A/N: Very explicit. Very deserving of the M rating. This was written for Hp Ships Week over on Tumblr. I hope everyone enjoys as this fandom (Jily specifically) is seriously lacking in smut.
The first thing Lily was going to do when she got home from this shitty night was delete her Facebook. She didn't even know why she still had one. The only thing she wanted out of social media was to be tagged in cute pictures of herself (what Insta was for) and to send aggressive links to her friends in their never-ending battle over whether Marvel or DC was better (what Twitter was for). Facebook was a relic, an obsolete reminder of a time when parents thought predators lurked behind every smiling profile picture.
Had Lily possessed the foresight to delete her Facebook before now, she wouldn't have received the two invitations that had led her to Miller's Pub. Miller's was the favorite watering hole of grimy, calloused men looking for a night away from the missus where they could drown out the smell of the factories with the fumes from their cigs. It was also a place that Lily knew well as, by day, it was one of the only decent fish and chip shops in town.
The first invite was important because it served as the context that convinced her to accept the second. Four days ago, her phone had pinged, alerting her that she'd been invited to her five-year reunion. It's not like Lily wasn't able to count. Had she taken the time, she would have been able to work out that she'd left secondary school five years ago, but to be faced with it like that, starkly written on her bright screen, was enough to make her blanch in surprise.
If the Lily from five years ago, filled with steely determination to make the future her bitch, could see the Lily of now, she would not be impressed. It was not like her life was terrible. She had her friends – the old, like Marlene, and the new, like Dorcas and Mary. But it wasn't the kind of life fresh-faced graduates dreamt of either.
Her longest relationship remained the tattoo artist from two years ago, who'd had great abs but no personality. They'd made it a whole four months solely because he was so bland Lily kept forgetting to chuck him. A degree in Biology has landed her a job writing copy for drill ads, and even then the degree couldn't really take credit. No, her walrus of a brother-in-law had gotten her the job. The shame of it pulsed almost audibly at every family dinner, becoming louder with each barely concealed smirk from Petunia. Lily would never have accepted the position, would have preferred to share a one-bedroom and ration her meals like a war was on, except she was in debt from getting the degree in the first place – the kind of debt that had her trying to squeeze one last brush out of her toothpaste even when the tube was undeniably empty – so her pride was wisely, if painfully, abandoned.
Lily was not unused to feeling like a failure, but rarely was the one she disappointed herself. It kept her awake at night. A sense of nostalgia for a time when the future was a place of possibilities not endless burdens piling up on top of each other followed her into her fitful sleep.
So when she received her second invite, a pm from Sev asking to meet up for drinks, she was already in a vulnerable place. She hadn't seen him since their sending up and had blocked him on Facebook when they were fifteen and had their falling out. He'd only been able to connect with her now because he'd put together a new account altogether.
She agreed to go less out of nostalgia for their friendship than the errant hope that she'd see him and feel better about her own life. Maybe he'd be just as lost as she was, trapped in what felt like a dead-end. A little reassurance that all of her old classmates felt the same would be helpful, at the very least aid in soothing her ego.
It was a mistake obviously.
When she walked in, Sev didn't smile at her. Sev never smiled unless he was making a show of enjoying someone else's suffering. He had nodded and then they'd exchanged stilted small talk for forty-five minutes.
The truth was, Sev's miserable life – and it was pretty shite – didn't make her feel any better about her own. And she wasn't willing to share with him anything about herself to get the conversation flowing. The smallest details, like her new fondness for spinach dip, seemed too personal.
It was a relief when Sev excused himself to go to the loo because it gave Lily a chance to text Marlene, pleading with her to hurry and pick her up already. Lily wasn't a complete idiot. She'd known to make escape plans before she came. Her roommates were all going downtown and Lily had every intention of making her very insincere apologies and going with them. If only they weren't taking quite so long, but Dorcas was terrible when it comes to changing her outfit seven times before she was willing to leave the house, so it'd be another fifteen minimum.
The leather of the barstool had glued itself to her thighs, and Lily shifted restlessly. She wished she could will her skirt longer with her mind. She'd dressed for the club and not the pub, a sequined skirt that clung like a second skin and a flowy, sheer blouse. Sitting alone, it now seemed like a mistake because she was the only pretty girl in the pub and there were a lot of men looking at her. Worse, Sev had looked at her. It made her long for the return of winter and her enormous parka that she could drape over herself as a blanket whenever she was hit with a burst of modesty.
