For a moment, your eyes open and you know

All the things I ever wanted you to know…

- Your Eyes Open, Keane

There was some boy. Friend. Boyfriend. He couldn't be bothered to learn his name, although part of him wanted to learn everything, wanted to learn his likes and dislikes, his eating habits, his schedule. As if maybe that would help him understand why Boyfriend had her, and he didn't. But that would be pathetic, visibly, unavoidably pathetic, and James Potter prided himself on being at least a little bit dignified. If he felt like someone was gutting him every time he saw him kiss her, that was fine. If his heart stopped every time she glanced over and caught his eye, a flicker of something like fear in her own clear green gaze, that was fine, too. Just as long as no one knew about it. Just as long as neither of them mentioned it. To anyone.

Didn't make it easy, though.

Quidditch practice. A hard one, cold, rainy; there was mud spattered halfway up his legs when they landed and the wind resistance made throwing the Quaffle twice as difficult. Towards the end, ducking a Bludger and reaching for the red ball at the same time, James slid sideways off his broom with a gust of freezing rain and caught himself with his legs, wrenching his left knee hard enough to bring tears of pain. On the way back up to the castle, he was limping; Sirius made a crack about old age, and James shoved him half-heartedly. Sirius retaliated with a shove that wasn't even as hard, and James slipped on his bad leg and smashed his wrist against a patch of gravelly dirt. By the time he reached the Head quarters, each step hurt. He didn't even take off his boots before limping to the bathroom, brushing bits of rock from his wrist and leaving a series of mottled scrapes against his lower palm.

After he bathed, massaging his knee until it felt less like someone had rammed it with a sledgehammer, he left the bathroom with one goal and one goal alone: sleep. Hopefully with no dreams of her, because right then, he thought enough bits of him hurt without adding to the list.

He made it halfway across the shared common room before Lady Luck kicked him in the back.

"Merlin, what happened to you?"

She sounded interested, which was almost worse than apathy; the concern was badly-hidden, and that made him wonder why, and that was dangerous. He turned, conscious of the towel wrapped around his waist; she was sitting on the couch in front of the fireplace. Twisting her upper body to stare, one arm across the top of the sofa, Lily Evans took in what happens to a human body after three hours of flying in truly rotten weather. He'd only been hit once, a glancing blow to his right side that had left a light scrape along his ribs and a bigger, darkening bruise. His wrist and lower arm bore the bright red marks of having gravel ground into them, and he'd had the pleasure of watching his knee and a good three inches of thigh turn purple and abused.

"It's shite outside," he said by way of answer. "Didn't see a Bludger through the rain."

"Oh."

In this light, he couldn't tell the color of her eyes; they were darkened, shadowcast. Her mouth, the lips full and no doubt just a bit chapped, moved in and out of shade as she spoke.

"Right," he said, and turned. "I'm going to go pass out, then."

"Wait," she said, almost before he'd finished speaking, and James froze. Please, he thought, closing his eyes for a brief instant before he turned back, please don't let me make a fool of myself.

"What is it, Evans?" And maybe it was a bit brusque, but damn it, he'd given her enough pretty words. Tonight, all he wanted to do was lie down and feel her hand on his back, none of the more exciting fantasies he'd harbored for the past three years. Just her hand, moving down his spine, reassuring him that he wasn't quite broken yet.

She looked troubled, a fine line drawing her brows closer together.

"Want me to fix that?" Nodding towards the knee, which was quite obviously the worst of it. He looked down. It was ugly, and it hurt, and yes, he did want her to fix it, he wanted her to fix everything, he wanted her to fix him.

"'S okay," is what he said. Add the wry grin, just a touch of self-deprecation, there's the ticket. "I've had worse."

"I'm sure," she replied, the old frostiness making a comeback. "One of these days you're going to get yourself killed, Potter."

He loved the way she said his name, the way she'd taken to saying it, each syllable valued and weighted. He didn't think she knew she was doing it. Or maybe she did, like how she knew she watched him mornings when he walked around with his shirt unbuttoned, like she knew she waited up for him on Quidditch nights like these even though she would never admit it, never, ever.

"Will you come to my funeral?" he asked jauntily, and damn it all, why couldn't he stop? Why couldn't he just give it up, let her see? Because that would be losing, he reminded himself. Because you've already lost, and the only way to make that worse is if she knows it.

"That depends. Will there be an act?"

"Dinner and a show, love," he tossed back, easy, it was so easy. "Finally get that date."

She shook her head, a smile crooking at one corner of her mouth, so sweet and thoughtless that he wanted to turn around and hit something.

