more along the lines of a foghorn on a Monday morning. It wasn't a smooth latte, but a bittersweet shot of expresso. Hot, fast, and heart-pounding.
She loved it. It was a whirlwind romance from the beginning, a perfect queasy knees love story combined with a delicate flavouring of tingles. It was the type of story that almost seemed too strange to be true, too bizarre to actually exist.
But exist it did. Because as much as she might have fought it, as much as she might have hated and hated and burned for this one boy, fate always had their hand in the deck of cards that she was playing with. She was destined to lose, just a bit, so that she could take the total win.
Right now, all over the world, hearts are breaking. Some are pounding from sweet, first loves, some are ricocheting from daring, dark romances, and some are simply shattering, one by one, all in a line.
Hers would break. It would shatter into giant shards and bleed onto the floor, tumbling down from her open chest cavity, dripping blood and guts and desire and emotion.
Yes, it would be ugly. Real life is ugly. She wasn't a stunning beauty, he wasn't a devil-may-care model; they were real people, as common as toast and butter. That didn't mean, however, that they couldn't fall in love.
Life isn't worth living without a bit of chaos, a bit of mutiny. She didn't know this – he did. He coloured her world in vibrant shades of red and gold and yellow, and shook her so much that she felt like she was hung upside down by the strings of his fancy. She was scared that one day, he might get bored, and cut her loose. And then she would fall right on her head.
She did fall on her head. And caused large bang, and then the game began.
And it wasn't clear from the start who would win it.
"Lily?!"
"Lily?"
"Lily, what are you doing here?!"
Rays of sunlight suddenly streamed in between the curtains of the bed, and Lily groaned and shoved her face into the pillow, burying herself in the sweet scent of sleep.
"Go away, Marlene."
"I'm not Marlene, Lily."
"Go away, Emmeline."
"I'm not Emmeline either, Lily."
Lily took note of the distinctly masculine sound of the voice, and frowned into her pillow, then turned onto her back. She gaped when she spotted Potter curiously leaning over her.
"What are you doing in my dormitory?"
"What are you doing in mine? I'm the one who's sleeping, obviously you're misplaced," Lily retorted, her eyes wide, her hands scrabbling to grab her sheet up to cover her thin nightgown, "Potter, what are you doing here?"
"Lily, look around."
She glared at Potter, who looked curiously amused by the situation. Inhaling with irritation, she tossed her flaming frizzy hair over her shoulder and looked around.
Okay, maybe he was right.
The walls of her 'bed' were covered in pictures of half-naked witches, who giggled at her and blew her kisses, making Lily colour in shock. She rubbed her eyes in amazement, and then glanced around the room. It was evidently a boys' dormitory, with clothing strewn everywhere, and Remus Lupin clearly snoring in the bed beside her.
"Why am I here?" Lily said suddenly, her hand lifting up to self-consciously touch her head, Potter chuckling at her misery, turning away from her to amble over to his own bed, "Potter! James!! Why am I here?!"
"I don't know, maybe you should ask yourself that."
Lily thought back to last night, which was a haze of alcohol and dancing. Gryffindor did throw the best Quidditch after-parties. She distinctly remembered talking to Dorcas by the large red couch, and then reaching for her flask of firewhiskey. She didn't remember much after that.
"Oh Lord," Lily said, her voice making Potter turn and smirk and her evident confusion, "I don't remember what happened last night." She chewed her lip, her eyes going up to stare at Potter, "What happened? Why am I here?!"
"I'm at just as much of a loss as you, Lily," Potter replied, smirking evidently (the great brute probably took great pleasure out of her confusion).
"You must know!"
"How would I know?"
"Were you at the party?"
James paused, and stared at Lily, who suddenly smirked as she remembered the events of last night.
"Oh right. You were busy passing out by the beer pong table. Guess the champion chaser can't hold his liquor."
"Says the girl who's currently in my best mate's bed and can't remember the events of last night," James said mockingly, glowering at Lily, who hid a snort at his rising colour, "And I can hold my liquor."
"Okay. Sure. Wait – what?! Best mate's bed?!"
