Inspired by Niall Horan because he finally released an album and I'm such trash for it. You're all judging me now, but count my fucks, friends. COUNT 'EM!

Also this is literally just smut. Ill—conceived, poorly plotted smut. You're welcome.

A bajillion thanks to Beks for reading this approx a million times - the tenses could probably be better and italics are lazy, but eh

His heart is hammering, his chest is heaving, his mind is whirling, and everything is fast, fast, fast, but her hands keep moving over him so, so, so slowly, and he thinks the tension might make him explode.

She'd been looking between them, watching their hips move together in time, but now she's looking up at him, a smouldering look in her eyes and a wicked smirk playing on her lips.

And he can't, he can't look at her looking at him like that and not — he bends down, presses his forehead to hers. 'I've been thinking about this all day,' he says, and even though it's loud and the music is thumping around them, he knows she heard him, because she laughs, shakes her head, and kisses him.

Sirius had pulled them out to some club, insisted that they were acting like they were a hundred years old, that they weren't allowed to stay in, not on the "first free Friday night they've had in years" (James told Sirius he was being ridiculous, and Remus just laughed — 'You've met him, haven't you?'). Sirius only wanted to go because it was an excuse to run his hands all over Remus in public, to drink fancy club drinks until he couldn't see and Remus had to carry him home, and try as he might, James hadn't been able to convince Sirius that they weren't nineteen anymore. Now, he was sitting alone in the middle of a pub, lights flashing, music pounding in his ears, two drinks in and still trying to convince himself not to strangle Sirius for convincing him to leave the house.

At least, he had been, until she'd sat down next to him.

He'd been nursing another gin and tonic, laughing to himself as Remus tried to control Sirius' increasingly enthusiastic spinning, when he'd felt someone settle into the seat beside him — he turned, and there she was, smirk playing on her lips as her eyes moved slowly over him.

He tipped his drink at her, 'Wotcher.'

She beamed, 'Hi. Drinking alone?'

He'd shrugged, 'At the moment. My mates are just there.' He pointed with his glass towards the centre of the dance floor, where it looked like Sirius was now trying to talk Remus into a Dirty Dancing-style lift (it appeared Remus was winning, but James knew it wouldn't be long before he let Sirius win him over).

'Not sure where mine are,' she said, taking a moment to glance around, 'last I saw them, they were snogging in a corner.'

James quirked an eyebrow at her, 'Oh?'

She'd laughed, leaned a little closer so he could hear her better, 'They're very newly in love. They'll find me when it's time to go home. I'm not in any sort of rush for that to happen, though.'

'And why's that?'

She'd licked her bottom lip, slowly, deliberately, and James felt his heart start pounding in his chest. 'Do I really need to spell it out for you?'

He pulled his eyes away from her lips, met her gaze. 'Maybe.'

It was hard to tell exactly what colour her eyes were when there were multi-coloured lights shining all over the place, but it didn't matter what colour they were when she was looking at him like that.

'You know you're fit,' she said, leaning closer. James laughed, ran his hand through his hair, 'I'm alright.'

She tilted her head, amused smile on her face, 'Never would have taken you for the modest type.'

'Never judge a book by its cover, love. Even when the cover is especially fit.'

She snorted, shook her head at him, and he beamed.

'So,' she leaned forward a touch more, laid her hand on his knee, 'am I wasting my time talking to you or what?'

'Probably,' he said, trying his best to remain cool, to keep his heart from beating out of his damn chest. She laughed and he grinned – he loved her laugh.

She took a sip of her drink, leaned back in her stool, ran her hand along as his knee as she went, and he couldn't help trailing his eyes over her before he met her gaze again. Her legs and that skirt and her hand on him and even the way that she was drinking that damn drink, it was all going to do him in. She caught him watching and shot him a sultry smile, 'You can't possibly be single.'

He finished off his drink, set it on the bar, didn't bother signalling to the barman for another. 'Haven't had a girlfriend in years.'

She raised an eyebrow, 'Really? That's rather pathetic.'

'Hard to top that last one,' James said. She bit the corner of her lip to hide a smile. 'Well, I wish I could say that I was sorry for you, but — '

'You're not at all,' James said.

She laughed, shook her head, 'Not in the least.'

She'd thrown her drink back then, set the empty glass on the bar, and hopped to her feet. James looked at her, 'Another?'

She shook her head, grabbed his hand, 'We're going to dance.'

She pulls her mouth away from his, kisses his jaw, his neck before she pushes closer, eliminating whatever space had been left between them.

And holy fuck, there's something about the way that she moves when she's pressing against him — it's better than anything that he could ever imagine, the way that she trails her fingers up his arms, presses her hands into his shoulders, and grinds her hips against his. She might be trying to kill him, he wouldn't put it past her, and if she is, he can't bring himself to even pretend like he'd mind.

He can't get himself together quickly enough, she keeps pushing him further, trailing her fingers teasingly along the waistband of his jeans, running her hands underneath the front of his shirt, for just a moment, just long enough for his heart to start hammering even more madly than it already is, before she smiles wickedly at him, moves her hands back on top of his clothes again.

