Sunshine in the rain
One-shot, just a short dialogue between Lily and James. Uprooted this from the files of my computer before I started working on Raindrops.
Have fun?
Oh, and review.
It was one of those days where the weather couldn't make up its mind, grey and overcast, trying to decide whether to rain or just threaten that it would.
Lily and James were walking in the fields beside the Quidditch pitch, debating and talking about random things, somehow starting off from music to bicycles to Death Eaters.
"But why?" Lily asked, her face a picture of innocent confusion, wanting to know how such evil could spread. "Why is it like that? Why does it have to be like that?"
"Why are woman constantly hitting that glass ceiling?' James countered back. "Why are there murderers like them that get away with everything? Why do the innocent die? Why does evil thrive? Why is everyone a hypocrite? Why does who have everything to do with what?" He was getting worked up now; he couldn't suppress this rage of all this corruption in the world that engulfed everything. "Why? I'll tell you why. Because that's what we are. That's what we've turned out to be. And so now, we've been only thinking of ourselves, thinking of the ones we care for, but for no one else, so when these psychopaths come out and start blasting everything in sight, we don't care at first, because it has nothing to do with us. But when they've finally killed someone we know, say a family member or the like, then we start to worry. And by then it's too late."
She looked slightly scared now, and he realized that even if she did swear like a sailor, she really was just a child, just a child who was trying to get through all these things. She was torn. Torn between her optimistic nature and between reality. He had pulled her out of her world, that world where everything was perfect, and he felt so guilty, really, taking her out from her fantasies.
"Look," he started out, staring at his hands, "Lily, I'm really sorry. For snapping at you like that."
"No," she laughed shakily. "It's fine. I shouldn't be so stupid. I shouldn't be so dumb. I should see the world as it is instead of making stuff up to fool and shroud my eyes all the time. I should... I should..."
Her voice faltered. She soon mumbled, "I should grow up." Something in her voice made him look up. And he could see her tears welling up in her eyes as the rain started to fall, cold and hard and icy, ominous, almost. As if the rain was trying to kill her for who she was, scolding her, and she was accepting it all, not trying to come back inside, just standing there in that damned rain. Don't do this to yourself, god dammit. Don't do it. Don't beat yourself up because you're beautiful and wonderful and dreaming the whole damned time with that smile on your lips. I want to see where you go when you wander off like that. I want to run up and grab your hand, and maybe you'll smile at me even broader and show me that world of yours where everything seems to be sparkling. Lily, please. Don't put yourself down. Come back, to me, to you, to who you were. I don't want to lose you, not now, not ever.
He ran out to her, thinking, screw the rain. Shielding her from the now screaming torrents, he looked down at her, brushing her now soaking hair from her face. Those jets of silk that looked so shiny and murderous and yet so soft at the same time. 'Never,' he told her.
She looked up at him, giving him a watery smile, that smile begging for the reason why.
He couldn't give her the answers. Oh, how he wished he could. But he couldn't. And that's how it was. He was in love with her. With that red hair of hers that always was slightly windswept and those hypnotizing green eyes that sparkled all the time. He remembered she had quoted one of her favorite books to him once.
"It had stated that some of us," she said, "are dipped in flat. Some of us glisten, some of us glow, and some of us are iridescent. Which one do you think you are?"
He had laughed, and replied, "Definitely in flat."
"Do you really think yourself to be that horrible, James?" her eyebrows furrowed and concerned. He remained silent, and she told him, "You're glowing and glittering. You're like...the night. Calming and smoothing, and so mysterious. The kind of mysterious where you almost can figure out the mystery, but not really, and you keep missing it."
And it was then he decided she was iridescent, sparkling and shimmering. That life, that light of hers she always gave off pulled him towards her, and he was falling for her. Falling, falling, falling, never to stop. He was in love with Lily. Seems like he always was.
He couldn't give her the answers. He couldn't tell her why. She was just this girl, this lost girl who couldn't stand all the cruelties the world had become. And she was trying to deal with it, trying to make it better, and that's what he loved about her, but that's what was always bringing her down every single time, and, and, and...And so his instincts took over, and he did the only thing he could give her, could do for her, could tell her was true forever.
And as his lips touched hers, he tasted that sunshine of hers in his mouth, but it was a sad sunshine, her salty sweet tears mingling with it all.