A/N: This is a quick Jily oneshot I wrote just for fun. It's actually a story I had already written, I just renamed the characters. Enjoy!
Moonlight glinted in Lily's green eyes as she stared up into the milky-blue night. She took a long drag from her cigarette, watching the smoke color the cool air a ghostly white as it danced upwards into the sky. Inside Lily, thoughts swirled like smoke, spiraling through her mind, mixing and dissolving into endless patterns of light and color.
She felt a knot of guilt begin to wind in her stomach, but she pushed it away like she usually did. Why are you feeling guilty now? It's not like you've never done this before, Lily thought. She had ignored the cigarette ban since she was old enough to leave the school on the weekends by herself. Smoking helped her relax. In lieu of sleeping off the stress of her final year in school, the seventeen-year-old crept out of bed and smoked several times a week.
The chilly March night bit at Lily's nose and ears, but the heat from her cigarette kept her fingers warm. She inhaled a deep, luxurious breath of clean, smoke-free air, glad to be outside instead of holed up in the stuffy dorm.
James woke up with a start, and shot upwards in bed, panting. His shirt clung to his chest with sweat. His stomach lurched, and he sprung out of bed, sprinting to the bathroom. He barely made it before vomiting in the porcelain sink basin of the dorm bathroom.
James tilted his head up at the mirror and splashed his face with cool water, rubbing at his eyes. His feet made almost no noise during his silent trek back to his dorm. From his drawer James pulled out a clean t-shirt and a pair of slippers. After donning the fresh clothes, he slipped out into the hallway, tiptoeing down the corridor until he found an exit that lead to the courtyard. Midnight walks were James's favorite way to calm down and collect himself after a nightmare.
James hated his anxiety. He dreaded going to sleep at night, and diving deep into his own mind. Then, there were the stressful classes during the day. James was stuck in a living hell, tired during the day, unable to sleep at night. He took a cool, fresh breath, but a faint trace of acrid cigarette smoke tainted the night air. James peeked around the corner of the wall he stood behind, and found a shadowy figure holding a cigarette in their hand. The figure brought its cigarette to its face. The face of Lily Evans—his rival since first grade—was illuminated in the orange light of the cigarette.
Lilys cig was burning low. She raised it to her lips one last time and inhaled deeply, enjoying the feeling of smoke gliding down her throat. A noise to her left harshly snapped her out of her abstraction, and she instinctively twisted out the tiny flame into the cobblestones.
"Lily Evans, a smoker?" The voice of her longtime rival, James Potter, asked incredulously.
"James, you almost gave me a coronary. What do you want?"
"Well, that was blunt. Answer my question. Since when did you start smoking?" There was something different in James's voice from the usual brash, self-assertive tone it held. There was a trace of genuine curiosity.
"Why do you care?" Honestly, Lily still didn't have the patience for James, especially not at such an ungodly hour.
"When'd you get so bitter?" And... his snarkiness returned.
"The day you threw an egg at me. In first grade." Lily countered solidly.
"Ah, yes. That was a good day." James chuckled lightly.
"Only if you didn't spend it in the shower combing yolk out of your hair," Lily shot back.
"Fair enough, Lily." James's voice had regained a little confidence.
"Seriously though. Why are you here?" Lily asked, annoyed.
"I... it's not important."
Lily pressed on. "Oh, come on. You're wandering outside in the middle of the night.
"So are you."
"I'm actually sitting, not wander—whatever. You don't sound okay, either. Besides, you know my secret. I'm out here too. It's only fair." Lily smirked, even though there wasn't really anything fair about it.
"I... well," James paused and sighed, "it was just a nightmare. That's all."
Lily raised her eyebrows. "Right… so you wander out in the middle of the night, looking like you just escaped a horror movie, because of a nightmare? There has to be something more." Lily wondered why she was even asking him. Usually, by this time, they would be screaming at the top of their lungs at each other. But James was quiet for once. His eyebrows pinched a little in the center of his forehead, making a little dent.
James sighed. He sighed a lot, Lily noticed. "Well, I've been having nightmares for a while. Like, pretty bad nightmares. And classes are stressing me out. I'm just in over my head." James tugged at the hem of his tee shirt. "There. Happy now?"
He sat down a few feet to her left. Lily stretched, and cracked her joints. Neither of them spoke for a few minutes. Wind rustled the silver leaves of the trees growing barely off campus, the only noise except for the quiet breathing of the two students. Bats fluttered above them, silhouetted in the wake of the moon.
After a long time, James turned to face Lily again. "I don't know why I told you that. Only my parents know. You're probably going to tell the whole school, to get your long-awaited revenge for the egg thing." He exhaled slowly, and ran a hand through his choppy black hair, usually tousled and disheveled, now completely rumpled and out-of-whack.
"James, I won't tell." She meant it. This new, somewhat insecure (and dare she say vulnerable?) side of James Potter had reached into a sympathetic part of Lily's mind, and she actually felt sorry for him.
"Okay," was all he said in response.
