Painball
The summer heat radiates off of the concrete wall that Lily is currently hiding behind. She struggles to reload her gun, chucking away the container after she has emptied the rounds into her gun. With shaking hands Lily closes the latch on her gun and readjusts her position so that she is ready for the coming attack.
The eerie silence rattles her, and she knows that she doesn't have long. A twig snaps behind her concrete shelter. With quick movements she ducks out from behind her wall and shoots the guy square in the chest. Her eyes scan for more danger in the post apocalyptic scene before her, but she can't see anyone else around them. The guy she shot grins at her wolfishly from under his mask.
"Nice shot," he whispers, trying not to gain the attention of the other players. Blue paint drips down from where Lily shot him and she chuckles at his words.
"Yeah, well I'm the last girl left in. Better take down as many of you guys there are left," she says shrugging.
"There are only three left," he says as he passes her to walk to the exit.
"Thanks," she says over her shoulder.
She quickly relocates, just in case the other players heard her conversation with her last victim. Lily climbs up a ladder and finds herself on top of the castle, the paintball area spread out all around her. She spots movement and shoots a lone paintball in the general area, earning her a groan of displeasure.
"Another one bites the dust," she whispers to herself, as she ducks down in case of retaliation fire. Quickly she sends another couple of shots over her cover to see if they had moved. A groan comes from the left and she changes her position so that she is looking through a little gap through the wooden boards. Suddenly she can hear someone running up the bridge that is to her right, she realizes her mistake and stands up and shoots the invader, this time in the stomach.
"I've been shot!" they exclaim dramatically. "Prongs, I've been shot!" he falls to his knees and pretends to die.
Lily grins, pulling off her protective mask.
"I won," she says grinning and doing a little happy dance.
"Not yet ginger," a voice says from behind her. She freaks out and screams as she turns, luckily with her gun still in her hand, slowly raising her gun and clicking the trigger as fast as possible. A yelp of pain alerts her to how high she was firing.
"Oh, my god!" she says, dropping her gun and hurrying over to the guy with paint running like a line across his crotch area. "Are you alright?"
"I'm fine," he says wincing, his voice rather high pitched.
"I'm so sorry," Lily says kneeling down next to him.
"I'm fine," he says biting his lip in pain.
"Oi, drama queen!" Lily yells to the guy still lying on the bridge making dying sounds.
"Yeah ginger?" he calls back.
"I just shot your friend in the balls," she says glancing down at the guy and giving him an apologetic look. "Could you give us a hand," she asks. The guy walks round the corner and bursts out laughing. The friendly guy from earlier appears on the platform and sighs looking down at Lily and his friend.
"Come on James," he says pulling his friend up and helping him down the stairs with the drama queen's help after he recovered from his laughing fit. Lily follows behind them, her victory not feeling so well deserved after accidentally winning by shooting someone in the balls.
Later in the little café that the paintball place run Lily, after changing out of the overalls and protective padding, is sitting with her friends and still feeling guilty for hurting James. She keeps an eye on the door, waiting for him and his friends to arrive.
When they do she quickly gets up and walks over to where they sat down, an icepack resting against the front of James' shorts.
"Um, hi," she says awkwardly.
"Hello beautiful," the Drama Queen says grinning.
"Look," Lily says, looking directly at James who fidgets under her serious expression. "I really am sorry about shooting you in the balls, I think that you deserve this more than I do. It was a complete accident that I won anyway," Lily says, holding out the beer glass that she got for winning the final game. James frowns.
"You were playing really well, I was honestly scared when you shot Pete," he says gesturing to one of his friends who is wiping paint off of his neck. Lily winces is sympathy and guilt at hurting another one of James' friends. "You do deserve this. Heck you shot Sirius, who is the running champ," James says smirking over at the Drama Queen.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah. She caught me off guard," he replies.
"So, go enjoy yourself with your friends and next time I sneak up on you, hopefully you won't be holding a gun," James says smiling.
"Are you insinuating that you'll be sneaking up on me again?" Lily asks, smirking and raising an eyebrow.
"You can count on it," he replies with a wink.
"Well," Lily says, grabbing a pen and a napkin off their table and writing her number down. "You can have this so that we can arrange this sneaking so that I don't accidently shoot you," she says handing over the napkin and pen. She turns to walk away when someone calls out to her, making her turn back around.
"Sorry to ruin this little moment of flirting," the wolfish grin appears once again on the friendly guy's face, "but we don't actually know your name."
"I'm Lily. Sorry for shooting you in the chest," she says smiling at other guy.
"Remus, and that's alright," he says smiling back.
"I'm Peter," the guy who she apparently shot in the neck says.
"I'm sorry for shooting you in the neck Peter," Lily says. The Drama Queen stands and bows low to Lily.
"Sirius Black," he says with a flourish of his hand. Lily curtsies as best she can while wearing denim shorts.
"I am awfully sorry to have shot you in stomach Sirius Black," Lily responds with as much grace to her words at Sirius' had been.
"I like her," Sirius mutters to Remus as he sits down, making her chuckle. But her attention draws to James who smiles up at her, from his seat.
"I'm James," he says with a smile.
"Nice to meet you James, and I'm so very sorry for shooting you in the balls," Lily smiles back at him. "Well, I'll leave you lot to your lunch," she says as she retreats.
"Bye Lily," James calls out to her.
"Bye Lily," Remus, Peter and Sirius all mimic James, and then burst out laughing. Lily turns around to see James glaring at his friends and she too bursts out laughing. He looks up and grins apologetically at her.
"My friends are bonkers," he calls across the room to her. Lily looks behind her at her own friends who were making kissing noises at her. Turning back around she shrugs at James helplessly.
"So are mine,"
"Did you want to get a table by ourselves?" he asks, as he uses one hand to push Sirius' face away from his own, as Sirius had decided to join Lily's friends in making kissing noises.
"Yeah, that would be nice," Lily says grinning.