It wasn't like she normally minded people taking a look, but it was too bright in there. Everything was too loud, too Cokeworth. And none of the men were remotely good-looking, except for the one boy she'd seen walking into the corner with a few beers a few minutes before. Clad in a leather jacket and clearly not a local, he'd been fit enough, but the only people in her line of vision were pot-bellied men and a few local uni students who were too drunk to be remotely attractive.
Irritated, she pulled out her phone and began the laborious process of deleting her Facebook. It was, after all, that dreaded and obsolete site's fault that she was in this situation in the first place. Lily had never been one to sit around and complain about her life. When she identified a problem, she went to work in rectifying it. Facebook could officially be categorized as a problem.
The site wouldn't allow her to remove it permanently, of course, which set Lily's internal thoughts off on a rant about privacy and corporate control. After insisting that yes, she did want to delete the requisite four times, the most she succeeded in accomplishing was deactivating the account.
It would be enough though. No disastrous event invitations would reach her now. All she had to do was avoid visiting the site and retyping her password. Lily had more than enough self-control to resist that.
Lily had started to wonder just how long a piss could possibly take when a commotion started up on the other side of the bar. She saw Sev and some of the regular patrons squaring off against leather-boy and his mates.
She didn't have to hear what was said to guess the cause of the commotion. All the answers were there in the boys' clothes. Lily could tell they were expensive brands even from a distance. The boy in the leather jacket who had put such effort into appearing punk was no differently as he still carried himself with the easy arrogance of money.
People from Cokeworth didn't like money. At least, they didn't like when people who dared to have it broached the careful distance they tried to maintain between the "us" and the "them."
Lily spotted a tiny, blonde girl trying to calm everything down. Likely one of the boys had tried to chat her up and things had escalated from there. Girls like the blonde, like Lily, were supposed to save themselves for a good, local boy. To try to pull one of them was practically like stealing as far as the men were concerned.
Getting up from her stool, Lily marched over with every intention of telling Severus she was leaving. She had no interest in watching him have a cock-fight with a bunch of sweaty strangers. She didn't care if she had to walk the five kilos to the club, she'd do it before silently watching the coming debacle. Throwing elbows, she managed to battle her way into the center where Sev was standing.
"This is stupid. I'm leaving," Lily said shortly, having to shout over the rising voices of the crowd around them.
Severus barely spared her a glance – hateful eyes locked on the boys in front of him, and Lily realized that she may have misjudged the situation. The loathsome curl of his lips was something he saved for the people he truly despised, and it was hard to imagine what this pack of boys could have possibly said as he passed by on the way to the loo to earn that kind of vitriol.
Even though there was a fight brewing, Lily was momentarily distracted when she caught sight of one of the strange boys. He was fit. If Lily kept a diary, when she described this man she would later learn was named James, she would have underlined the word and surrounded it with stars. He deserved nothing less.
He was wiry in the way Lily liked – long and lean but it no way breakable with hints of muscles in the arms. James had a face made for smiling with dark skin and even darker hair. The thick rims of his hipster glasses somehow made him look smarmy rather than intellectual, but the way his every feature seemed to be a subtle reminder of sex – the tousled, bed-hair, the knowing smirk –more than made up for it.
If the way he was staring at her was anything to go off of, James was equally struck by her. Lily demurely tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and peered up from beneath Revlon Dramatic DefinitionTM coated eyelashes to study him, and he jabbed one of his mates with an elbow, as if to say 'do you see her?'
"I'm James," he said, sticking out a hand for her to shake.
It was the exact worst thing he could have done if he wanted to deescalate the situation, but Lily hardly noticed because she was too busy introducing herself, "Lily."
"Pretty name. Prettier girl," James said, and Lily almost choked on the snort that escaped her mouth at his bad flirting. Well, not so bad technically speaking, when she considered that it was working.
"Are you shitting me?" Sev demanded from behind her, and Lily flinched as he grabbed her by the shoulders and dragged her backwards.