"Yeh, you're in Sirius' bed, Lily," James said, turning around to hide the frown that graced his face, "Welcome to the tick mark club. Guess you'll be number 20."
"20?!" Lily shrieked, jumping out of bed, wrapping the sheet around her, Remus waking up with a loud snort and a grumble, "I am not twenty! I do not sell out like that! I don't even have a hangover!"
"Sure you don't."
"I don't, James, how dare you!" Lily said angrily, marching towards him, her 5"4 frame comically small compared to his staggering 6"3 as she followed him, wrapped up in her blanket, "I am not tick mark number twenty!"
"I'm busy, Lily, maybe you should go back to fucking my best friend."
"I did not fuck Sirius!" Lily exclaimed, tripping over her blanket and nearly into the floor, James' hand reaching out to grab her before she did. She flung off his arm and angrily swung to face him, "I'm not the sort of person who does that! How dare you make that sort of insinuation!"
"How dare I make that sort of insinuation," James said girlishly, imitating Lily as he turned from her and rifled through his drawer, sticking his butt practically in her face.
"Oh, grow up," Lily spat at his bent over backside, turning around and stomping back over to Sirius' bed.
"You two both need to grow up, it's fucking eight on Saturday," Remus growled loudly, his voice muffled, the two of them freezing and turning to face the boy, his messy blond hair the only thing peeking out from under his covers, "Either get the fuck out of this room or I'll kick you both out."
James pressed his lips together, and glared at Lily across the room, who was intensely staring at her surroundings.
"Didn't you hear what he said, flower?"
"Oh shut up James, I'm not leaving until I get answers."
Lily calmly walked back over to James' bed, the furthest from the door, and incidentally the one with the most Quidditch pictures plastered all over the walls.
"So you like Quidditch, huh?" she said quietly, gazing up at the wall beside his bed, James watching her intensely.
"Not as much as you like Sirius," he snarled back, glaring daggers at her form. She tensed, but didn't rise to the bait, merely looked at the pictures on the wall.
"Well, it seems interesting. Who's that?" Lily pointed randomly at a rugged-looking Quidditch player who waggled his fingers at her from the poster board.
"Some random guy. Why? You want to fuck him too?!"
"For heaven's sake James I didn't sleep with Sirius! Stop getting your panties into such a twist!"
"OUT!" Remus roared, jumping out of bed and grabbing the back of James' shirt and Lily's nightgown, holding them promptly with his hands and speed-walking towards the door, the two stumbling behind him, "OUT, NOW!"
The door slammed with a bang.
Lily found herself standing, stranded, with a furious James Potter outside his dormitory, the boy glaring daggers at her.
"Okay, this is not my fault," Lily hissed at his enraged expression, her pupils dilating with anger, "Maybe if you weren't such a douche this wouldn't have happened."
"Maybe if you weren't such a common - "
Lily froze, her eyes wide and horrified, at the word about to come out of James' mouth. The boy formed the beginnings of 'who' with his lips, but didn't seem to have the effort to finish the word. He sighed, and his shoulders sank.
"Whatever, Lily."
Her cheeks heated up with indignation, but she didn't bother to talk, merely glared at James and then groaned, putting her hand on her forehead and leaning back dramatically.
"I hate mornings."
"Join the club, cupcake."
"I want you," she heard James growl softly into her ear, and she arched her back harder against his chest as his fingers danced softly against the bottom of her rib-cage, through her shirt, "You know that, though. I hate you so fucking much but I want you so badly –" she felt his lips dust against her collarbone, his shaggy hair curling around her shoulder "that I could die."
Lily breathed heavier, as James curled his hands around her waist and dragged his reddened lips against her fragile skin.
"Why would you always come back for me if you didn't want me too?" James was murmuring, almost nonsensically, into her skin, and Lily felt frozen, like a statue, pleasure thrumming up and down the veins of her body, "Why do you do these silly things, Lil, if you say that you hate me so much? It doesn't make any sense."
His words cut into her like sharp glass and she could feel herself falling deeper and deeper into his grasp, almost like he was gently stripping her of her self-control.
