Day 2
Prompt: Parent(s)' death
Tears
Lily Evans hates tears.
Positively detests them.
She has never been the sort of girl who cries willy-nilly.
She simply believes that crying doesn't do any good.
And so, she doesn't.
Not when she's five and Tuney dresses Mr. Owl up in a pink tutu.
Nor even when she's ten and Tuney doesn't speak to her for a week.
And definitely not when she's fifteen and her best friend and another…friend, humiliate her publicly and leave her heart in tiny, tiny shards of scarlet glass.
So when that particular friend comes to her dorm door a year later, dark hair tangled into a horrid mess, cheeks stained with tears and a heartbroken look in his eyes, Lily is speechless.
She tugs him towards her bed gently, sits him down and squats down next to him. She squeezes his hand in a silent question.
"They…they're g-gone, Lil," the boy manages to croak. He looks up at her, and there they are again. Those darn tears. Hot, sharp and endless. Merlin, she hates them.
She reaches up and drops a kiss into his hair, stroking the soft, tangled locks. Her lips trail warm, wet butterfly kisses along his temple, earlobes, jawline. She tastes them, the tears. They are salty. Bitter, broken…and salty. Wiping his cheeks clean of those dratted drops, she comes to a rest before his eyes. They have fluttered shut during her frantic ministrations.
Her heart breaks again. So she kisses his quivering eyelids softly. Once more, salt meets her lips. His sweeping lashes are adorned with shimmering silver. James opens his eyes. Hazel pools of emptiness. Lily desperately needs him to feel something; anything is better than this horrible, haunted shell of the brilliant boy she loves.
Her gaze flickers down to his trembling lips. Let this work, she prays, and meets them with her own. He is initially unresponsive, still; but heck if Lily Evans would give up this easy. She swirls her tongue across his dry, chapped lips, urging him, pleading him to feel. Just feel. Slowly, he kisses her back. Yes, she thinks, kiss me like you mean it, damn it, Potter. And he does. James drinks the kiss up with an intense, burning need, clinging to her like he's a dying man and she's his oasis. She cups his face in her hands, caressing his rough cheeks with her thumbs. They're dry, she realizes. He has finally, finally stopped crying.
Good, Lily thinks, with a grim smile. Because she hates tears.
A/N: Whoa, that was a lot deeper than my usual stuff. I didn't even know I could write non-humour. Review if you want to hug James better, too.
~Z