poiwritesnstuff

[poiwritesnstuff]

[poiwritesnstuff]

Epilogue

Martin wakes up with the taste of blood and dirt in his mouth. He flexes his hands and feet experimentally, winces as the pain flashes through him. He can’t find his glasses, can’t see beyond the blades of grass flattened under his arm, but he can feel the sun on his skin and the cool breeze and he knows that something worked. He’s alive and elsewhere. They really did it.

The thought of “they” makes him aware of the body next to him. Martin winces as he pushes up to his arms, trying not to disturb his aching leg as he shifts over to Jon.

Jon is laying silently, but his chest is rising and falling, and Martin swipes at the tears forming in his eyes as he gently pushes at Jon’s shoulder. The obvious injuries aside, there should be no reason for Jon not to wake up. That’s all he needs, is for Jon to open his eyes and smile and tell him that everything will be okay.

“Jon? Jon, please,” he pleads, the panic rising in his voice as Jon continues to lie there and breathe evenly and not respond to him. “Jon, I went where you went. We went together, Jon. We--”

Jon’s eyes open.

They are not right.

“So we did, Martin.” Jon’s mouth stretches into an unnatural smile, stained with blood, and Jon pulls the knife out of his stomach with a soft and sickening squelch. “It looks like we made it.”

“Jon, what--”

“Your plan, Martin. It worked. You saved your world.” 

Jon’s voice is not right either. Martin’s heart beats faster, but he swallows back the thing he does not want to name and shakes his head hesitantly. “It wasn’t my plan. It was Annabelle’s.”

“Your plan to come after me was all your own. Sending Georgie and Melanie and Basira down ahead of schedule, trying to keep me occupied so they could unmoor the seat of the Eye? Clever, indeed. And it worked, and we’re here now. Somewhere else. Somewhere new.”

“How are we alive?” Martin asks, twisting over to look for his glasses. He cannot look at this Jon. Martin is eerily reminded of Helen. He swallows again against the cry that he cannot let free.

“We came through the crack in Hill Top Road, just as everything else did. I wish it had dropped us a little closer to civilization, but there would have been worse places to come through.”

Martin’s voice is too sharp for his own liking as he asks, “How do you know where civilization is?”

Jon laughs. Martin imagines a different laugh, a different smile, a different time.

“Well, I don’t know where civilization is, Martin, but I have a feeling it isn’t here. Take a look,” he says. 

Martin feels the metal frame of his glasses tap him on the shoulder. He pushes himself up to a seated position, slides the glasses onto his face, and squints out through the dusty lenses. He sees the clearing around them, the forest that surrounds them, and the hint of a beaten path that skirts the edge of the meadow they sit in.

“So you don’t Know things here?” Martin asks quietly.

“No, I don’t. I am not quite as strong as I was a day ago. You saw to that,” Jon says lightly, as though he hasn’t just pierced Martin through. “Martin, you’re worrying. I can tell by your shoulders. But everything happened just as you wanted it to.”

“Nothing has happened as I wanted it to! I wanted to save the world, to save us, to make everything go back to normal! And I’ve--”

“And you’ve done that, Martin.” For a moment, a warm hand snakes up Martin’s back and Jon feels real and normal, the way Martin imagined he would be before they ever found each other. “You’ve done all of that. You saved your world--”

“But not us. You’re not Jon.”

“I am Jon, Martin. I told you before, I am still me. I'm still here. I’m just a little different after becoming the Pupil back there.”

Martin cannot turn to look at Jon, but he allows himself the few bitter tears that run down his face as he tries to take stock of everything. His desperate pleading, Jon’s face as he changed his mind, their kiss and then the awful, pained gasp that Jon gave as the knife slid into him-- and then suddenly this.

“You never wanted this,” Martin says quietly.

“I wouldn’t say that,” Jon says. “I wanted you alive, and here you are. The rest is just detail.”

Martin turns around at this and his heart stops when he sees Jon’s face clearly. He looks almost normal, but the pupils of his eyes are completely dilated. Martin watches as the edges of Jon’s pupils move outward, trying to stretch into the whites of his eyes.

His hand finds the knife that Jon discarded and he plunges it into Jon’s rippling pupil. For good measure, he pulls the knife out and plunges it into the other one, and then falls back and stares into the infinite blue sky as Jon screams out in pain beside him.

[poiwritesnstuff]

Hello new followers!

Just an informal intro post here-- I’m poiwritesnstuff, or poi for short. I’m going to start writing more often soon! I do really well with prompts, so if you have any for me for the ships in my bio or want me to spin you an original little tale, send them along! Or if you just want to talk to me, my inbox is always open. I feel a little pretentious about talking into the void like I’ve got a following, so you may not see a lot of these kinds of posts floating around, but I’m always happy to talk, I swear.