She sweeps her hair back off her shoulders, tips her neck to one side, pulls him down to her, and he takes the hint, presses his lips lightly to her skin just below her ear. She groans, pulls him closer by the waistband of his jeans.

'Fuck,' he murmurs into her ear and she trembles, 'Lily, I — '

She pulls back, pops up onto her toes, kisses his neck, trails her teeth across his skin. 'When you're kissing my neck,' she says, her breath hot against his ear, her words shooting straight through him, 'do it like this.'

She kisses his neck again, this time grazing her teeth against his skin just hard enough that he knows there's going to be a mark tomorrow.

He groans, and as much as he would like to continue this, he's not sure that he can handle any more. He wants to feel his skin against hers, to touch her, taste her, wants to do a million things with her, and they absolutely can't do any of them in the middle of a crowded pub.

He presses his forehead to hers again, kisses her once, twice, before he moves to her neck so he can whisper in her ear. 'You gonna take me home or what?'

'Yeah,' she says, her chest humming against his as she stands on her toes to speak directly into his ear, 'I am.'

She bites down lightly on his earlobe, hums against him again when his arm moves to press her more tightly against him. She stays still for a moment before she presses her hand into his chest, takes a step back, grabs his hand.

'Let's get out of here,' she says, and James is surprised that he's still standing with the way she's looking at him, her dark eyes shining in the sparse light from the pub, her lips full from snogging, a dark flush high on her cheeks.

He nods, starts walking through the crowd, bends down and whispers 'Yours or mine,' in her ear.

She laughs, bumps her hip with his. 'They're kind of one and the same aren't they,' she asks, and he chuckles, moves behind her as they walk out onto the sidewalk, puts his hands on her hips, and leans to press a kiss to the side of her neck, 'I thought we were pretending here, love?'

'Alright,' she says, and she sounds a bit breathless now and James can't help but smile against her skin, 'mine then.'

James laughs, presses another kiss just underneath her ear before he straightens up, 'You always did like to be in charge.'

She looks over at him, raises an eyebrow, a smirk playing on her lips, 'I think we both know that I'm more than willing to let you take charge in the bedroom, Potter.'

His mind is instantly flooded with all the times she'd done just that, when they'd fucked hard and fast, he'd tugged at her hair, sucked marks into her skin, how she'd moaned when he whispered in her ear.

He wraps his arm around her waist, starts moving a bit more quickly down the street.

He's thrilled that Sirius decided to go to the pub walking distance from their house, thrilled that he and Lily aren't going to have to get on the fucking night bus and pretend like they're not on the verge of tearing each other's clothes off. As it is, he can barely keep his hands off of her on the street — his fingers keep working their way underneath the hem her shirt — and Lily isn't even bothering to pretend like she minds.

She'd spent so long winding him up in the pub that now she's desperate to just get on with it.

It only takes them a few minutes to get home, but even still, they start shedding clothes the moment they get the front door shut behind them.

He stumbles a bit as he kicks his shoes off in the entry, and Lily immediately starts laughing at him, says something like 'You clumsy bastard,' before he gathers her in his arms and kisses her again. The urgency was already there, already nearly overwhelming, but now that they're alone it's reached a fever pitch, and he can't bring himself to care about her sass when he could be taking her clothes off.

James loses his shirt halfway up the stairs, Lily's gets tossed over the railing on the way down the hall. She shoves his trousers halfway down his thighs, and he trips out of them on their way into their bedroom.

'It's like you want a concussion,' she says, laughing.

He grins up at her as he finishes kicking his trousers onto the floor. 'And you accuse me of talking a lot.'

He always talks (sometimes a lot) during sex, Lily always tells him he needs to shut up, that she's going to gag him one of these days if he doesn't learn to stop blathering on, but he can't help it, he doesn't want to help it, has to tell her everything single thing as it pops into his head so that she knows just how much he wants her. He knows she knows, of course, especially because he never stops telling her, but he still has to tell her about all the things that drive him mad, her soft skin, round hips, full breasts, the way she presses her shoulders into the mattress when she arcs her hips up into his.

It's too much and she's too beautiful and he literally cannot keep it to himself.

'You do,' she reaches down to slip off her skirt, but James grabs her hips, pushes her back into the wall, a bit more forcefully than he meant, and he's halfway to apologising when her mouth is on his and her hands are in his hair. He slips his hands up underneath her skirt instead, slides her underwear down over her hips. One hand moves back to her waist, pulls her hips forward, the other slips between her thighs.

'Fuck, Lily, you're so wet.'

She arches up into him then and James groans, kisses her neck, collarbone, before dipping down and kissing across her chest, 'Lily, I — '

'Fuck, James,' she's so impatient, and James smiles against her, moves a bit more slowly, kisses her breasts, flicks her nipple with his tongue, moves his hand from between her thighs. She groans, and he can't tell if it's because she's turned on or because she wants to kill him for daring to slow down when it's obvious that that's the last thing she wants. He suspects it's both, but he still takes his time as he moves to kneel in front of her.