After that there was a lot of shouting and blustering coming from the surrounding crowd. It was gearing up to be a full-on brawl, at least twelve men all told shouting in every direction, and the bartender not so subtly creeping towards the telephone to dial the police if things got out of hand. The definition of out of hand was of course when the bar's property was threatened. No one would worry too much over a few bloodied bodies, but a broken chair was something to lose sleep over.
Lily's thinking took a turn towards the seriously irrational at this point. Severus was touching her. His hand was on her shoulder. His slimy voice was echoing in her ear.
Long ago, Severus had lost the right to touch her in any context – friendly, intimate, whatever. She had not issued an invitation for him to put his possessive hands on her, and yet there they were. It made her vision blur in a way that predicted trouble.
"Fuck off," Lily said hotly. "I can talk to whoever I like."
Severus said something about how she didn't know these interlopers, not like he did. She didn't understand what they were like, would never consider talking to them otherwise. All of his words may have been true, but his hands had yet to release her, and Lily had little interest in debating with him.
"Get off of me!" Lily bellowed, managing to yank her shoulder out of his grip.
She stumbled backwards a little, and she knocked into James who had moved forward to intervene. The part of her brain that was still functioning logically wanted to warn him that the last thing the situation needed was two boys facing down over her, but it was comforting to have someone move forward to defend her, so she kept her glossy mouth shut.
Undeterred by her obvious disgust, Severus grabbed ahold of one of her wrists and tried to pull her back towards him. Clearly, Lily wasn't the only one struggling to think clearly over the noise and the smell of aggressive male bodies. His grip was too tight, and she winced down at his hold in something akin to shock. She'd never had a man physically hurt her before. She wasn't sure what to think of it.
"You're hurting me!" she hissed furiously.
When Severus appeared to ignore her plea, Lily decided to abandon all pretense of rational thought; she had always been a woman of action. With her free hand, she cocked her fist and sent it colliding towards Sev's face. Only, James had decided to step in towards Sev at the same moment, so her small, poorly formed fist slammed into James' nose instead.
Lily pulled her hand back, cursing more at the pain emanating from her knuckles than the fact that she'd just accidentally attacked an innocent stranger. James cursed because there was a rivulet of blood streaming out of his nose. Finding the whole thing hilarious, Sev dropped her wrist so that he could snicker alongside the now pacified locals.
They didn't have any real grudge against James or his friends, so the sight of the rich boy's humiliation was enough to settle their bloodlust. A few of them even pat James amiably on the back as they made cracks about how Cokeworth girls knew how to throw a punch. They weren't the only ones who found it funny, and James' mate cackled along just as gleefully. Soon, the residents of Cokeworth were being treated to a round by James' friends and everyone intermingled like they were lifelong friends.
The only one who wasn't pleased with the turn of events was Severus, who stalked back towards the loo to pout about the turn of events. Lily rolled her eyes at his behavior, and then turned her attention back to James and his bloody nose. He didn't seem too injured as most of his whining appeared to derive from a flare for the dramatic than any serious pain.
All the same, Lily grabbed him by the hand and said, "Come on. Let me clean that up for you."
James looked torn for a second, looking in the direction of his friends at the bar, but cell phones had practically been invented for situations like this, so he allowed her to pull him out into the crisp night air. "Where to?"
"My place is like, two kilos from here," Lily said. "We should grab a cab though because you're bleeding all over your shirt."
James looked down at his grey jumper, appearing surprised to find that he had indeed left a gritty, brown stain along the collar. "Fuck, okay, but my place is closer."
That someone like James could have a place in Cokeworth was news to Lily, so on the walk to his flat, he told her about how he and his mates had moved in a few weeks ago. They, by which he meant himself and the one called Sirius, were loaded like she'd expected, while his other two friends were decidedly more working class. Their choice to move to a small town after graduation had been met by skepticism from his parents and hostility from the locals, who had taken one look at them and decided they could only be up to no good.
This hadn't been their first run in with Severus either. From the way James described it, they'd gotten into something of an argument their first night in town, and the animosity had only deepened since then. James rather thought Severus imagined he'd be able to drum up enough support to run them out of town with pitchforks. Rather than find the whole attitude unwelcoming, James enjoyed his new home all the more for having a combatant to face off against. It made life a little more exciting.
