A/N: I'm warning you now, this is pretty fluffy. For me, anyway. I hate that, I really do, but unfortunately for me, I can't think of anything else to write at the moment. Angst takes a lot of time to perfect and it leaves too much room for me to get bored and abandon the project. So…you're stuck with this breezy, foolish little thing. Lucky, lucky you.
Do your best not to gag, yeah?
Borrows a motif for Chase/Cameron on House MD.
Five Sketches
By: Zayz
She sits in the classroom, her red head bent over her work, and she scribbles down another sentence in her neat hand. She is twelve and fiery, but worried about her marks more than anything else. He sees her quiet, figures this is a good opportunity, and approaches her, making her jump with his sudden appearance.
"Hey Lils," he says brightly.
"Hi," she says, disgruntled. She attempts to ignore him, but he is practically incapable of taking a hint.
"You know, you really ought to rethink the offer I gave you this morning," he tells her, "about going out with me."
"And why would I do that?" she inquires.
"Because…" he racked his brain for the best way to put it. "Because…it's Tuesday. I like you."
She rolls her eyes. "Of course you do. Go away."
"I promise you, this is not the end," he vows.
"Unfortunately, I believe you," she says. "Good-bye."
And he is forced to grin and slide away, leaving her back to her work.
"Will you leave me alone?"
"No."
"C'mon, Potter, I'm serious. Leave me alone."
"Nah, Sirius is over there."
"That is the lamest pun in the world, I hope you know that."
"Yeah, I do."
He grins at her, sheepish and flustered and typical of a teenage guy. He is thirteen years old and has been trying to engage the attention of the girl he likes all afternoon between classes. Unfortunately, she sees it as harassment and has been begging him to leave her alone. He doesn't listen.
She tries to speed up her steps, thoroughly irritated, but he catches up with her easily and says, "Look, I just want you to know…today is Tuesday."
"So what?" she asks.
"I like you," he tells her.
She sighs. She hates being as obnoxious as she sometimes has to be to get rid of him, but it's necessary, if she ever wants a moment's peace.
Her tone resigned, she says, "I have to get to class. I'll see you later."
And she sprints down the corridor so that he doesn't follow her down.
His head is whirling with endorphins from the latest prank he's managed to pull with Sirius. He is fifteen and triumphant, carried away with his own cleverness. This plan was brilliant – their best one yet, he reckons – and he is passing by another side corridor when he hears sniffling coming from the side.
Curious, he peers his head into that corridor to find the source of the sniffles – and he is astonished to find that it is her. Lily. And she is crying.
"Hey," he says, instantly appearing at her side. "What's going on?"
"Nothing," she says, wiping her eyes.
"Well, obviously not," he says.
"It doesn't matter," she sobs.
"Of course it does." He bobbed his head right by her face. "C'mon, tell me."
"No."
"Tell me!"
"No."
"You'll feel better," he assures her.
She considers him properly this time, actually looking at him as she makes her decision. He notices that her eyes are puffy and red, like she's been crying a long time. He waits patiently, and eventually, he is rewarded for his persistence.
"Charles broke up with me," she confesses. "Just now. He told me I didn't spend enough time with him."
"Do you think you spent enough time with him?" he asks.
"I've had a lot of homework lately," she wails, "and you can't pick your boyfriend over your friends, it's practically law! We went out and we hung out together, but apparently it wasn't enough, and he's going out with Rachel Small now, and I really l-liked him—"
Now she breaks off to sob again and he, being accustomed to having broken-hearted friends, pats her on the shoulder. He listens to her cry for a minute or two, then says, "Hey, if it makes you feel any better…"
"What?" she asks.
"It's Tuesday," he says. "I like you."
She actually cracks a smile. "At least someone does," she says.
And, in a rare moment of vulnerability, she lays her head on his shoulder.
And vaguely, he wonders if Christmas has come early this year.
"Did you really do that?" she asks through uncontrollable giggles.
"Yeah! Amazing, I know," he says with all his earnest bravado. "I couldn't believe we pulled it off."
"You are so silly," she says, although her tone is full of admiration rather than admonishes.
"Yeah…I am." He is just happy that she is smiling.
They are seventeen and giddy, slacking off of patrolling to sit in the kitchens together, a plate of cookies between them as they sit against the cold stone wall, talking.
She sighs, a few stray giggles escaping her lips. "Merlin…"
"I was a quirky kid," he says. "I did all sorts of insane things. And I loved every second of it."
"I know," she says, almost dreamily.
"It's actually kind of amazing," he muses.
"I am actually kind of amazing," she informs him, grinning mischievously.
She didn't mean anything by it, she really didn't – she is just playful tonight, drunk on cookies and nighttime and slack off – but he surprises her by taking her remark seriously. He looks at her and says softly, "Yes. You are."
Instantly, this remark triggers her easy blush, heating up her cheeks like a stove heats a bowl of chocolate, slow and simmering and utterly sweet.
"Thanks," she says.
"Hey, guess what," he says.
"What?"
"It's Tuesday," he says. "I like you."
She bites down on her lip, her face a darker shade of pink. "I might hold you to that one day," she whispers.
"Wait, what was that?" he asks. "Sorry, I couldn't hear."
He looks at her expectantly, everything seeming to hang on this moment in which she hesitates, but she chickens out and the tension in her subsides.
"Nothing," she says.
"James."
"No."
"James."
"Stop it."
"James, I want to talk to you."
He whirls around, taking her by surprise. "What's left to talk about?"
She deflates just a little bit. She is recently eighteen and distressed, her green eyes filmy with tears or murk or something. She stops in her tracks, belittled by his intensity.
"We haven't…I was stupid…" Her sentence fragments are useless. He knows it and so does she. But he doesn't cut her any slack for it.
"Yeah, I know," he shoots at her.
"I'm sorry," she says emphatically, the two words truer than any two words she has ever spoken.
"Sorry for what?" he wants to know. "Sorry that you can't make up your mind? Sorry that you left me standing there like an idiot after I went through the trauma of admitting to you that I loved you? Sorry that after four long years, you've finally pushed me to a point where I can't bloody stand it anymore?"
He watches her, his breaths heavy and erratic. He isn't really looking for an answer to his clearly rhetorical questions, but she gives him one anyway.
"I'm sorry for everything," she says.
"You left," he says, pain in his voice. "How could you leave? I'd just made the most important announcement of my life and you run away from me. How did you think that was going to end?"
She parts her lips as though she's about to speak, but she doesn't. She closes her mouth.
"So that's it? We're going to play the quiet game again?" he demands.
She is silent another moment, but she looks him right in the eye, green on hazel.
She says, "It's Thursday."
"And?" he asks.
She swallows thickly, brushing her hair out of her face. "And I love you," she says.
He stares at her, dumbfounded. Then he surprises her by groaning, his face in his palm.
"Oh, Lily," he says. "I will never understand you. Never."
She hesitates. "Do you…want to?"
He stares again.
"I'm sure you know a way into the village without being caught," she says. "We can start there."
He still can't believe her, but he smiles anyway, fragile but still present. "Okay," he says.
He takes her hand and just like that, they walk. They do not look back.
A/N: Is this story incredibly stupid? Yes.
Is it cheesy beyond all semblances of hope? Yes.
Is this most likely because most of it was written at night when I was being beckoned upstairs by my dear mother, who hates it when I'm up late? Yes.
Am I aware of why all these things are detrimental? Yes.
But am I going to do anything about it? No. Absolutely not.
And are you going to review it anyway? I certainly hope that one's a yes.