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She isn’t in her bed.
She can tell first by the smell: a mixture of citrus and pine that overloads her senses with every slow inhale from her nose. There’s a distant lingering of salt and sweat too, not unpleasant but familiar in its specificity. Comforting. Attractive even.
And then there’s the warmth.
It isn’t easy to detect while still swimming in sleep, but it slowly starts to seep in little by little, some blazing, organic heat that can’t be produced by a simple charmed quilt on a four poster. Half awake, her subconscious thinks of it as a giant casting circle, filling with energy and burning bright until she can’t even look at it anymore without being blinded. It’s hot and addictive and feels as soft as skin under her fingers that roam for purchase.
Something underneath her shifts and the circle shrinks inward, taking shape. Then there's a rumble, a sigh.
She opens her eyes.
Her cheek is pressed into a hard expanse of skin and at the end of it a spectacled-less James Potter stares up at the ceiling of his four poster, a smile so bright it momentarily stuns her.
Ah.
“Morning,” James chirps, hand stroking the length of her spine. “I didn’t wake you did I?”
“No, you didn’t. Uhm—”
The details piece together. Their lovely (and unexpected) date to Muggle London. The delightful experience of watching an endlessly confident James fumble through The Tube. Their laughter over a shitty but serviceable pint of stout James insisted on trying because the pub sandwich board proclaimed it was ‘the best in all of England.’
Then the apparating back. The giggling, snogging battle up the stairwell. The soft, timid admissions already accepted before making it to the bed.
Then, the sex.
Lily blinks up at James, hoping his piss poor eyesight doesn’t see her blush. Every girl she’s ever shared a dorm with has given their unsolicited two knuts about what to do when you shag a bloke, but none of them ever went on to explain this bit. The bit where you wake up naked and still there, in that strange limbo of not wanting to return to reality but also not knowing what to expect if you remain.
Surely, if there’s an obligatory awkwardness to these things, James will find a way to bypass it.
“I think you might be a dementor,” James says conversationally, a hand moving to caress her bare hip. “I think you might have taken my soul away from me—I’m very happy about it.”
He blinks down at her, eyes glittering like Christmas, his birthday and the quidditch cup have all miraculously happened on the same day. Her gaze roams down to his bare chest and it feels silly given what they’ve already done but her breath catches anyway, heart making a racket against her bones.
It wasn’t like she forgot what he looked like but when he’s right here, like that.
Out of self preservation, she ducks back into him.
“You alright?” James asks, his other hand stalling in her hair. “If you want to sleep some more I’m perfectly happy to—”
“No, it’s fine,” Lily says, her voice murky from being pressed against his chest. A finger draws a line from her ear to her collar and her body hums, nerves and some baser instinct intertwining to light her up.
“It’s just…we had sex.”
“We did.”
“And you were…really good at it.”
There’s a pause, then a laugh shoots off like a starting bell. Without warning her back gets pressed into the mattress and James takes up her vision, alight with happiness.
“I’m sorry,” James says, beaming. “Can you say that again? For purely record keeping reasons–”
“For your big head, you mean,” Lily gasps, her cheeks going pink. “I just mean for it to be your first time—”
“Our first time,” James corrects, placing a kiss to the corner of her mouth. “ And we are really good at it, Evans, not just me. It’s a team sport.”
Lily groans, pushing back against his grasp. He lets her hands free and they slide easily around his neck, pulling him in so she doesn’t have to witness his joy from frustrating her.
“Oh, Christ. Please don’t make this into a Quidditch analogy.”
James grins wider, pulling her back to face him. “Empathetically, I refuse.”
They kiss slowly, sweeping their lips together to wipe off the banter before catching heat. This is it, she thinks somewhere between his mouth dragging downwards and the eventual thrust of their hips, this is the best anyone has ever felt. Nevermind all the twittering girls warning of cheesy, awkward tales of losing virginity. They must have been doing it wrong—that or James is right because they have no idea–and they never will because now that she’s got it—got him— she isn’t letting go.
It’s such a freeing concept that when she comes, she can’t help it— she laughs.
“Wow,” James mutters after, collapsing into her arms. “I hope you like this bed because we aren’t leaving it, ever.”
Of course he’s joking, but it makes her wonder how long they can sustain it: this new protective cocoon they’ve built for themselves long before they even fell into bed. She’d felt it coming on before they’d started dating: a feeling of security that not even her parents were able to provide when they were alive. Like just having a laugh with him could repel a hoard of dementors; keep an entire war at bay…
“Didn’t some muggle bloke commit his life to lying about— you know, from that band?”
Lily snaps back to reality, the warmth of endearment filling her.
“You did not just refer to John Lennon as ‘that muggle bloke,’” Lily laughs. “I’m actually properly offended that you don’t know his name.”
James’s head twists against her neck, one eye peeking up.
“Name one player on the Appleby Arrows.”
Silence.
“Right, so stalemate,” James says, smirk stretching against her neck. “Don’t worry Evans. Unlike someone, I’ll forgive you—since you’ve just given me the best shag of my life and all.”
He kisses her neck, triumphant. Lily rolls her eyes.