[poiwritesnstuff]

Hair Pull

It’d been two months now since they’d started dating, so James liked to think he was past the dumb, moon-eyed phase in his new relationship with Lily. After years of chasing after her, he’d almost been too shocked to react when she finally stood still for him, like the moment when a mediocre Seeker falters when they've almost got their hand on the snitch. She'd turned him down for so long that he’d grown used to the pursuit, chasing the high of attaining the unattainable, so what was he supposed to do when she was suddenly his for the taking? He’d built up his fantasies for so long-- what if the real thing wasn’t as good as he thought, or they weren't actually perfect together like he'd always dreamed?

But then they started snogging and that shut him up right quick.

Especially when they were sitting in front of the fire in the Heads’ quarters, Lily on his lap at an ungodly hour, their essays cast aside in favor of each other. His glasses had fallen somewhere, but with her this close, he could see everything-- her long eyelashes fluttering as her gaze flitted over his face, the dark freckles that dotted her cheeks and the faint ones scattered beneath them, the little tip of her nose, and then her lips, pink and plump and begging to be kissed some more.

His grip on her waist tightened and he leaned up, closing his eyes as their lips touched again and the silk of her hair brushed his face. He felt her giggle as she smiled into the kiss, even as their teeth clacked awkwardly and they had to pull apart again to laugh properly. He dotted kisses along her jaw and down her neck, feeling her laughter turn to something else, something deeper and hotter as her hands moved around his shoulders to find something to hold onto. He could feel the little kisses she pressed against his temple, curling more into him, seeking more of him, so he nipped at her neck, a tiny little graze of his teeth followed by another and then a lick to soothe the pain away.

He felt her nails graze over his scalp, gently, and then her fingers curled into his hair and pulled. His mind went blank. He followed her grip and his head fell back, eyes open as stars swam before his eyes. Or maybe those were her eyes? She was flushed now, even redder than she was before, but smiling so sweetly. His whole body was buzzing like never before. Her lips curved wickedly and he felt her fingers tighten in his hair, and he was quite all right with that. She pulled again, harder now, and if he could think, he would’ve been embarrassed by the low moan that he let slip out.

Lily squirmed a little on his lap, and then ground against him more purposefully, experimenting with his body as he reflexively thrust up against her. It took James a moment to realize what had changed that Lily would notice, straddling him as she was. Before he could apologize, she yanked his head back and targeted his exposed neck, biting until he hissed in pain and then doing something with her tongue that drove him to distraction. 

She relented after a moment, drawing back to look at him. She might have been alarmed at the fading red marks she’d left on his neck, but his dazed grin was enough to put her somewhat at ease.

“I didn’t hurt you, did I?” she asked.

“You can hurt me whenever you like.”

“Shut up,” she laughed, but it was kind and lovely and warm and she was really there with him, wasn’t she? He was almost worried this was another dream, but her fingers were still moving idly in his hair, nails scraping over his scalp and sending little shocks of pleasure throughout his body. His eyes closed as she continued the motion in silence, before finally speaking again. “I didn’t know you liked… well, I didn’t know what you like.”

“You,” he sighed. Her fingers stilled in his hair, and he opened his eyes again.

“Don’t tease,” she admonished. “I’m trying to do this right.”

She was so earnest, her lips turned down into a small pout, her gaze stern with a little anxiety behind it. He needed to kiss her again before he suffocated.

“Lily,” he said, cradling her head in his hands as he kissed her again. 

It was softer this time, more important somehow. All of the words he couldn’t say flowed out of him. He wanted to remember this, wanted to kiss it into permanence so that every time he started to fret about their future or their relationship or if his latest prank had put her off him entirely, at least they had this. Did it make any sense, knowing that he’d fallen in love with her before she’d ever even considered him? That he’d known there was no option but to spend the rest of his life with her in it, even if she never wanted to date him?

It was halfway through sixth year when he realized with a fright that they only had one more year before they went their separate ways forever. Evans hating him when they slept in the same tower was one thing, but Hogwarts would only be there for so long. If she didn’t have a reason to keep in touch after school, he would never see her again, and that somehow hurt more than the idea of never dating her at all. He couldn’t keep dicking around just to get a rise out of her, hoping one day she’d change her mind. He had to be her friend at least, and to be happy with that even if it was all she'd ever give him. 

Thankfully, the more he started acting like a friend, and not a hunter, the less she acted like harassed prey. James found he liked that. He liked Lily as a friend, as a flirt, as the girl who teased him and held his hand and bit her lip and pulled his hair and--

Lily squirmed again, pulling back slightly, and he chased her lips helplessly for a moment before he let her go.

She made a sort of odd noise, her expression torn between disappointment and relief. “What was that?”

“I don’t--” he murmured. Her face was blurry now, too far to be in focus. How was he supposed to explain all of his feelings without sounding like a psycho? She would either think he was joking and ignore his feelings, or know he was serious and reject him. He didn’t know which one would be worse. But he was all out of flippant remarks, and the longer he wrestled with his thoughts, the cooler the room became as Lily drew back. “I think it’s late.”