"Does it hurt?" Lily asked, once they'd entered his flat and she'd gotten over her surprise at how positively conservative it looked. (Lily had always imagined the wealthy would have more gold-plated furniture.)
"Please," James said arrogantly. "A little punch like that?"
Lily sat him down on the couch and busied herself in the kitchen. Finding a bowl to fill with water wasn't difficult, but spotting a washcloth proved a little more troublesome. These boys were messy. Sorting through their kitchen was a more startling experience than a horror flick could ever dream to be – weeks-old food melded to the sink, crushed beer cans on the floor, dead cock-roaches, with their tiny legs stick-straight in the air. Ultimately, she was able to find a rag that she believed started its life as a washcloth and returned to the living room to where James was waiting, bloody jumper discarded on the floor, but still decently covered by the button-up he'd been sporting beneath.
For all of his tough talk before, James wasn't so tough once she started tending to his bloodied nose. He hissed through his teeth with every gentle stroke of the washcloth, a steady stream of curses falling from his unrepentantly dirty mouth. Some of them were so inventive that she laughed in spite of herself, which caused him to smile, irritating his tender nose and setting the whole process off once more.
"I wouldn't want to see you after a football match," Lily laughed.
"Oy! Do I look like some kind of hooligan? If anything, it's those arseholes back at the pub," James blustered, clearly offended.
Before she'd seen his flat, she might have argued that yes, a yob, albeit a well-dressed one, was exactly what she took him for, but his flat, despite the mess, was too expensive for that. The furnishings were all tastefully selected, the part of town too sought after.
Then he added, "If anything you're the hooligan!"
"Me?"
"Yeah, I'd like to remind you who punched who here. I was just an innocent bystander out for a drink when some mad local girl decided to assault me," James teased.
She had to tamp down on the part of herself that was instantly ashamed. Ashamed that he had so easily pegged her as a Cokeworth local, as part of the mass of sweaty, rioting bodies rather than something separate and refined like him. Her accent, the rolling vowels where he naturally clipped them all short, was likely the giveaway. She'd never been embarrassed of her accent before, not had much time for the politicking behind how someone pronounced their words, but now she wished she could, if not have his perfectly posh accent, at least replace it with something a little more neutral, a little less countrified.
To counter her feelings of inadequacy, she considered telling him all about where she'd gone to uni, try to impress him with her prestigious education if nothing else. But she had the presence of mind that she needn't fall all over herself to impress him. He'd hardly done anything other than look ridiculously fit to warrant her attention in the first place.
So, instead she said, "I've got a lot of rage. I suggest you watch what you say."
"That's going to be a problem. I've been told I'm incorrigible," James said with a charming smile.
"More like infuriating."
"They're practically the same thing aren't they?" James asked.
Lily figured he might be right because regardless of how irritating he had proven himself to be, it hadn't served to lessen the attraction that'd been building in the pit of her stomach ever since she first saw him in the corner of the pub. In fact, she was worried she may have developed some late in life appreciation for smarmy arseholes. No longer would she be able to brag about how she was immune to the charming git, while all her girlfriends fell all over themselves for the very prats they knew would break their hearts.
The realization that she had already decided to sleep with him only mildly took her by surprise.
Seduction proved easy as she had an all access pass to his body in order to tend to his nose. Lily lowered herself onto her knees, and he watched her descent with a level of attention that showed he'd already sensed the shifting tone of the night. It wasn't like she just jumped him, she continued to treat his wounds, but now she let her unoccupied hand stroke along the side of his face under the guise of shifting his head into the position she wanted. Fingers crept into his mass of hair, scratching gently and causing him to close his eyes at the soothing sensation.
"Fuck, that feels nice," he said a little hoarsely.
"Getting your nose treated feels nice?" Lily asked playfully.
"Ugh…no, I mean," he stopped when he opened his eyes and saw her expression, smug and teasing. "You're a bit of a brat, you know that?"
"A brat? Is that what you think of me?" Lily's fingers gently drifted out of his hair to caress the side of his neck, just tickling along the pulsing vein there.
Breath hitched, James said, "Definitely a brat."
When she reached to swipe the washcloth along his nose again – even though the washcloth had succeeded in soaking up all his blood long ago – he grabbed her wrist. The charge that ran through her as she met his eyes was enough to make her shudder. James, apparently, was done being the passive one.