"I mean –" James' hands tightened around her waist, and Lily inhaled sharply, her head spinning with the intoxication of his touch "- it's like you're scared of me, but you hide it quite well." His lips traced the outlines of constellations on her skin, and she leaned her head back, her red hair trailing down his shoulder as she softly moaned.
His fingers slowly danced up her abdomen, brushing against her ribs until one hand rested dangerously close to the underside of her breast, her heart pounding in and out of her ribcage.
She couldn't help letting out another breathy moan and sinking into his embrace, completely out of control and set on fire by his touch.
His other hand dangerously began to trace up the inclines of her face, and it painted moons and suns and ribbons of light, taking them from the blazing heat surrounding their dance and repainting the world onto her face in bright colours of dalliance and treachery and intrigue, streaming out of his fingers.
A little niggling in her head couldn't help telling her that this was the way that it was always supposed to be, that this was the boy who should have been doing this to her, not the other painted buffoons who blindly groped her during school parties or slobbered on her face.
His finger traced her high cheekbone, slowly, precariously moving towards her lips, and she couldn't help moving her head towards the fingers, until they landed on her soft pout.
She heard James groan underneath her, and she couldn't help deliriously wanting to hear him do it again, and again, and again, and she wanted to so badly pull that noise out of his lips and be the reason why he was singing.
So, without thinking, she opened her mouth slightly, and his fingers gently pushed into her mouth.
She heard him inhale sharply, and she arched her chest forward so that the fingers of his left hand softly stroked the underside of her breast, and so it almost looked like he was performing some strange version of CPR on her heaving body. Her hands tangled even further in his hair, and James moaned again, causing passion to roll in waves over Lily's body.
"Can you fly? Because I can make you soar."
She smirked at his words, and then felt his lips dust across her neck and nearly died from the friction of it all, the two of them waltzing alone outside his dormitory at two in the morning. She dragged her hands up the back of his neck, entangling them into his hair and breathing, in and out, in and out.
"Flying is overrated," she retorted softly, grinding herself into his lower body, her lips softly kissing his fingertips, "I personally prefer running. You might make me soar, but I can make you chase me."
She heard him stifle a soft moan, so she gently trailed her fingers up and down his neck and skull, his body moving in retaliation as if he was just her puppet, and she was his puppet master.
It was intoxicating – the feeling of skin on skin or cloth against skin, and the knowledge of what lay beneath them. The hallway light sparkled against the natural shimmer of their hair, on their bodies, and for a second, just a second, they were covered in sparkles, beautiful transparent jems that coated their bodies.
And then they were truly crystalline.
They stood there awkwardly for a couple of seconds, minutes after Remus kicked them out, Lily examining a strange brown spot on the bottom of the dormitory door, Potter exhaling dramatically and tousling his hair like he just recovered from early male pattern baldness.
"Can you stop that!?" Lily said suddenly, yanking James' hand away from his hair, the boy gaping down at the enraged redhead, "Merlin that's annoying!"
James glared at her, and then rolled his eyes.
They stood in silence for another couple of seconds, Lily sinking to her bum and leaning against the wall as they waited outside the dorm room.
James started to tap his fingers, louder and louder, against his thighs, as they both stood and sat, practically motionless, outside the room.
It felt like elephants were tangoing on her temples, and Lily cracked at the seams.
"Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!" she suddenly shrieked, thumping her hand dramatically against the red carpet, James startling and turning quickly to look at her, "Can you ever do anything right? Stop tapping!"
"Obsessive-compulsive," James muttered, turning away from her and glaring angrily at a spot on the yellow wallpaper across from them.
"Bastard."
"Drama queen."
"I'm so sick of you," Lily said suddenly, her head leaning back to rest against the wall, her eyes trained on the ceiling.
"It's not like I'm having fun here either. Why are you even here?"
"I'm waiting to find out if I indeed, as you so gently put it, fucked your best friend."
Lily's eyes watered a bit in humiliation, her teeth gritted, but James' eyes were centred on the wallpaper, and he didn't notice. Sighing, he pulled a lighter out of his pocket and a cigarette. He quickly lit it and inhaled sharply, looking down at Lily, who just looked angrier when he pulled it out.
"What now, Lily."
"Those things will kill you, stupid," Lily said, rolling her eyes at him and motioning with her head at the cigarette he dangled between his fingers.