James hugged her close, burying his face in her neck and feeling her arms wrap around his shoulders. Eventually, they relaxed, pulses slowing as exhaustion took over. It was, if the clock was to be believed, nearly 3 in the morning.

“So, is there anything else I should know about your apparent preferences in bed?” Lily finally asked, stifling a yawn as they pulled apart.

“Why, Evans, you filthy pervert, I’m pure as the driven snow,” James responded, fumbling for his glasses and hoping they hadn’t broken. “Besides, I dunno what they’ve got up in your room but this isn’t a bed, it's a couch.”

“Shut up!” she laughed, shoving him away. The clock in the corner started to chime and they both groaned.

“I’ve half a mind to skip Transfiguration tomorrow. All the morning classes, actually. Let’s just sleep ‘til lunch,” James said even as he inspected the essays they’d been working on.

“You can go ahead and bring McGonagall’s wrath down on your head since she loves you so much, but I’ll just hate myself in the morning and take a nap during my free period instead,” Lily said, gathering her things. She took her parchment from him. “I hate that you’ve got neater handwriting than I do.”

“I keep telling you I’ll write your essays for you and you never listen. You always slope down the parchment and then you have to write it all tiny at the end. I don’t know how you can stand it.”

“Nobody can stand it, but I can’t have you writing out my essays. They’ll take one look and think Remus is writing my work as well as yours.”

“That’s not fair!”

“Mmm, but it’s true.” She paused for a moment, as though assessing the situation, before she pulled him in for a kiss. James kissed her back, kept kissing for as long as she let him before they knew they had to part.

“I hate that we need sleep,” James said. He suddenly beamed as though he’d had a brilliant idea. “D’you know, I think I’d fancy being the giant squid. I heard it doesn’t have to sleep.”

“...you’re an idiot,” Lily said as she rolled her eyes, smiling so fondly that James felt the stupidity creeping over his brain again. She started walking to her room and called back, “Good night.”

“If you hate your couch, you can always sleep in my bed, you know,” James offered, hoping she’d look back again. She did.

“Good night, James,” she said pointedly before disappearing into her room.

“Night, Lil,” he said, smiling all the way until he fell asleep.

[poiwritesnstuff]

Raksha Bandan

[In which Satya celebrates a holiday with one of the Overwatch crew.]

Jamison sat in the workroom of the Overwatch headquarters, perfectly calm except for the restless shaking of his leg under the table. In his hands was a fizzed out bomb shell, and while he’d had an idea of what he wanted to do with it an hour ago, he couldn’t recall what that idea was anymore.

His mind was still stuck on the night before, when he’d bumped into Satya making something in the kitchen. It wasn’t a routine, but it’d happened enough that he'd come to expect a hot drink before bed if he needed it. Apparently not this time, though. Rather than sit with him for a cup of tea, as they were wont to do, she’d shooed him out with a flapping of her hands and told him to shower in the morning.

He’d protested at that, citing that he’d got up to four times a week now and he didn’t smell bad enough to put any of the smelly gunk in his pits, but she rolled her eyes and told him it was for a special occasion. He didn’t mind that so much, and, after a quick sniff in the privacy of the hallway, decided that a shower wouldn’t go amiss. Not if Satya’d had something in mind for him.

He couldn’t stop chewing on what it might be that she was planning. Did it have to do with what she was cooking last night? Was she trying to cook for him? Maybe they’d go on a picnic, find some scrap of land nearby with grass or even a tree and shoot the shit and eat, and she’d lean up real close to him to offer him the last bite of their brekkie and look up at him with those big old doe eyes of hers and tell him that she’d been waiting for a moment alone with him…

Roadie had kicked him out of his room at that point for going on so long, so he happily continued on this train of thought until he passed out in his bed and continued on into the morning. He’d showered and even put on a shirt that morning, though he’d had no idea what they were going to do that day. But it had been three hours since then, and Jamison’s stomach was rumbling since he’d foregone any real breakfast. Where the hell was she? Weren’t they going to get this show on the road?

His leg jolted up a little too high and directly into the underside of the metal table. Junkrat let out a howl and bolted out of his seat, nearly toppling over as he clutched at his knee in pain. The door to the workshop hissed open and he turned around as quick as he could, ignoring the twinge of pain in his leg as he grinned.

“Jamison?” Satya stood there in a deep red sari, holding a small plate with some unidentifiable circles on it. “Are you okay?”

“Peachy!” He glanced over her, first appreciatively and then in confusion. “Where’s the esky?”

“Esky?” Satya repeated. “I don’t know what that is. I’ve come to wish you a happy Raksha Bandan.”

“Oh? That an Indian thing?” He asked, watching as she came closer. “What’s all this?”

“First, the rakhi. Your hand, please?”

He stuck it out for her, watching her as she put the plate down and picked up a thread from it. She pulled it around his wrist, turned his hand over, and tied a tight knot in it.

