Prompt: Taking off someone's shirt because they're injured

"Moony, come quickly. He's in over his head. I… I can't–"

His ears were still ringing, but James heard Sirius' plea before his patronus shot off to deliver the message. "You're a right bastard," James slurred through his split lip and sore jaw. "You said you wouldn't tell anyone. You said you'd be here for me," he accused.

"I'm sorry," his normally boisterous friend whispered, "It's just too much, Prongs. I think I'm in over my head. You need medical attention."

James shook his head feebly, but felt the calming lull of darkness pulling him under. He felt himself floating in the realm between conscious and unconscious, and noted the arrival of one irate Remus Lupin.

"What the hell–"

"What were you thinking?"

"He needs to go to St. Mungos."

"Not Mungos," James muttered, piecing together what he understood as he slid in and out of consciousness. "Can't go to Mungos."

"Why the hell not?" Remus questioned angrily– not quite the reunion he'd had planned, James mused to himself.

"Too many people. It'll get out to the press," he slurred.

"What else are we supposed to do? Let you just bleed out here on the street?" Sirius shouted.

"Evans," James managed. "Take me to Evans. She's a healer. Saw her the other day, actually! Wasn't too happy to see me, though. You lot know where she lives. You got to keep your Evans." He wasn't sure what he said out loud, and what was just in his head; but it seemed his friends had gotten the message. Soon he felt the familiar pull behind his navel of apparition, accompanied by a splitting pain in his head. Probably a concussion. He'd heard you weren't meant to apparate with those…

They landed on the front step of a London townhouse, James slumped pathetically to the ground. "Hi, Lily," he heard Remus say, but tuned out the rest. He didn't want to hear one of his best friends tell his former girlfriend how much of a mess he was. As if she didn't already know.

He felt himself lifted and carried into what he could only assume was her home. "I can't be here," Remus said tersely, "Owl me in the morning if something happens. But he's on his own when it comes to apologies." James heard the door slam, then the loud crack of Remus disapperating.

"What happened?" Lily asked, her voice clinical.

"I don't know. I usually try to go with him, to try to keep him in check at least a little. But tonight I got a patronus with his location. I arrived, and found him like this. He won't tell me what happened, or who did it, or why he was out there in the first place." Sirius rattled back.

"I'm right here, you know!" James tried to shout, but with the amount of alcohol he'd consumed coupled with the bruised (maybe fractured) jaw, it came out more as a pathetic slurring whine.

"Oh, trust me. You're next," Lily threatened, before returning her attention to his friend. "Go home. Get some rest. Merlin knows you deserve it. I'll fix him up quietly, and owl you tomorrow."

"Thank you," Sirius whispered, almost reverently, and James heard his exit followed by the loud crack of disapperation.

"Lily Evans. All to myself," he slurred, trying to ignore the ache in his chest when she looked at him like a stranger. She only shook her head and stalked from the room, only to return a moment later with a few vials in her hand. She tilted his head back, and one by one poured the vials down his throat.

"Pain relief, calming, and a sobering potion," she said robotically. He felt the sobering potion working first, as he became more aware of the aches and pains in his body. She pointed her wand at him and he was lifted off the ground and placed onto her living room couch.

Lily set to work, pointing her wand at various sites of his body and murmuring healing incantations, before checking the vitals and diagnostic charts floating above his head. She didn't speak. Didn't ask him any questions. Didn't scold him further. All in all, it was off putting. The Lily Evans he knew would have been beside herself at the state he'd managed to get himself into. This new Lily Evans worked with calm precision, methodically healing bruises and bones, applying potions when needed.

"Aren't you going to ask me what happened?" he finally gave into his gnawing curiosity.

"No. Frankly, I don't care to know who you've become at all," came her curt reply. "Sit up," she instructed.

He followed her direction, pushing himself off the couch with a groan. Her fingers deftly united the buttons of his shirt. "It's been a while since we did this, Evans," he said with a lecherous smirk. His attempt to rile her was ineffectual. She removed it and tossed it in the fire without a word. The only reaction he got was her strangled gasp when she saw what his shirt had been hiding. Overlapping scars and bruises indicating shoddy healing, the gash running down his side, and the purple spreading across his ribcage from tonight's fun.

"What the hell, Potter," she mumbled under her breath.

"Workplace hazard?" he tried.

She fixed him with an unbelieving stare. "I work with quidditch players every day. I know what injuries from quidditch look like. And it's nothing like this." He attempted a shrug, but a searing pain ran through his arm. Dislocated shoulder. Not the first time. But this one was bad.

Without a word, she stood and left the room– only to return a few moments later with another purple vial clutched in her palm. "Extra strength pain potion. Of my own invention," she informed him, "It'll make you drowsy and a bit loopy, but it will help manage the pain. I have to set your shoulder and fix these ribs. You won't like it." He took the vial and downed it without hesitation, coughing at the foul taste. Lily gave a small smirk, then returned to her seat at his side to resume the long healing process. That was the thing with bones. They took almost no time to break, but for fucking ever to heal.

"What the hell, Potter," she murmured under her breath again, applying a balm to his ribs and casting a healing charm. The pain potion she'd given him clouded his mind, allowing him to escape his inner demons for long enough to enjoy the feeling of her warm hands tracing across his torso. He closed his eyes and relished in her familiar touch with a little sigh.

She'd said she didn't want to know him. Didn't want to know what happened. And that was a good thing. Right? It was good that she keep her distance. He was damaged. He had inner demons to fight that he'd never even considered when they'd been together. It was good she didn't ask. How was he supposed to explain to Lily Evans, the girl he'd loved forever, that the physical injuries she was seeing now were just a fraction of how broken he was inside. That the only way he felt anything anymore was at the brutal hands of another. The pain was the only temporary reprieve from the nothing he felt every day.

The James she'd known had been a carefree kid. A boy, happy, with his friends and his loving girlfriend. The man he'd become was one step away from a permanent stay at St. Mungos. If she asked Sirius, he should already be there by now. Because one had to be certifiably crazy to go out looking for a fight– but not looking to win, but to lose. How could he explain that he deserved this. This was his penance. His only escape from the nothingness of his everyday life was the price he paid in blood for his past sins.

She would never understand. None of them did.

He let himself be pulled under by the nothingness.

Lily wrapped the final bandage around his torso. Oh James. Despite what she'd snapped at him, she cared. She cared so much. Too much, most likely.

What happened to you? How could so much have changed in three years? What had the world done to the boy she'd loved so dearly? Who had it forced him to become?

She ran a gentle hand down the side of his bruised face in a gentle caress. Unconscious, his brow relaxed, and the forced grin disappeared. Unconscious, his eyes closed to hide that soul deep aching pain she recognized in herself. Those eyes that had once shimmered with joy and laughter, now haunted by things she had no right to know. She felt the burning behind her eyes, but desperately held the tears at bay as she traced the lines of a face so familiar yet so changed.

"Lil" he murmured in his sleep, nuzzling his face further into her touch.

Her tears spilled over then. "Yeah, I'm here. I'm here," she whispered, pressing a kiss to his forehead.

Then, slowly, so slowly, she pulled her hand away– already mourning the loss. She extinguished the lamps and climbed the stairs to her bedroom, tears continuing to fall. Lily cast one last look over her shoulder to where he slept; a look full of longing and nostalgia, and a love she'd told herself was long buried.

But she could not allow James Potter to break her heart again.