This was written for Jily Secret Santa. It's a present for aweasleychristmas on tumblr. I don't own HP.
"I'm tired of this," he says. "So fucking tired, Lil."
She looks up at him from under her eyelashes and says, "I'm sorry, James. Please forgive me?" And of course he does, because she's got him under her spell.
He wakes up and she's gone—she's always gone. He wonders if maybe he's supposed to be the one leaving her, but he can't because every second with her is precious. He can never bring himself to be the one to say goodbye, so he curls up and ignores the pain, imagining a world where she stays just for one night and he'd be happy.
In public they're "Hey Evans" and "What do you want, Potter?" but in private they're "Fuck me, James" and "I love you." She's never said it back to him but he pretends not to notice, telling himself that it means nothing.
She's like a spider and he's caught in her web of lies, struggling to free himself, but at the same time he's a very sick fly, or maybe just a masochist, because he doesn't want to leave her. He tells himself she loves him and lets himself fall further. He's willing to die slowly and painfully at her hands because it's better than living without her. He's an addict and he knows it, but like with any other addiction, he can't quit her.
Sometimes he wants to just grab her and kiss her in the hallways and show everyone that he finally got Lily Evans, even if he doesn't really have her and knows it. He doesn't, though, because she always says that love is private and that Hogwarts doesn't need to know everything about them and what they may or may not do behind closed doors.
He doesn't know how to get past that so he doesn't. Instead he just watches and waits.
She gets a boyfriend. He's a good bloke, the kind you take home to mummy and daddy for them to coo over. He walks the straight and narrow. James hates him on sight. He hates her too and then he hates himself because he can never truly hate her and he knows it just as well as she does.
In public it's Lily and her oh-so-perfect Ravenclaw but in private it's her and him and those perfect pink lips moaning his name. "James."
Bitterly he wonders if she ever moans the Ravenclaw's name. He hates sharing her but he has to because there's no denying her anything.
It's dysfunctional, and he thinks that's why Lily finds it perfect. She's so used to messed up relationships that she doesn't even know what normal is anymore. It's not real, what they have, but at the same time it's the realest relationship he's ever had with anyone.
He's in love with her, that's real. She loves him, in her own way, and that's real. The problem is that she's Lily and he's James and they're completely and utterly fake. She should be Evans and he should be Potter but they're not because they're Lily and James and he doesn't know which is fake and which is real.
"Lily," he says.
She's looking around anxiously because some Hufflepuff that neither of them know is passing by. "James," she hisses. "Someone could see."
His laugh is dry and broken. "Who could see, Lily? Merlin, no one cares. No one cares what anyone else does, don't you see? They don't care if I shag you or if we hate each other, or even both! We live in an imperfect world, Evans, where nobody ever cares about anyone else! You're one of the worst; I'm surprised you don't see it. I don't matter to you, do I?"
"James," she says and she's tearing up. He promises himself that it won't work this time but of course it will. It always does. "I don't want them to see."
"Let them see, Lily. You know why? Because I am completely and utterly in love with you and you don't give a fuck about me."
"That isn't true!" She protests, but her eyes give her away.
"I'm tired of this game we're always playing," he finishes.
"I'm tired too," she says and he can tell from the slump of her shoulders that this time she is telling the truth. She is, in fact, weary. Maybe it's the only true thing she's ever told him. Never the less, he continues.
"Go out with me, Evans?"
She presses a quick kiss to his lips. "Never, Potter."
He should have expected that she wouldn't give up her game that easily. She's never been the easy type, that's why when he passes her in the halls she's hanging off of some other guy's arm. And now he won't even have those stolen moments with her, moments where he can laugh at the misfortune of the other boys, to get tied up with Lily Evans, thinking they can keep her when they don't even have her at all.
Sometimes, when her new boy isn't looking, she'll glance over at him and smile that small smile that she knows has always made him go mad. Something inside her expression always screams, "Come get me, Potter."
He gets a girlfriend in the hopes she will get jealous (maybe she'll even act like a normal bird) but she never does. If she does she hides it too well for him to ever be able to pick up traces. She just shoots small smiles at him that drive him wild and she chews on her tongue while sitting next to him in potions.
"God, Evans," he groans sometimes but they never speak because he's James, she's Lily and they've hated each other forever—or they were supposed to, anyway.
It's odd, how they've picked up small things from the other. Her perfect pink lips would form the word God, a throwback to her days as a Muggle and a testament to her summers as one. She curses like a sailor when he upsets her, copying from the days when his dad was dying and she was actually there for him (that was how their relationship started, really, if he cares to look back).
He's noticed that recently she runs her hand through her hair sometimes even though it was a habit of his that always drove her insane. Sometimes these days he can actually be found in the library doing work, a new habit learned from her.
Her boyfriend, that hated Ravenclaw, is gone and he knows there's been some scandal but he doesn't ask when he interrupts his chess game with Sirius, tears threatening to spill over. She hasn't found him in months and for the first time ever she's asking him to come with her in front of other people.
He follows her to the Room of Requirement silently. She needs this, he knows, and he can't deny her everything.
He has his shirt half off when she puts a hand on his chest and says no. They curl up together on the bed she had Required (a different one than usual, he had noticed immediately, not that it really matters). He thinks that this may be the first time he has truly seen her vulnerable.
She falls asleep on him and it's another first, him leaving her. He tucks her in and turns off the lights and with such small gestures she suddenly has a lot less power over him. They're practically on equal footing and even she, asleep, feels it.
He's never felt like this before with her, secure, happy and equal, and if he had then he was lying to himself, because there's no feeling comparative to this one. Their meetings in the Room change. Now they aren't meaningless contact, instead they're talking and tracing patterns on her leg. They learn everything about each other and now not all of it is simply physical (though he knows that's not all; it was never just physical).
They aren't perfect, not by a long shot, but they're getting there.
He thinks that Sirius has always known—what kind of friend would he be if he didn't? He lets James go anyway, never commenting. He's only ever said one thing about it, "That's fucked up, man."
Oddly enough, he's stopped glaring at Lily and James wonders what she's managed to say to gain Sirius's trust. Lily is a clever one, but Sirius sticks by his guns. He thinks it has something to do with whispered words and raised brows. He doesn't ask. They'll tell him when they're ready.
He finds out the next night. She's in a knit cap and her nose is pink from the cold. It's snowing, white flakes unblemished by human footprints. It seems perfect and he thinks that maybe they've never been more perfect.
"Go out with me, Potter?" She asks.
He just smiles. "Never, Evans."