“Pretty neat, darl,” he said, turning his hand over to look at what she’d tied to his wrist. The medallion was the telltale shimmering color of her hard light, with a bright yellow thread holding it to his wrist. He looked more closely at the medallion and found that his signature smiley face was etched into it. “I like it.”

Satya beamed at him. “Next is the sweet. Here, have it.” She picked up a small light brown disc from the plate and offered it to him as she explained what the holiday was. 

Instead of taking it from her, he bit into it as she held it, grinning ear to ear. Was this what she’d made yesterday, and all for little ol’ him? It was sweet and dense, and he could have sworn it was melting on his-- “What was that?”

“I said that this should be on your right hand, actually, but I did not think it would stay for very long on your prosthetic.”

“No, the, er, bit before that. Did you say brothers?”

“Oh, yes,” she said. “The holiday is meant to strengthen and renew the bond between a brother and sister. It is a symbol of the sister praying for her brother’s health and happiness, and the brother promising to protect and look after her. Vishkar did not see the need for their recruits to celebrate it, so we never did, but I’ve always liked the idea of it.”

Jamison had nearly spat out the sweet in his surprise, but thought the better of wasting good food and swallowed it hurriedly. “This is, er, real sweet and all, Satya, but you realize we’re not brother ‘n sister, yeah?”

“Of course not,” she laughed. “The ceremony isn’t only done between blood siblings. To tell the truth, I decided to celebrate it this year because I felt… well, I felt that I had someone close enough to me to give a rakhi to. Vishkar took care of me, but we were never exactly a family, and I lost touch with my real family after they took me in. This group, it is different here.”

Jamison couldn’t find fault with that. “Suppose this means you’re stuck with me, since I gotta look after you and all.”

“You also owe me money.”

“What.”

Satya giggled low in her throat, something mischievous and cunning, and he was annoyed at how much he enjoyed it. “It’s another part of the holiday. I give you a rakhi and sweets and you give me money.”

“Oi! I didn’t sign up for that! Protection my arse, you’re an extortionist!”

They continued like this all the way to the briefing they had to attend for their next mission, after which Jamison was shocked and dismayed to find that Roadhog had also earned himself a thread with a cute little pig face etched into the medallion. He kept up the fuss and refused to speak to Roadhog until he forgot about it, and they continued on like this until they went to bed.

In another part of their quarters, just as Satya was getting ready for bed, she heard a knock at the door and opened it to find Jamison holding out a small blue bomb. “Evening,” he said, taking the opportunity to gaze up and down her nightgown. “Bomb shell for a bombshell?”

Satya blushed but rolled her eyes all the same and took it gingerly. “It’s not live, is it?”

“See for yourself!”

Satya gingerly turned it over in her hands and traced her thumb over the smile he placed on all of his munitions, smiling in response herself until she felt something click under her thumb. She yelped as it gave a loud pop and Jamison nearly dove for it to keep it from falling.

“Oi! Mind the goods, Sat!”

“You know I dislike loud noises!” She snapped, though she was thankfully able to calm herself with some careful deep breaths and a sheepish silence from her companion. “Please don’t tell me that’s all--”

“No,” he said, admonished but adamant as he continued to hold the small bomb out to her. Satya took it carefully and opened the sphere to find a small statue of Ganesha inside.

A statue of Ganesha made of ivory and studded with small rubies and diamonds at the base.

“Jamison--”

“Look, I know you feel ways about things ‘n all and theivin’ ain’t up high on your list of approved activities, but I’ve had that in my stash for a while ‘n the bastard I nicked it from didn’t do nothin’ with it ‘n then you pulled this whole brother day thing on me ‘n I reckon if we’re family then maybe it’s okay t’ share things ‘n besides, ‘m not gonna do nothin’ with that but maybe you will since it’s one-a your gods n’ all and it deserves to go to someone who can appreciate it s’all--”

“Thank you,” Satya said. She was not quite equal to looking him in the eye, but she held his hand in hers and kept her gaze just beyond his cheek. “It’s beautiful, and I appreciate it. You didn’t need to give me something so precious. The money is a token to show that you will take care of someone. Such a gift…”

“Well… I haven’t had one before, but feels like a family’s fair precious, too. And I reckon if you’re sure about havin’ me in yours, well. Makes… makes you p--” Jamison, who until that point had been uncharacteristically still, suddenly vibrated with mischief again. “Reckon I oughta show you just what you’re signin’ up for, Sat! Tick tock tick tock!”

He reached out and mussed up her hair before launching himself down the hallway, his cackling echoing in the hallway as he ran off.

Satya reached up, smoothing down her hair as she tried to control the frustration rising in her. He didn’t always purposefully rile her up, as he was clearly trying to do now. Sometimes it was just the chaos of his general existence that made her feel overwhelmed, all loud and bright and hot and demanding without meaning to be. But at other times, it was just enough, or he was calmer, or there was a moment where they were together and she felt like she was laying in the sun on a warm summer’s day whenever he cracked a joke or got excited over new tech.