“Dramatic,” she says, giving a teasing tug to his curls. “You’re so bloody dramatic. How anyone lets you prattle on like this on a daily basis is incredible.”
“I don’t prattle,” James scoffs, genuinely offended. “I can’t help that I am very in tune with my feelings—”
“Sorry, I’m mistaken. You’re dramatic and delusional.”
James’s eyebrows raise, grin blooming. “There is nothing dramatic or delusional about saying that being with you is the best thing that’s ever happened to me, Evans. That’s a fact. Way better than quidditch, I reckon—”
“Oh my god.”
Lily sits up, half sputtering, half laughing. Taken aback, James gives her space, propping himself up on his hands with an eyebrow cocked.
“Nothing is better than quidditch for you,” Lily says defiantly, cheeks burning.
“Right. Well, you are.”
“It’s not possible.”
“It’s my barometer we are using to measure these things, Evans. So yes, actually. It is possible. Nice try though.”
He shoots her a lopsided smirk, egging her on to have another go at besting him. If she knew any better, she’d say he’s doing it on purpose: flashing that same dimpled look he knows she used to complain about for days on end for years. It’s the look that used to keep her up at night way more often than she would ever admit, wondering why it bothered her so much and why deep down she couldn’t wait to see it again.
A small seed of something cracks open in her chest and begins to bloom.
Oh no.
“Hey, you alright?” James says, voice warped behind the alarm bells ringing in her ears, “Your heart started beating so fast.”
A hand leaves her side and takes her chin, pulling her eyes to meet his. Even with concern on his face, the glowing effects of his joy still come through, hazel eyes unobstructed by their frames and glittering so bright she’s sure she could see the universe if she looked hard enough.
No, it can’t be.
“I’m sorry, I thought we were just having a laugh. I wasn’t too full on was I?”
He places a soft kiss on her lips but she doesn’t reciprocate, frozen in place. The world around her expands and contracts, suddenly making sense and yet no sense at all. The voice in the back of her head screeching: Wait! Wait! Wait!
“Hey. Merlin, whatever I said I didn't mean to upset—”
She can’t hold it any longer. Honesty spills free.
“James, I think I love you.”
James’s hand halts on her cheek, his eyes focusing and unfocusing at a rapid rate.
“What?”
“I think I love you,” Lily says with more conviction. “And I don’t really know what to do with that right now so can we just…lay her for a bit?”
“Oh,” James's breathless response comes. “Oh…yeah, sure.”
Without another word, he lays onto his back next to her, staring again at the ceiling of his bed. He doesn’t touch her besides a hand reaching out to rest on her hip, fingers anchoring her there as a reminder.
They lay in a thick silence, their heart beats visibly shaking the air.
As always, he breaks first.
“Lily?” James asks, turning his head to her. “I know you asked for a moment and I want to honor that but—can I say something?”
Lily. It hammers in her ears, driving up her already accelerating blood pressure. It’s unnerving how insane the sound of her own name from his mouth makes her. Like it holds the world in each syllable.
“I think—no, I know I’ve loved you for a stupidly long time,” James says, quietly. “Like a real stupidly long time. Definitely longer than I’ve thought about shagging you which I’d really rather not admit how long I’ve thought about that.”
Heat rises to his cheeks and neck, turning his skin ruddy.
“I’m not saying this to sway your feelings or pressure you, but it’s important you know that. I need you to know that.”
Having said his peace, he turns back to stare at the ceiling. Silence falls again and without thinking she reaches for his hand to press her fingers into his palm.
It’s not even half of what she wants to say or do to him, but it’s what she can muster.
“How do we know?” She asks quietly.
“Hmm?”
“That it’s real love. How do we know it isn’t something that will pass?”
“Because we choose it,” James says simply. He rolls onto his side and finds her cheek, clasping it in one of his palms so she can’t look away.
“Everyday, I wake up and choose to love you,” James says, holding her gaze. “Even back before dating or even before our friendship when I was too thick to realize it, I was choosing you—and any time I could have strayed from that some part of me chose to come back. Look, I know I’ve made some mistakes along the way, but there wasn’t a day where I wouldn’t have chosen to end up here. That’s—” he finishes slowly, his breath catching, “that’s how I know I love you Evans. That I really bloody love you—and not just because you put up with me or are laying naked in my bed—”
Again, she can’t help it—she laughs. It’s so ridiculous—so him to take the words that have been haunting her for months and make them sound so easy. Two arms pull her into his chest and warm laughter presses into her ear, filling her with light.
“So, what are you thinking?” James asks after she quiets down, stroking the side of her cheek. “Have I finally convinced you of something?”
The seed that had broken in her chest grows at an alarming rate, circling her vital organs and wrapping them up until she doesn’t know where the feeling starts and she begins.
“Yes, you have,” Lily says, closing her eyes. “And it’s a shame for the Quidditch cup.”
James lifts his head, a familiar grin pressing a dent into his cheek. The same one that kept her coming back to him again and again. The one she’s certain she’ll never have to yearn to see for the rest of her life.
“Oh? Why’s that?”
“Because I love you,” she says simply, the pretense of ‘think’ or ‘might’ no longer relevant.
“I love you and we aren’t leaving this bed. Not for anything. Not even quidditch.”