"You're incorrigible," Lily sighed, and then her hand came up over the couch and she flicked her wand with a low mutter. Immediately, the pain in his knee dissipated, a cool, soothing balm seeping through his skin. James couldn't stop the moan, and bloody hell, she blushed. Freezing again, for an entirely different reason, James stared at her. Her cheeks were flushed, and in the seconds of silence that followed her spell, James saw Lily's gaze drop to the hem of the towel, and then drag back up his torso.

His lips parted, eyes unconsciously narrowing, and when her gaze met his again Lily swallowed hard.

"You're welcome," she said quickly, and James almost yelled at her.

"Thanks," he said instead, and retreated to his room. Pants would be good. Pants would be very good indeed.

It was two days afterwards when things changed.

She was still with Boyfriend, who James discovered was called Adam. They had been together for two weeks now, the relationship still sickeningly new, and Lily had decided that it was time Adam saw her rooms.

She didn't tell him.

He was on the couch, sprawled out after finally finishing the essay for Potions, secure in boxers and a t-shirt as Lily was out with her boy toy for the evening, when the portrait swung open and they climbed in. Lily coughed when she saw him, and James almost fell off the couch. He was not Quidditch Captain for nothing, though, and caught himself before the flinch was even visible.

"James," Lily said, using his first name for what had to have been the second or third time – she'd used it at the first Prefect meeting, when they'd introduced themselves as the new Heads. "This is Adam."

"Potter," Adam said, and stuck out a hand. He was short, only an inch or so taller than Lily. James pushed himself off the couch and took the hand, his eyes flicking from the boy to Lily.

"Nice to meet you," he said, forcing himself not to squeeze too hard, and then turned away. "I suppose I'll leave you two alone, then," he said to Lily. "Wouldn't want to intrude." There was fire in his eyes, he knew there was, and he knew she saw it because in the instant before she blinked and turned back to the stupid blond nice guy beside her, James could have sworn she looked scared. That was beginning to become a common theme for them, and he was sick of it. Sick of the games, of the hints, of the way she said his name when they were alone. So yes, there was bite to the words, and he ignored the way her lips parted as he pushed past her towards his room.

That night, once Adam was gone, he went and leaned against the wall by the door and waited until she looked up from her customary seat on the couch.

"Yes?" she asked, all innocence, the only sign of her trepidation the way she cut the word off like paper.

"So, that was nice," he said, because he was angry today; he'd been angry for a while. "Nice of you, bringing him here."

"I wanted to show him where I live," she said primly, as if that was just fine, because why wouldn't it be fine? It should bloody well be fine.

It wasn't fine, and they both knew it.

"You couldn't have warned me?" he asked, trying to be polite, trying, trying.

"Warned you?" she repeated, a scoff. "I don't need your permission to have a boyfriend, Potter."

"No, you don't," and he pushed away from the wall and stalked over to the couch, his body moving, moving, his mind stopped dead. "But you damn well do to bring him into my home, parading him about like some sort of prize while I – " He stopped.

"While you what?" She slid off the couch and stood, it like a wall between them, a buffer. "You have something to say, I know you do, so say it!"

"You say it first," he countered, and everything went still. She looked at him, eyes all large and hurt and wary.

"Why are you doing this? Why couldn't you just let it go?"

"Why did you heal me?" he asked, quieted by the edge of desperation in her voice. "Why do you watch me, why do you look so damned scared whenever we're alone? Why did you bring him here when you knew I would be here? Why play nice, use my first name, act like nothing's wrong? Why are you doing this, Lily?"

Her name was like a gunshot, unmissed.

"I refuse to have this conversation," she said lowly, and moved around the couch. He caught her arm, swung her around, the space between them was miles and miles and he could feel her warmth against his hand.

"Please, Lily," he said, because fuck it, it was too late. "I can't breathe like this."

She stared at him, biting her lower lip, the furrow in her brow deepening as she inhaled too sharply.

He didn't know who moved first. Whether she grabbed his hair or he yanked her arm. Or maybe they all moved at once, waves carrying, a collision, inevitable as storms. But now her mouth was on his, the miles eaten up by a shock that traveled from his spine to hers and back again until the hairs on his forearms stood on end and she kissed him, kissed him, kissed him. It was painful, a heat, every part of him alive for her and dying for her in a sweet agony of skin-on-skin.

He put his hands against her thighs and she put her palms against his shoulders, with a gasp, she jumped, caught, her legs wrapping around his waist and her teeth scraping against his ear. James carried Lily into his room, kicking the door closed behind him.

Her belly, pale and smooth and curving. Her shuddering sigh as he traced the line of her inner thigh with his tongue, her hands digging into his sheets. The warm, wet kisses she pressed against his bruised side, his neck, his jaw.

Her body warm against him, one hand still tangled in his, his free arm draped over her waist to pull her close. Breathing. Hearts, slowing, a thudding precision.

Sleep.

And in the morning, he woke up and she was gone.

TBC. Thoughts?