It was what drove her to finally celebrate Raksha Bandan, after all. That warmth, the light and happy bubbles in her chest when she was with him and Roadhog, she thought it must be what family felt like. A unit of individuals that fit together, that did not see profits or obligations in helping one another any more than an arm sees an injured leg as a burden. 

And sometimes, when Jamison looked at her and flashed her that wide smile, gold glinting in the light, Satya thought he might be the beating heart at the center of the being.

[poiwritesnstuff]

Reblog if you write fanfic and would be totally down with your followers coming into your ask box and talking to you about your fic

[poiwritesnstuff]

Love, Definitely (Maybe.)

RIchie has known that he loved Eddie since almost the moment they met. He has always known that Eddie was important to him in a way that the other losers were not, and though he does not love them any less, he cannot help loving Eddie more.

Richie is a tangled mess of thoughts and energy and limbs. Stan and Bill sit back and engage from a safe distance, and eventually Mike and Ben smile and love from afar. Bev comes closer than the others-- some part of her seems to understand him, deep down where he shakes with all of the things he cannot let out-- but even she has her limits. Eddie is the only one who meets him where he lives.

For all his fear of germs, Eddie jumps into the cesspool of their friendship without a second glance. He can meet Richie blow for blow, and he can shut Richie down with a glance. They feed off of each other’s energy and the kinship they feel in the things they can’t express. It allows them to speak with each other as though they have known each other decades, where layers of thoughts and jokes and dreams have built up in their conversations to create a dialogue that is incomprehensible to those outside it.

It is because Eddie fits in so neatly with Richie’s amorphous existence that Richie is so aware of him and the things he feels for Eddie. Eddie slots in so perfectly to the chaos of his life and his heart that it takes him by surprise to find that he feels more whole when Eddie is around.

On the other hand, Eddie feels so right around Richie that he never realizes it’s true love. He’s used to living life as a performance, constantly switching between all of the parts of him that are him and aren’t him all at once. He is the terrified germaphobe that Sonia Kaspbrak raised; he is the feral child that horse-kicked a killer alien clown in the mouth. He plays at being brave with his friends, he plays at being meek with his mother. He puts everything in his life into neat boxes and packages and labels them and shifts seamlessly into character with each scenario he confronts.

In fact, for a couple of moments when he first meets Richie and gets a taste of his stupid, annoying antics, he creates a new little box in his head, but it stops there. He doesn’t need to write out scripts or perform with Richie. Everything is play; everything is real. There is love behind the insults and teasing behind the love, and the lines between performance and reality are blown away entirely. But because Richie slots so neatly into his life, Eddie doesn’t realize what he feels for Richie.

It is only when they come back to Derry 27 years after the incident that the full force of what he had comes back to him. He has no idea how to act or treat any of the scenarios that are suddenly all coming back to him, but the moment he sees those coke bottle glasses and loud shirt, a disturbing sense of feeling right, in the middle of all that he’s remembering, smacks him square in the chest. It is a feeling he has forgotten for a long time, and decoupled from the general sense of joy that having friends and adventures gave him in his fucked up childhood, it suddenly makes sense. Everything finally makes sense.

[poiwritesnstuff]

prompts list :)

fluff/general

“how much did you drink?”

“aw, you’re so cute.”

“what did you do?”

“i asked if you were having a party. i didn’t tell you to have a party.”

“this is the opposite of what i told you to do.”

“well, it’s the thought that counts.”

“wait, no, don’t take kissing away from me.”

“okay, where are all my jumpers?”

“oh, you’ve started stealing my socks now?”

“yeah, okay, but i’m cooler.”

“you owe me a kiss.”

“how did you get in here?”

“for starters, that’s impossible.”

“how did you fail a survey?”

“yeah, well, if you weren’t so drunk maybe i would.”

“that’s not even fair.”

“you promised me a cookie!”

“did i ever tell you how beautiful your eyes are?”

“ew, that is so sappy, i might vomit.”

“i’m not playing truth or dare.”

“you’re not very intimidating.”

“i love you.”

“well the probability of that is 0, but you go ahead.”

“that was, by far, the stupidest thing you’ve ever done.”

“why don’t you take a picture? it’ll last longer.”

“maybe not.”

“why the hell is there glitter everywhere?”

“well, i’m pretty irresistible.”

“how much money would you give me to flip this table, right here, right now, in the middle of class?”

“detention? again?”

angst

“why don’t you just go?”

“no, it’s not like that.”

“if you cared about me, you wouldn’t do this.”

“it doesn’t matter anymore.”

“what’s the point?”

“fuck you.”

“you should’ve said that yesterday.”

“don’t lie to me.”

“i swear, if you say another word, i’ll leave.”

“change in mind or change in heart?”

“it’s over, it’s done, just leave it be.”

