This is for Jess for GGE 2014. I hope you don't mind the angst ;)
Also much love to Liza for beta-ing and input.
"When a girl says 'kiss me' be careful. She may not know what she's asking. She may not know what she wants.
Some girls never do."- Lacey Roop
There's something about your cousin Lily. Ask anyone and they will whole-heartedly agree. There's just something about Lily.
She's as free-spirited and fiery as her hair. She's quick to speak her mind, and only a brave soul would have the nerve to disagree. And she's beautiful. She's so goddamn beautiful and that's what got you into this mess, isn't it, Roxy? You just can't help yourself.
But you are the only one who's ever gotten close enough to touch her. And you've been burned, like you knew you would be, but you think that perhaps you know just what it is about Lily that keeps you coming back for more.
Because the thing about the two of you is that you are too close, too related, too flighty. You are flighty birds who need to spread their wings and get out of this family. And the thing about having hollow bones is that they help you both to fly but they are still heavy. They are heavy with holes to fill.
There was a time you thought she could be the one to fill yours.
You know now that you were wrong.
xXx
It all begins innocently enough.
You are sharing a bedroom at the Burrow for the Christmas holidays. It's easier for you to stay with your grandparents seeing as your mum and dad practically live at the joke shop this time of year. You don't really mind.
You enter the room and find her spread out on your bed clutching a book to her chest, and you recognize the look on her face. She's been thinking too much.
"Roxy?" she asks.
"Yeah?"
"Do you think I'm pretty?"
You roll your eyes and plop down beside her. But you can't deny that your heart is hammering in your chest. It does that sometimes when the two of you are alone, and you don't know why. Part of you hates it, while another part of you misses it when she's not around. And it's when she asks you stupid questions like this that you struggle to answer in the affirmative because for some reason you feel like it's wrong. It doesn't make any sense.
"Do you really have to ask?" you say.
"Stop answering my question with a question. You always do that."
"Sorry."
You lie down beside her so that your shoulders are rubbing against each other, and you're counting the stars that Aunt Ginny painted on the ceiling when she was little. Twenty four.
Suddenly, you feel a sharp pain in your arm as Lily nudges you with the corner of her book.
"Well?"
"Well, what?"
"Do you think I'm pretty?"
Of course she is. She is scarlet and emerald adorning porcelain skin. There was a time when you were jealous. But now you are content to admire.
You reach over and thread your fingers through her curly, red, typical Weasley hair. It's soft. "You're perfect," you say.
She furrows her brow, and she's thinking again, and your heart is pounding somewhere in the vicinity of your throat, and you wonder if perhaps you shouldn't have said it quite like that. Perhaps that was the wrong thing to say.
"Roxy?"
"Hmm?"
You turn your head and her face is much closer than it was before. You can feel her breath against your cheek.
"Have you ever kissed anyone?"
You haven't. You've never really wanted to, which you suppose is odd for a fourteen year old girl, but it's the truth. Or at least it was.
Because now that she's brought it up you can't deny that it sounds rather nice. And she's right there. And you do think she's pretty and Merlin, Roxy, what the bloody hell is wrong with you?
"No," you say. And that's all.
"I haven't either," she says. "Do you want to try?"
"I don't…I don't think cousins are supposed to," you reply, and it doesn't escape either of your notice that you didn't exactly say no.
"I don't care."
And suddenly her lips are on yours, soft and insistent, and your bottom lip is shaking, and you don't know how to make it stop. But then you realize that you don't care. You don't care about anything anymore.
Only her.
xXx
There are nights in the Slytherin dorms when the two of you are the only ones awake. She's a year below you, so she sneaks into your room and climbs beneath the covers. It's an innocent love. As innocent as it possibly could be anyway.
You whisper in the dark about anything and everything until you run out of reasons to not kiss her collarbones or stroke her hair or tell her just once more that she's beautiful.
She never says it back, and she doesn't say thank you. And you're fairly sure she doesn't believe you. Not entirely.
But you tell her anyway.
Some nights you wonder if that's the only reason she keeps you around.
xXx
It's the third time you've caught her crying in Myrtle's bathroom. It's actually a rather clever place to have a cry. No one would suspect it was anyone other than Myrtle.
But you know Lily well enough by now.