"Besides," Lily continued jokingly, "it would take a lot more than just one secret to get revenge for the egg thing. People still call me 'Egghead'. I'd never let you off that easy!"
James laughed meekly, and a grin played at the corners of his mouth.
"Hey James, remember that time I covered your bed in wet toilet paper?"
"That was you?"
"Of course it was me! Who else would have enough motivation to do that over Easter break?"
James laughed again. This time it was more genuine. The sarcastic chuckles and arrogant smirks seemed to have disappeared. "That took three hours to clean up, you know."
"My bad. Next time I'll make sure to provide a cleaning service. Free of charge." They both laughed again.
And so the night went on. Lily and this strange new side of James, a perkier, more thoughtful side, full of light-hearted jokes and witty humor that wasn't at someone else's expense.
After an hour or so, their voices were hoarse from laughing and talking over each other. Lily sighed and adjusted her position on the cold stone ground. James stretched and rubbed his eyes. Lily could see the dark shadows beneath them, a sign of his lack of sleep.
"You want a cigarette? I have a few more."
"No, thanks. I don't smoke," James said quietly.
"Really? You've broken almost every other school rule."
"Nah, my uncle Barnabus died from smoking. He was addicted. Like, a pack-a-day sort of addicted."
"Yikes."
"Yeah, so I don't even bother. I don't want to get addicted." James crossed his arms. Not in a defiant way, just to keep warm. He was outside in March without a jacket, after all.
"I'm not addicted. I just do it to relax." Lily looked over at James.
"I never said you were addicted."
"I know. I just wanted to make sure you knew that."
"Why?"
"I…" Lily paused, "I don't really know."
Another awkward silence. After a moment, James spoke up, attempting to continue the awkward conversation.
"You should quit. Even if you think you're not addicted. You should at least try to stop before you do get seriously addicted. Maybe you could find another habit." James's eyes flicked back and forth from Lily, to the ground, to the sky, to the horizon, to Lily again. A silence settled between the two teenagers.
Lily considered it. She had never really tried to stop smoking before, since she didn't feel addicted to it. Maybe she was. Maybe she should stop, before she got totally addicted like James's uncle.
"Please?"
"I think so, yeah. I just… why do you care this much? I— that wasn't meant to sound bitter, by the way."
"No, it's okay. I just don't want you to have to go through everything my uncle went through. But it wasn't just him that got hurt. Seeing him go from the friendly guy that I'd always known him as, to the… thing he became. That was the worst."
Lily noticed tears sparkling in his eyes, silver and beautiful in the moonlit courtyard.
"I'll stop smoking if you agree not to be such a jerk anymore. To anyone. You've been nicer and more thoughtful tonight than I've seen you since first grade, our first year together. You know, you don't have to show off to get everyone's attention."
James was obviously attempting to process a worthy response to Lily's advice, but he appeared to draw a blank. "Okay," he said resignedly.
They shook hands awkwardly, and Lily noticed how cold his fingers were. There were goosebumps running up his arms. He was still only in his pajamas, after all. The wind probably blew right through his tee shirt.
"Do you wanna borrow my scarf or something? How can you be out here without a jacket?"
James shrugged. "I don't know. I guess I didn't really notice."
Lily unwound her scarf and handed it to him. He took it gratefully and wound it around his neck. How strange it was to Lily to be sitting next to someone she'd hated all her life, interacting like friends.
"This is really soft, Lily." James felt the scarf with his fingertips, poking them through the holes in the knitting. "Did you make it?"
"No, actually, my grandma knitted it for Christmas last year. She switches off every other year with a new pair of mittens or a new scarf. She likes to keep it interesting," Lily said jokingly.
James laughed. "That's weird, 'cause my grandma does literally the same thing. Except her scarves aren't nearly as good as these. I guess she must feel obligated to keep making them, though."
"Maybe there's some sort of unwritten rule of grandmotherhood that requires you to make knitted items for your grandchildren."
James snorted. "Or maybe there's some law where they have to make awful, overcooked casseroles every Thanksgiving."
"My grandma makes this amazing seafood casserole every Christmas…"
And so the conversation went on. With each minute passing, Lily felt her annoyance and leftover dislike of James dissolve like the smoke she had breathed just an hour or two before. In time, the two lost track of how long they'd been sitting outside talking.
James checked his watch. "Sunrise in t-minus four minutes, Lily."
She nodded absentmindedly and hummed the first few bars of "Here Comes The Sun". James chuckled and joined in, chiming in with silly background vocals. Dewdrops sparkled on the stones of the courtyard, casting whimsical light onto the soft green moss that grew between the cobblestones.
The first few rays of a blood orange sunrise rose above the hillside, bringing the promise of a new dawn, and perhaps, Lily thought, a new friend.
There you go! Thanks for reading. New chapter of Rough Waters coming soon for all you Percabeth people. If you like Percy Jackson, you should totally check it out. Percabeth. Pirate AU. Lots of fun.
Reviews are everything. Everything.