“why do you keep bringing it up?”

“we can’t go back in time, so stop trying to reverse what you said.”

“you say you’ll stop, but then you keep doing it!”

“maybe in another world.”

“why are you like this?”

“stop making empty promises!”

“what about us?”

“don’t say that.”

“i’m done. we’re done.”’

feel free to reblog :)

[poiwritesnstuff]

Hey y'all I'm going stir crazy so if y'all have prompts for some short reddie or jily fics, send them my way!

(I promise I write happy things too....I swear....)

[poiwritesnstuff]

The One Where Richie Patronizes A Bar

Inspired by this post by @coldplaysongsonrepeat.

Richie “Trashmouth” Tozier was finding it harder and harder to frequent bars since he started being actually recognized. Comedy clubs were places of work, and it was generally considered bad practice to vomit where he ate. Clubs were an overpriced headache full of drugs he was too old to keep up with. Sports bars were usually full of the kinds of guys who would want to get chummy and laugh about stupid broads and masturbation jokes, which was masturbatory in and of itself. It was like... mastur-ception. Incept-urbation.

Maybe there was a reason he didn’t write his own material.

So it was with this reasoning that Richie ended up in a dive bar almost forty minutes from his house, nursing a glass of something alcoholic in the corner of a building that a clown car would call cramped. The lighting was dim with burnt out lightbulbs, the bar made of actual wood, and the stool just unbalanced enough for him to nearly fall off twice. In a word, perfection.

It was so dingy and forgotten that Richie hadn’t noticed the faded pride stickers and graffiti until the bartender struck up a conversation with the charming opener of “Should have figured a guy with a name like Trashmouth Tozier would be gay.”

Richie blinked up at her. “Yeah? What tipped you off, my incredible sense of style or the giant bear railing me as we speak?”

“Are you serious? Right in front of my salad?” She asked, her eyes wide with mock shock as she lit a cigarette. Richie laughed

“I think I might love you,” Richie said. “Forget dick, I’m all about you now, baby.”

“Too bad, since mine is bigger than yours,” she said. 

She offered him the cigarette. Richie didn’t normally smoke, but there was something comforting about the act of smoking with this stranger. They continued on like this, throwing nonsense back and forth until Richie was stumbling out of the bar and into an uber she had called for him at 2AM.

Richie woke up every day for a week and when his sexuality wasn’t plastered on the front page of TMZ, he went back. The same redhead was tending bar and smiled when he came in.

“The prodigal son returns! I thought you might have died last week.”

“That was just the warm up, baby. You ain’t seen nothing yet.”

--

Four months later, Richie had been coming to this place at least once a week and nobody bothered him except to wrinkle their nose at his shirt. He couldn’t tell if he liked it or hated it, but he couldn’t stay away, so he continued sitting in his corner where nobody could bother him.

On one such night. when he was full of whiskey and contemplation and the clock struck 1, he looked up at his redheaded bartender. “Bess.”

“You know I hate that nickname,” she said lightly, collecting her tip from the last customer to depart.

“Besserly!” he insisted.

“Stop calling me th--” She turned around and saw him sitting with his cheek on the cool surface of the bar. “Richard, that’s disgusting, get your head off the bar.”

“It’s fine.”

Liz filled a glass with water and put it in front of him, and Richie lifted his head just enough to slurp water from the glass.

“Richie, I’m gonna close up early so I have to kick you out soon, okay?”

“No!” He jolted up, panicked. Liz paused in her movements to look at him. “Not just-- I have to say a thing.”

“Okay,” Liz said cautiously. She stopped wiping the bar and watched Richie carefully. “What is it?”

“Okay. I’m... It’s a thing. I just am saying the thing. To you. Because you’re my bartender. Isn’t it funny how people will just say so much shit to their bartenders? Like, I know it’s easy to get a bartender confused with a therapist, you give both of them money to give you shit that makes you feel better and maybe makes you cry a lot-- oh, hey, you’re smiling! I knew I was funny, deep down.”

“You were gonna tell me something, Richie,” Liz prompted, idly wiping down the counter around him. “You don’t have to deflect if you don’t want to say it.”

“No, I just need to do it, you know? I just need to... get it out. Admit it. And then the world will keep turning and I can move on with my life. So, Besserly. Good old Queen Bess. Queen Lizzy-Lizabeth. Lizzy.” He drew in a deep breath, took her hand, and looked her right in the eyes. “Liz, I... I am... Uh. I’m, uh... The-- The thing is that I have to, uh, say that I’m... I’m just really.... I’m...”

His heart clenched so hard that his eyes watered. He wondered if he might be dying. Could be preferable to whatever was about to happen.

“Liz, I’m...” He let go of her hand and dropped his head to the bar, his voice muffled by the bar. “A dick. I’m a dick. Just figured I’d say it. First step is admitting you’re a problem and all.”

Liz patted his head and continued to clean, and Richie’s stomach sunk as he thought that she may have understood him after all.