She leans against the sink, wiping her eyes, and setting her jaw. You know she's embarrassed, but you promise you're not going anywhere.
"No, Roxy. Just leave me alone."
"Not until you tell me what's wrong."
"I don't want to talk about it, all right?"
"Are we fighting, girls? Oh, wonderful! Some entertainment."
"Go away, Myrtle!" Lily tosses her bag at the apparition and its contents spill all over the floor. You stoop to pick up her things but she shakes her head. "Leave it."
"What do you want, Lily?" you ask, holding out your hands in submission. "What can I do?"
She sniffs, but she smiles through her tears if only for a moment. "Nothing," she says with a bitter laugh. "Just…"
"Just what?"
She walks forward and puts her arms around your neck, pulling you close, foreheads touching. "Kiss me," she says.
So you do. Her kiss tastes like tears and peppermint gum and something so very Lily.
Maybe you'll regret this later. But right now, you don't want to think of that.
You snog her senseless and you make sure to tell her that you still think she's pretty even when she cries.
She's still crying when you leave her.
xXx
The first time you have to kiss her goodbye is when she finishes school and decides that she wants to get away. She wants to study abroad.
When your family asks her what it is she wants to study she shrugs her shoulders and says she doesn't know. She never knows.
And all you know is that you are getting that feeling again. That feeling that you can't stand but that you still miss when she's not around.
Only now it's different because the two of you are no longer young and naïve and sharing a room at your grandparents' house.
Now you are older and you should be a lot wiser than you are. You shouldn't kiss as much as you do or as long, and you shouldn't enjoy it. You shouldn't invite her to stay with you at your flat down the road from the joke shop the night before she leaves.
And you shouldn't let your hands wander this far south but there are some lines that don't exist between the two of you. They haven't existed since you were fourteen.
It's three in the morning when you kiss her goodbye. She's asleep and you like it best that way. You leave her a note saying you'll see her if and when she comes back, and you sneak out the door and walk around Diagon Alley til the sun comes up.
You love her. You always will.
But you can't help but think good riddance when you find an empty bed with a lipstick stain on your pillow.
Your flighty bird has finally flown the nest. And you are as jealous as ever.
But mostly you miss her. You always miss her.
xXx
She comes home unannounced. She comes home with a boy on her arm. And her parents are so proud and your grandmother hints at great grandchildren, and all you want to do is throw up.
But later she drags you to Aunt Ginny's old bedroom and she starts to kiss you like she used to do. Not like cousins do.
"What the hell, Lily?"
"I just want…" But she doesn't say what it is she wants. She doesn't have a clue.
That's the thing about Lily. She doesn't have a goddamn clue what she wants. And she doesn't care who she hurts while she's trying to figure it out.
You turn to go back to your family when her voice stops you. "Roxy?"
You sigh. "What, Lily?"
"Do you still think I'm pretty?"
You don't know why you say it. Her ego doesn't need any more petting. Not from you.
"Yes, Lily. I still think you're pretty."
xXx
He breaks up with her after a few months. You can't say you're surprised. You have it on good authority that men don't like flighty birds. They're too unpredictable. Too skittish. Too eager for freedom.
And you thought that you were free of her but you're not. Maybe you never will be.
She comes to cry into your shoulder, her hands grasping at your shirt like a vice. When she's done, you lie down beside her on the couch, and you run your hand through her red hair that you envied so much, that she still doubts is pretty no matter how many times you tell her.
"I just want…" she begins, and you wait.
"Well?" you say.
"I just want to be happy," she says tearfully. "You know? I just want to be happy."
"I know," you tell her, and you kiss her not for the first time, and you are sure it won't be the last. And just for this moment it's as if you are young again, kissing your cousin with trembling lips because you don't know if this is the right thing. And as much as you hate to admit it, you've missed this. "I want that too."
You hold her closer and summon a blanket to cover both of you.
"One day we'll figure this out, Lil," you promise.
And maybe you will. Maybe your hollow bones will carry you somewhere else and you will find someone to fill the holes that Lily can't. Maybe they will lift you up and cross your path with hers forever. Maybe you'll never be rid of her.
Flighty birds can't help themselves sometimes. But you'd like to think they can be happy too.
Maybe.