In much the same way she had just administered to him, James trailed his hand gently down her face. She felt the heel of his palm brush against her eyelashes, and the restraint was somehow a hundred time sexier than any passionate snogging could ever be.
Not that she was feeling particularly in control what with the way he was moving along the sensitive skin of her neck. Chin tilted upward, she could feel his hot breath on her face, the sign that he was dangerously, deliciously close.
"James," she breathed.
"Yeah?"
"Stop being such a brat."
He snickered, but did what she asked, bridging that last bit of distance between them so that she could lap up his snickers with her tongue. By some unsaid agreement, they both understood that the time for gentle was officially over, and Lily pressed her lips against his with enough force to bruise.
Even though she didn't know the way, she pulled him by both hands towards his bedroom. He allowed her the sense of being in control, even as he carefully steered her to the left and the proper door when she wrongfully moved towards the closet. The door slammed shut with more force than either of them likely intended, causing the scattering of pens on his dresser to shake towards the edge.
The backs of her thighs made contact with the bed. It wouldn't have been enough to knock her over, but James pushed his weight into her in that moment, and she toppled downward, bouncing slightly as her back hit the mattress. The thread count on his sheets was some ridiculously high number, the type that cost more pounds than her weekly pay, so an errant part of her mind fast-forwarded in anticipation to when the sex would be over and she would get to snuggle in under them.
But then he was on top of her not a second later, lips already searching for her neck, and she found she was not looking forward to this being over after all. After placing a teasing kiss there, James moved to the other side and nipped along the bottom of her chin. Then he came to her mouth, leaving one lush, full-mouthed kiss there, before repeating the circuit all over again.
Lily placed a hand against his chest, and he lifted himself onto his feet once more to give her the room she needed. Her head aligned nicely with his chest now, so she began to make work of his bottom buttons, while he busied himself with the ones on the top in an effort to hurry the process along.
Distraction in the form of Lily running her tongue along the exposed skin of his stomach soon had him abandoning his shirt, so that he could stroke her hair out of the way and peer down at her progress instead. It was where she wanted him: eyes on her, hands limp at his sides while he abandoned control completely. Lily, a fan of the slow reveal, wanted to take her time with him, and his help in removing his shirt was decidedly unwelcome.
Her splayed fingers forced his shirt to scrunch up higher and higher so that she could lave wet paths like landing strips into his skin. With a devilish twinkle in her eye, she blew a hot stream of air against the wet skin, enjoying the way it made him shiver. Only after she had made a cursory exploration of his flat stomach and each ab (he had six) and reduced him to a shuddering column of sensation, did she stop.
She crawled back on the bed, so that he would have to chase her, and chase her he did. Pulling her forward so that they were both on their knees on the bed, he then watched as she carefully stripped off her shirt and bra. James only helped to drag it down her elbows when the fabric snagged there for a second. Other than that, he just watched, and Lily couldn't put into words just how much she liked having his eyes on her. How powerful she felt as he studied her newly exposed skin like it was an exhibit in the Museum of London, like he couldn't look away.
Taking her skirt off seemed like too much of a challenge, so Lily just rucked it up, so that it hung around her hips, a line of glittery fabric, catching the light from the ridiculous disco ball he had for a light instead of a lamp and reflecting it back in a thousand different directions. Lily leaned forward onto her hands, so that James reaching fingers could tease between her thighs, caress her over her knickers. His hand disappeared for a second so that he could lick his fingers and then it returned, this time dragging her knickers down her hips and touching her directly.
Only for the barest of a second did he stroke along the wet heat of her with the pads of his fingers because then he was leaning back to take off his own clothes. Lily lied back, propped up on her elbows to watch. Her eyes flew greedily across his hard chest, defined biceps, cock, drinking in every bit of him he had to offer. Approaching on his knees, for a second, Lily thought he was aligning his cock with her, body braced for the feeling of being invaded for the first time, but then he bent her legs to the side. Dropping to his stomach, he buried his face in her cunt instead.
She only just barely registered that his hand was stroking along his own cock in time with his tongue before her head flew back and eyes snapped shut because he was really, very good. His tongue brushed lightly against her, but his nose was wedged solidly against her mound, the lower half just pressing against her clit with a pressure that was building her up far too fast. A giddy laugh bubbled out of her and James eyes flickered up to meet hers, her arching hips in between them.