--

It took a record seven months for someone in the bar to finally approach him.

Richie had to do a double take, and then a triple take when the boy sat down. He had clear, light skin and giant brown eyes, his hair combed down into the dorkiest haircut he had ever seen. His heart hurt at the sight.

“You okay, Richie?” The boy asked, his cheeks round and flushed.

“Uh.” Richie cleared his throat and tried again. He couldn’t work past the whisper of a memory that was begging to be unlocked. “That is... um.”

“You’re Richie Tozier, right? The comedian?” The man tilted his head, and the brief vision Richie was having disappeared. Still, this man was young in a way that made Richie feel every second of his thirty-eight years. He tried to shake off the feeling, but it slid like water through the cracks in his armor and settled into the marrow of his bones. He was suddenly too tired and not drunk enough.

“Debatable, but yes.” Richie smiled halfheartedly. “Richie Tozier, here to entertain.”

“It was just a question, dude,” the young man said, brow furrowed. 

Richie laughed suddenly and finished off his drink, then smiled politely as Liz refilled it. “Sorry, that was weird. You just... You remind me of someone. This boy from my hometown...”

Richie trailed off, studying the man, ignoring the painful clench in his stomach as he returned the gaze with a little heat in his enormous eyes, large and expressive and the stuff of his particularly curious nightmares.

“Yeah?” The man prompted. “Where is he now?”

“Well, I don’t... Don’t really know. Honestly, I don’t remember much of my childhood. It’s mostly, like, blurred pictures and shit.” He laughed. “Well, that sounds fucking stupid. Never mind.”

“It’s not stupid, Richie,” the man said, emphatic.

“Yeah?”

“No, it’s, like, fascinating. I mean, maybe it’s a good thing you don’t remember him.”

“Yeah, see, the thing about that is,” Richie said, sitting up straighter on his wobbly stool, “is that at least people who remember the shit they do, they get to know they don’t want it. The thing about forgetting is that you’ve lost a piece of the puzzle. You don’t get to decide you didn’t want it. Even if it’s super fucked up, you don’t get fucking trigger warnings or whatever. Just blankness. Like whiteout on your brain.”

“Yeah, well, knowing isn’t so much better. I broke up with my boyfriend three weeks ago and I wish I could pile up all his shit and set it on fire. I blocked him on everything and like, deleted all of his pictures on my stuff, but I can’t delete them up here.” The man tapped his temple. “Kind of wish I could. He was such an asshole.” A beat, and then-- “Maybe yours was, too.”

“Yeah, I wish. Having trauma would be great material for my stand-up, I wish I could remember it. Maybe my therapist will tell me after another ten thousand dollars.” He let out a rueful laugh, caught sight of the guy grinning at his joke, and laughed more genuinely.

“So you think this person was your friend?” The man asked. “Someone important?”

“Probably not if I can’t remember him,” Richie said with a shrug. “Must have just been some random dude I hung out with before I moved for college.”

The man gave Richie a searching look that Richie missed, and then put his hand over Richie’s. Richie ought to have reacted; he did not.

“Well, listen, maybe... if you want, we could finish our drinks and get out of here. I live close by.” He paused and lowered his voice to whisper into Richie’s ear. “I could be this guy for you, if you want.”

Richie should have been turned on by this twenty-something virile specimen with puppy-dog eyes and luscious lips breathing at his ear, but all he could feel was panic. He jerked back, though not fast enough to be unkind, and smiled as wide as he could.

“I mean, hey, who could turn down a proposition like that? Damn, you’re good at this, wow, but I kind of gotta get back home, can’t get back too late or else the missus is gonna have my ass for waking up the kids and it’ll really piss off my friend if he wakes up to me fuckin’ his mom so uh yeah sorry I’m just gonna”

He almost sprinted out of the bar, leaving his tab and an astonished, rejected man behind.

Richie leapt out of the uber the moment it got to his mansion and he sprinted inside to the bathroom. Richie conjured up the impossible image of this young man looking at him with want, his features changing just enough to push Richie over the edge with a forgotten name on his lips. 

In the aftermath, Richie panted in the dark, leaning on the counter for support as his legs threatened to give way. He finally lifted his head to look at himself and saw, for a moment, two glowing yellow eyes peering back at him.

[poiwritesnstuff]

Remembrance

After the dust settles, once he’s back in LA, he sequesters himself in his cavernous living space and cracks open a fresh notebook.

He will write his own material again. He knows now everything he forgot before. The font of ideas, which dried up within two years of his leaving Derry, has been overflowing since he watched the house on Neibolt Street crumble into nothing. It feels painfully obvious now that he lost his will to write when he lost all of the things that made him laugh.

When five hours of staring down his notebook and then his bottle of bourbon do not produce the results he wants to see, he tosses both aside and stumbles to his bedroom, to the box of memories that he has placed in the back corner of his closet. In time, he might even joke about it in a set, call it ironic, given how long he had lived back there without realizing it.