He wraps one hand around her ankle, lifts her foot slowly so she can adjust her balance. He looks up at her as he leans forward, sets her ankle on his shoulder, and the look in her eyes is enough to stop his heart, that hungry, desperate look she gets whenever he's here, when he's hovering just inches from her and she's anxious for him to do something before the tension, the waiting becomes too much.

He keeps his eyes trained on hers as he closes the distance and puts his mouth on her. Her hands immediately move to his hair, her moan fills the air around them, and fuck he loves this, feeling her on the tip of his tongue, tasting her, hearing her, making her feel like this.

It doesn't take long — she's already pushing her shoulders into the wall, arching against him, but then he reaches up, curls two fingers inside her and he can feel her start to come undone.

This is his favourite part, when her thighs start trembling under his hands, her fingers tighten their grip in his hair, and she's moaning and it's everything, it's just fucking everything to know that he can get her to come apart like this, that it's his mouth, his hands, that it's them, together.

She's pulling him up by the shoulders the moment she's finished, pushing herself up onto her toes and kissing him fiercely, and hitching her leg up over his hip, and he laughs against her, says, 'Desperate much,' against her lips.

'Just fuck me.' She pushes his hands more firmly against her hips, pushes herself up a bit higher onto her toes until James takes the hint and lifts her, presses her back into the wall. He's half tempted to keep teasing her, to drag it out, but the sound of her voice when she asked him to fuck her is ringing in his ears and the temptation is nowhere near as exciting as the prospect of giving her exactly what she wants.

He pushes into her then and her forehead immediately falls to his shoulder, their moans echoing around them, and he can already tell that he isn't going to be able to keep it together for long. She feels so good, so fucking good, and he knows this, he remembers, but somehow it always takes him by surprise, and he breathes it into her ear as they're moving together, just a chorus of 'Fuck, you're amazing, Lily, fuck.'

He can feel how close she is, and he pushes her harder into the wall, moves his hips faster against her. She moans louder and he matches her, leans forward and kisses her neck, sucks a mark into her skin before he whispers 'Touch yourself,' into her ear.

As soon as her fingers brush against her clit, she groans, clenches down on him, not quite there, but close, so close, and he kisses her neck, moans, 'Come on, love,' into her skin.

He's going to come, he's just — a few more seconds, just a bit longer, he's got to keep it together just a bit more, and she's so close, if he could just — he shifts, adjusts the angle, and she moans immediately, loudly. She's trembling, she's so fucking close now, and all it takes is a few more passes of her fingers over her clit and she's over the edge. The moment he feels her let go, he moans into her neck, follows suit, moves his hips until she finally stops shaking against him and he feels like he can actually breathe again.

They take a moment to gather themselves — James rests his forehead on the wall next to her head, and she turns, presses a kiss to his temple before leaning back and taking a deep breath. 'Well, fuck,' she says, and James laughs, his laughter shaking them both, 'Yeah.'

He moves slowly back from the wall, guides her slowly back down to ground. James bends down, grabs his pants off the floor and makes to hand them to her, but Lily scoffs, pushes his shoulder, 'Go get me a towel, you prat.'

He returns from their bathroom a moment later, towel in hand, and hands it to her. She rolls her eyes at the look on his face, one that's both immensely pleased with himself and mildly embarrassed for trying to get away with giving her his bloody pants to clean up, and tosses the towel into the laundry basket in the corner. She puts her hands on his cheeks, pops up onto her toes, kisses him again, this time slow and steady, and he smiles against her lips before he starts walking them back to bed.

James pulls back the blankets and they settle in, their legs tangling together as James traces his hand lightly over her side and Lily runs her fingers through his hair. She sighs quietly, contentedly, leans forward and kisses him again before she pulls back, tucks her head in the space underneath James' chin. He chuckles, his chest rumbling against hers and she smiles, nuzzles into him.

They lay quietly for a moment, Lily's breath on his skin, his fingers drawing patterns on her back, before she pulls back to look at him. 'How much do you think they suspected?'

James quirks an eyebrow, 'Sirius and Remus?' She nods and James shrugs one shoulder, 'I doubt they paid much mind. Sirius was a bit pissed and Remus… well, he had other things on his mind.'

'They had to have noticed that we were suddenly a lot more into Sirius' ridiculous plan to "reclaim our youth",' Lily says, smirking up at him.

James laughs, 'I mean, maybe. But I think we sold the "no, Sirius, you're right, how often does Harry go visit his grandparents, we should use this time to our advantage" angle.'

Lily snorts, 'If it worked, it's only because we told Sirius he was right.'

James grins, 'Whatever gets us there in the end, though, right?'

She laughs, 'True,' then snuggles closer to him, presses a quick kiss to the side of his neck, before nuzzling back into her spot.

Truth be told, he's not sure how much they might have noticed — if either of them noticed, it would definitely have been Remus, but Sirius would have definitely gotten it out of him without too much effort. And sure, Sirius would definitely hold anything even mildly kinky over them for the rest of their lives just do to it, would probably bring it up at bloody Christmas or something and scar their poor parents forever, but it's not like any of that was actually a threat.

As far as those two were concerned, Lily was just late getting out of work.

It'll be fine.