With a smile, James pulled back to grab a condom, and Lily rolled onto her knees once more. He placed a large hand on her lower back so that he could thrust in only partially a few times, preventing her from pushing back fully. Then, he started to snap his hips forward, pulling her back by the hips for each delicious thrust.
Lily placed her hands on his and encouraged him to slide them up her body, dragging them along the planes of her stomach, past the skirt still clinging to her hips, and up to her breasts. She didn't need his help in pushing herself back in time with his movements, ass colliding with his thighs over and over again.
She arched up as she came, hand desperately clasping at one of his. For a few moments where the world around her went quiet as if to accommodate the rushing pulse of her orgasm, Lily shuddered. Then, she lowered herself back onto her knees and very deliberately pushed her hips backwards into James – once, twice.
He held completely still, groaning. There was a lot working against him just then. Sporadic as they were, her spasms hadn't entirely passed, and his cock was in danger of being pushed out as she clenched tighter. Then there was the view: pert ass, the long stretch of milky skin that was her back, a cascade of red coils the only interruption. Lily didn't envy his position.
Still, he hadn't been wrong about her being a brat, so even though she knew it was cruel, she flipped her head to the side and pouted up at him, "Pull my hair, please."
James didn't need asking twice, and soon Lily's body was bent off the bed as he held her suspended by her hair. Something about the only two points of sensation being his cock absolutely slamming into her and the painful twinge from him yanking on her hair was enough to make her spiral. She groped at her own breast, tenderly stroking at the nipple to try to anchor herself to reality, but it only enhanced the pleasure coming from her twitching if untouched clit.
Breathing against her neck, James whispered, "Is this what you wanted?"
There was something savage about his words because yes, yes this was exactly what she wanted, dreamt of, but also no. No, she wouldn't be satisfied until she came again, until she forced him to follow right alongside her.
He slowed down, making her keen. His movements became a grind now. Each thrust was dragged out to maximize the feeling of him inside her, to allow her to revel in just how deep he pierced her.
Lily turned her head so that she could reach him for a sloppy kiss. It was more tongue than anything else, but she was still confident her lips would be puffy and bruised come morning. She liked that. Liked that after having left such a nasty mark on him at the pub, he would get to return the favor at least somewhat.
James' free hand maneuvered between her legs and set to work. There was no need for gentleness at this point as she was already quivering along the edge, so his thumb mashed down on her distended clit.
Lily screamed.
Wailing as his thumb moved quickly side to side, Lily clenched down around his cock once again. This time she was determined to drag him down alongside of her, so even though she wanted to dissolve into a puddle, she bounced backwards against him through her orgasm, clenched as tightly as she could.
It worked. The noise that emitted from James' lips wanted to be a grunt but got caught up and transformed somewhere along the line into a gasp, to create a strange, needy hybrid of the two. He clung fiercely to her body, which worked perfectly as Lily had collapsed backwards into him. They rested on their knees, two panting figures in a sea of rumpled sheets.
Later, when they'd gone another few rounds and were now truly and undeniably spent, James asked, "So do you have a Snapchat? Facebook?"
Ah, the social media question. It was the modern way of saying, 'I want to see you again.' Lily was too tired to feel much of anything, but she thought her heart might have leapt a little bit.
She gave him her Snapchat name, but then he asked about Facebook again. Lily paused and considered her deactivated account.
Sure, maybe it was to blame for her disastrous evening of failed conversation with Severus, but if she was going to assign it the blame, she had to give it credit too and she couldn't deny that the night had ended decidedly in her favor. Yes, the Lily-Evans-of-five-years-ago would not be impressed with her job or her failed string of boyfriends. She would, however, pass out cold and wake up with a smile on her face if she saw the fit boy in bed with her now.
Looking at James with his untidy hair, bruised cheek and pink trails from where she'd scratched his shoulders a tad too unenthusiastically, Lily couldn't help but think maybe her life was moving in the right direction after all. So, with an enigmatic smile on her lips that James couldn't possibly understand, Lily gave him her Facebook name.
She'd reactivate it in the morning.