Author notes: Wrote this a month or so ago for a challenge. Not entirely pleased with it, but I got one quite positive response from someone whose opinion I respect, so I thought I'd at least add it to the archive here. One of the prompts was these lyrics:
Trees held us in on all four sides so thick we could not see
I could not see any wrong in you, and you saw none in me
- Remember the Mountain Bed, by Billy Bragg and Wilco
Remus shifted on the Evans' couch. It was a very comfortable couch, and he had been provided with ample blankets and bed pillows, but he simply wasn't getting to sleep. He had a feeling he was just one of those people who had trouble sleeping at strange houses, though it was hard to know for certain since he hadn't tried it enough.
It was still comfortable, though, lying there and listening to the quiet sounds of suburbia outside. There was only the occasional muted car, driving slowly through the purely residential area, and a few summer crickets sounding outside of Lily's yard.
Then there was another sound – behind him, instead of in front. Very soft steps down the stairs, which didn't creak, but he could still hear the footfalls in the dead silence. They didn't sound heavy enough to be one of Lily's parents; was Petunia creeping down to see how or if wizards slept?
A moment later, a shadowy face he recognized at once hovered over the back of the couch. "Remus?"
"Lily, what are you doing up?" He squirmed up to more of a sitting position, leaning against the pile of pillows.
"Wanted to see if you were up," she retorted, coming around the end of the couch to sit down. Remus pulled his knees up so she missed his feet.
"And why did you want to see if I was up? What do you have planned?"
Lily shrugged, slight shoulders bobbing under her nightshirt. Only part of her face was illuminated by the white streetlight coming in through the windows, but Remus felt oddly comfortable now with the obscurity. "Well, you're leaving tomorrow, you only got here yesterday, Mom's got something planned almost all the time, so I didn't want to waste this time."
Amused, Remus asked, "Waste the time to do what?"
She turned to look at him, her face bland, or maybe it was the strange effect of her already pale skin made dark with the shadows, contrasted with the stripes of light. "Talk. It seems like it's hard to get a chance to. At school there's always your friends" (and her tone there spoke volumes of the whole history of that subject, and how they had come to agree to disagree) "and even now there's my family hanging about some corner. So this may be the one chance we get in years."
Remus sat forward a little, looping his arms loosely around his knees. "Well, what did you want to talk about?"
Sitting back, Lily looked back out the window thoughtfully. "I don't know."
He grinned to himself, ducking his head so she may not notice; but this was exactly why he liked Lily.
"Not about your friends," she added suddenly. Remus agreed to himself that that was a good idea. "I don't know," she said again, and leaned sideways against his calves, her weight pressing through her shoulder as she leaned her head lightly on the top of his elbow.
He looked down at her in surprise; she wasn't normally given to careless physical displays of affection. "Are you feeling all right, Lily?"
"Of course. Do you mind?"
"No, not at all." He just caught sight of the angle of her smile.
A moment passed, and she asked, "What are you going to do, Remus?"
"When?" he said cautiously.
"After school. Your friends put on the greatest show of not caring about tomorrow – sorry, I said I wouldn't talk about them – but I mean, I know you're not like that. You have to be thinking about it, like me. And it's not just about getting a job, it's about – what you're going to do. With what's going on."
Remus felt it almost like a literal shadow passing over them as he understood what she meant; yes, that, what no one wanted to talk about, certainly not all those energetic pamphlets and people talking about career options, how any one of them might be so drastically affected by What's Going On.
Lily sighed, the breath lighting across his arm. "I'm sorry, that's a stupid thing to talk about too now. I mean, just not what I want to talk about right now with you, when we really get a chance to. Otherwise I think people should and it's stupid to avoid it like this, that's probably why it's still going on. But yeah, maybe you should talk now."
Remus did laugh a bit now. "You still remind me an awful lot of what you were like in first year." Lily angled her head back so he could fully see her indignant expression. "I mean," he added hastily, "in how you talk sometimes."
"Oh." Her eyes settled back down on something in front of her. "Well, yes, I do like to actually make sense to people now. But when I'm alone – with one person, I mean – and it just doesn't matter, then I don't worry about it."
Remus looked down at her, absorbing the feeling of being oddly touched. After a moment, he said, "I don't know what I want to do. I know I've talked about teaching or doing whatever James and Sirius suggest, but – I really don't know. I don't think any of that's going to work out. I almost know it's not going to. And – I just don't know."
Lily nestled against him. "I think that's okay," she said softly. "You don't have to know. We still have two years left, and really, I don't think we should even be expected to know what we want to do, all our lives, when we leave school. We just have to look around, try and see."
There was a comfortable silence, Remus quietly enjoying the soft pressure of Lily leaning against him. Then a whisper drifted up to him:
"Do you think you'll have any regrets?"
"I hope not."
Lily turned her head again to look up at him. "You sounded so sad when you said that."
Remus had to smile at her, though it did not seem to reassure her; the concern in her face only grew, and she whispered, "Oh, Remus," before moving in to kiss him.
It was slow and lingering, the touch of her lips against his. They came apart just as naturally as it had happened, hovering just a space away to look at each other, see what was going to happen next.
Remus felt his heart beating very fast. "Lily," he whispered, and heard an urgent desperation in his voice he hadn't intended to be there, "are you sure –"
"Yes," Lily said firmly, twisting around to face him and raising her hands to gently touch his hair and face. "Remus, honestly – you're the best boy I know, I think you're the only good one –"
He let out a strangled half-laugh. "Oh no, I'm not, I'm not at all – you know that –"
"Shh," she said, bending her face very close to his again. "Yes, I know you. And you're perfect, Remus." She kissed him again, and this time it was not long before his mouth opened and she pushed deeper.
He was half-lying down against the pillows and she was on top of him now, straddling his waist and leaning her chest on his.
He pushed his hands through her hair as they kissed again and again, hardly stopping to draw breath; and Remus felt like the world was tearing apart, in how he knew he shouldn't, he should stop, but he wouldn't, not now – Lily's warm mouth and tongue in and against his, and no, he wouldn't give this up for anything. He didn't care anymore about what he shouldn't do, about consequences and tomorrow.
Lily was pushing her hands up his shirt, straining her hands against his chest when there was a very loud click from upstairs. They both froze.
"My dad," she whispered in his ear. "He's coming downstairs to the kitchen –"
In the next instant she had scrambled off him. Remus' last sight of her was her bare heels kicking up as she raced soundlessly around the couch. A second later, the kitchen light went on behind him, as the steps down the stairs grew louder. Remus quickly lay back down on the sofa, pulling the blankets back up as though he were sleeping.
"Lily, what are you doing down here?" Remus heard Mr. Evans say.
"Just getting a glass of milk. Goodnight." He heard her footsteps padding off the tile in the kitchen, and then suddenly she appeared over the top of the sofa again, bending over to kiss him swiftly on the cheek, before she disappeared again to run upstairs.