twenty-eight - carcass
Lily's sinking to the ground, and a deafening silence falls around them.
Figures keep moving, hexes being thrown, but James' arm drops limply at his side, pulse roaring in his ears. He sees the look of shock etched on her face; her unblinking gaze meets James' and she mouths words. Blood trickles past her lips. Sirius pulls him backwards, yanking him away from a flash of green light, and thumps him on the back. The image of Lily's unmoving body is burned into his mind, her bloody, broken carcass taunting him -
He wakes, gasping, jerking upright and covered in sweat.
"Lil?" His hand gropes the bed next to him, heart hammering. "Lily?"
James fumbles for his glasses from the bedside table and, once he's shoved them on, he finds his wand. A quick lumos confirms she's not in bed, and homenum revelio tells him she's not in the house.
A lump in his throat, fingers trembling, breath coming quickly, he remembers she's out on a mission. Rubbing a hand over his face, James swings his legs over the side of the mattress and pushes the covers off him. He pads over to the chair in the corner of their room and slips on a T-shirt.
Lily.
He heads to the bathroom and splashes his face with cold water.
Lily.
The iciness bites at his cheeks, waking him completely from the dream.
Lily.
She's not due back for until the 20th, he reminds himself, in an effort to halt the worry racing through his veins. Three more sleepless nights and three more wasted days, and then she'll be home.
(He likes it when she's home because he can take her in his arms and trace his fingers across her skin; he can wrap his hands around her wrist and rest his lips against her neck and feel the steady thrumming of her pulse that tells him she's alive she's alive she's alive. He'll take her hair and curl a rusted copper strand around his finger. He'll kiss her fingertips. He'll kiss her forehead, her cheekbones, her throat, her ribs, her hipbones. He'll etch love into her every contour, every curve, every outline, because she's alive she's alive she's alive.)
James stares at his reflection in the mirror above the sink. His hazel eyes are bloodshot and dark blue shadows circle underneath. His hair's longer than usual, but somehow he can't find the motivation to get it cut when there are more important things to worry about, like – Lily.
Stubble graces his chin and a tiny part of him flickers with – well, what, he's not sure – but it's the catalyst for an explosion. It tips him over into believing that he's a man now, whatever the hell that might mean; or he's a boy in a man's body, at least, a boy fighting a man's war, and a boy losing a man's battle. He's a boy in love with a girl and he just wants her home because she always talks him out of feeling like this and pushes him into sense when the thoughts of stealing away with her, away from this madness and keeping her safe begin to flood his mind.
He pats his face dry on a towel – it's turquoise, and they'd picked it out together when they were managing to maintain the illusion of normality before everything else took over – and goes back to the bedroom, folding himself up under the covers. James takes off his glasses and lies on his side and knows he won't sleep, but he tries not to think of her, of anything.
It's futile.
(It always is, because there's only one thought in his head at a time like this: Lily.)