"I think I'll take the risk," James said, blowing smoke out of his nose, his nostrils flaring, "And they're allowed."
"Just because something's allowed doesn't mean it's right."
"Shut up, Miss Perfect, it's not like you've got it all together right now either," James said angrily, turning to face her, "You really shouldn't be dictating propriety."
Lily pressed her lips together in a firm red line, and James rolled his eyes, sliding down the wall to sit next to her, the cigarette smoke wafting up towards the ceiling of the small dormitory hallway. Subconsciously, she felt herself enjoying the outdoorsy smell of the burning tobacco, and she leaned closer towards the cigarette, her eyes focused on it.
"Do you want to try it?"
Lily jumped at James' deep voice, and turned to face him, his hazel eyes disconcertingly close to her own green ones.
"No, of course not," she said primly, turning back to fidget with her hands, "It's not good for me."
"It wasn't good for Beth either," James said deeply, his eyes not giving anything away, focusing intensely on Lily, "But she still smoked."
Lily frowned at him, and the two sat in silence for a while, Lily's eyes occasionally darting up when James casually placed the cigarette against his lips and inhaled softly.
"Oh fuck it, fine, why not, if I'm breaking one rule I might as well break them all," Lily said quickly, reaching up and grabbing the cigarette from James' hand, ignoring the tingles that erupted down her fingers when skin brushed skin.
"Don't inhale too much at once," James said warningly, watching her carefully as she eyed up the burning cigarette, "You'll burn your throat."
"You burn my throat," she said, a touch of sadness mixed into the anger, and James' eyes flew wider when her eyes jumped up to meet his. He sighed, and reached for the cigarette.
"Come on Lily, I was just joking about the Beth thing, you don't need to smoke."
"This isn't about Beth," Lily said intensely, pulling her arm out of his reach and staring at the ground, "I want to do this. Of course this isn't about Beth, who the fuck is Beth?!"
James didn't reply, merely gazed at her from behind his round glasses.
She looked down and then up at him again, almost nervously.
"I can do this, I want to."
"Okay."
She paused, lifted the cigarette to her lips, and in one large anticlimactic moment, shoved it away from her face and in front of his.
"Why don't you believe in me," Lily said angrily, James smoothly taking the cigarette out of her hand and inhaling the smoke.
"Because most of the time I'm just wasting my breath."
"Fuck it, I will do it."
She grabbed it out of his hand and inhaled it in a quick puff, the smoke barely entering her lungs. She still felt a discernable rush of air to her head, and smiled, blowing the smoke out of her lips, James smugly looking down at her.
"I did it."
"I know you did it. I asked you to do it."
James smirked at her, and Lily rolled her eyes.
She remembered that one night, a month ago, that one night that changed everything and put her heart into a blender, an electric blender with the setting already on 'chop.' It was late, and there was no-one in the hallways, but she was creeping towards his dormitory because she was stupid and impulsive and incredibly horny.
She was wearing her stupid pink bra, the one with the green polka dots on it, and her 'lucky star' underwear, a white large shirt barely covering the edge of her bum. And then she reached the door and stood on her tiptoes and knocked, holding her breath, and then he opened it and the world swung around on its axis when she looked into his eyes, past his round glasses.
He reached down and kissed her, pulling her into the room and casting a muttered 'silencio', his arms around her waist and his fingers entrenched in her soul.
It was wrong. He had a girlfriend.
But if kissing boys and catching butterflies was as easy as drinking milk, the world would be complete. If seesaws and swing-sets came pre-packaged with joyful children and blooming violets, if ordinary people could find their yellow brick roads, maybe something would have turned out differently.
Unfortunately, as is the case with reality, the world doesn't work that way.
They weren't just a boy and a girl, sitting on a swing set holding violets in their chubby childish fingers; they were a boy and girl, tangled in their lust and deviancy, on a self-destructing boulevard of sexuality and desire. There were no yellow brick roads that led to Oz, no magic potions or elixirs that could save them from the chaos known as the present.
Their romance consisted of neon lights and fluorescent signs, layered across a backdrop of foggy, polluted night air. There were no stars to wish on, no perfumes to breathe in, no summer wind to tickle their fancy. There was just a boy, lying on top of a girl, trying to tease her skin off and bury himself somewhere deep within her body.
It was something raw, and poignant, dark and daring, something that simply didn't exist in fairytales or children's books. He wasn't a Prince Charming, and she wasn't the princess – they belonged to nobody except for themselves, and even that possession was ruined by a clamouring of their discontent souls. It wasn't pretty, and it certainly wasn't nice.
It was dirty peacock feathers and squalid dormitories, wet kisses and boys with hollow eyes. It was filthy, decrepit, not what it should have been. There was no inner beauty behind their masks, no saving grace being their cruel insults.
But they lived, Merlin did they live, and isn't that all that you need? They breathed passion and disturbia and cracked open Pandora's box, finally exposing hope amid their scandalous bedroom touches. They didn't bother to paint over their life in pastels or flower petals; they weren't soul mates, they weren't fated for each other – but they were real, and all they ever wanted was to be loved.
It didn't work out. Real life never works out the way that it should. One night, when she crept into his dorm and lay beside him on the bed, his fingers gently combing through her red hair, she came in for a visit and she jumped up from beside him and she started screaming and he started apologizing and she slipped out the door, unnoticed and forgotten.
That was the way these things went.
(Because he wasn't hers to start with.)
"I'm sorry."
"What?"
Lily started, her droopy eyes widening and turning her head towards James, who broke the silence, the two of them sitting side by side.
"I'm sorry for the whole mess that happened a while ago."
"That's okay," Lily said, exhaling sharply out of her nostrils, her whole body suddenly tense.
James started fiddling with a loose section of the carpet, his large hands almost giant compared to her slightly shaking, clasped ones, resting in her lap.
"Can we talk about it?"
"I'd rather not," Lily said firmly, her eyes wide, fear darting across them quickly as she stared steadily at the wall across from her, "It's done now."
She heard James visibly sigh beside her, and she tensed even further as she felt him fidgeting.
"Lily, we probably should talk about it at some point - "
"I'd rather not, Potter," she said sharply, James tensing beside her at the use of his last name, "What happened happened, that's all."
"It's not just suddenly over now Lily, it was real, if you could just stop avoiding me and it!"
"I have bigger things to deal with than your dramatics," Lily said fiercely, not meeting his gaze, her bottom lip perceptively shaking.
"Look. At. Me."
Lily whipped her head around at breakneck speed and found her face directly in front of James'. Her pulse increased, and her breaths became shallow as she watched his gaze drop from her eyes down to her raw lips.
"I want to talk to you."
"James," Lily said, visibly deflating and turning around from him, "I need to take a break from boys like you. I still don't know what happened with Sirius –"
Almost magically, Sirius bounded up the steps loudly, Peter trailing behind him, the two boys loudly yelling and laughing. Lily immediately tensed, and redness began to spread up James' neck.
"Lilyflower! My best friend's favourite redhead!" Sirius said laughingly, strolling over to where James and Lily stared up at him, both with equal measures of confusion and anger, "How are you doing?"
"Why was she in your bed last night, Sirius?" James snarled, suddenly possessive and enraged, Lily's eyes widening with the need to know the answer to the question.
Sirius suddenly looked pinned, and visibly gulped.
"Uhh, well, Prongs, we were just having a Sirius tea party!" Sirius said, laughter fading out of his voice as neither James nor Lily laughed at his bad joke, "Erm, what?"
"They asked why Lily was in your bed, Padfoot," Peter said nervously, inching up from behind Sirius to loudly whisper into his ear.
"I heard you, Wormtail," Sirius snapped back, Peter looking ashamedly at the carpet.
"Well, what's the answer?" Lily said, nervously laughing, "I mean, it's not like we shagged or anything!"
The hallway was suddenly filled with tense silence, the type that was thick as butter.
"Padfoot?" James snarled again, protectively moving towards Lily, who sat, shocked, at Sirius' blank face, "What's the answer?"
Sirius stuttered for a second, the only time that Lily had ever seen him somewhat unnerved.
"Well, erm, uhh …what's your definition of shagging?"