But for now, he sits on the floor and pulls the rubber bands off the shoebox. One of them has dried and breaks the moment he touches it. The other snaps in his fingers as he tugs it off. The lid pops off and the notebooks of his youth come spilling out. The ones deeper down are more colorful and more worn, covered in scribbles and scrawls that he now knows again by heart.

He opens one that is labeled “Shitty Comedy Routine” in Stan’s careful hand. He flips through the pages idly, looking for some spark of the comedian he was before he handed the reins over to ghostwriters.

He doesn’t notice it the first time he specifically mentions meeting a redhead smoking outside a bar. Nor does he notice when this girl, later in his routine, rolls her eyes at his shitty pick up lines and mutters something about the gentile idiot.

He does finally notice when there’s a page where he’s jotted down a half-page of notes about the inherent homoerotic nature of swimming in your tighty-whities with your five best guy friends.

He starts noticing when the redhead girl turns into his Jewish girlfriend, at times a writer and at times a nature freak. She’s always at the library-- “don’t know why, ‘cause she’s already stacked!”

(They’re not all winners.)

(They’re mostly not winners at all.)

(Richie starts to wonder how he ever got famous.)

After a few more pages that amount to masturbation jokes that are only slightly better than the ones he tells now, he finally reaches the last page that’s been written on.

It’s his first attempt at a real girlfriend routine. He describes how she’s a redhead with a temper to match, fiery and gorgeous and way out of his league. He claims he annoyed his way into her heart. All of his best jokes and harshest insults come from her lips. She’s hot as hell, but she’s clearly crazy, the way she’ll bite someone’s head off for just a compliment. She hates all of his nicknames for her, and pulls better pranks than he’s ever dreamed of. She’s so tiny, she’s actually in his pocket, feeding him his better lines and criticizing his delivery. When he hurts himself doing something stupid, she’ll dab his wounds with rubbing alcohol and smile while he winces. She’s got a medicine cabinet that a drug dealer would kill for. She must think he came out of the sewers by the way she makes him scrub himself clean any time they have sex. She still lives at home, which sucks because it means he has to sneak into her room by the window-- if he came in through the front door, her mom might jump him instead.

sucks she’s not real haha is scrawled in the margin, after his routine hits the bottom of the page and crawls up the side.

Richie tosses the notebook aside and sobs in the middle of his closet for longer than he cares to count. Once he’s done, he gets back up, goes back to his notebook, and starts working on a bit about how awkward high school reunions are.

[poiwritesnstuff]

It was frustrating how, even with every inch of her skin burning with frustration, her heart still tightened at the sight of the target. She was not jealous, exactly. Or perhaps she was, and this creature tearing at her chest was her first introduction to the concept in a way that really, truly mattered.

“It’s not fair,” she muttered, more to herself than to her companion as she nursed a drink.

“Maybe you should move on,” he replied, not unkindly.

“Maybe you should,” came the reply, and she sunk further into the cushions as the girl on the target’s arm tugged him in for a kiss. Pain slashed across her chest once again.

“I meant more that maybe you should find someone else to stalk, if they’re going to make you so miserable.”

“They’re not making me miserable. I made me miserable.” She finished off the drink and rubbed at her eyes, knowing full well she was picking at a wound that would bleed with the slightest provocation.

“It’s been months, you know. And you’ve got much more to deal with than this,” he said to her, settling in next to her. He seemed to instinctively understand that this conversation would not be done for a long time, which she appreciated. “Especially when he won’t talk to you.”

“Not talking to be would be one thing. He refuses to be in the same room as I’m in if he can help it. I’m not convinced he doesn’t skip meetings sometimes just to avoid me,” she sighed.

“...doesn’t it make you mad?” he asked. She could feel the pressure of his gaze on her without losing sight of her target, engrossed as he was in conversation on the other side of the room. “You’ve spit fire at people for less than this.”

“Well…. Yes,” she said, absently rubbing her chest. “But it’s selfish, which isn’t fair. I don’t know how to be mad at him. I’m just mad in general. That he’s avoiding me. That he won’t talk to me. That he’s with someone else. That I made it this way. And that I can’t just accept the facts and move on.

“But it’s more than anger. It’s sadness and the fading of hope I never should have had. It’s frustration at myself for having said what I did, for letting myself be so caught in the confusion and chaos that I let him go instead of holding on tighter and being selfish. It’s frustration that I thought I could somehow save us by ending us, and instead I just swung the axe at my execution and botched it.”

He was silent for a moment, watching as the target took his new girlfriend into his arms and kissed her. “He was pretty hurt by it, by all accounts. And I can’t blame him for that, not when you came so out of left field.”

“But he acts as though I wanted this and I’m walking away scot free. It’s what gets me. I want to shake him and explain myself and have him act in any way other than how he’s treated me. I want to shake the crystal ball and see a new vision in my future, but it’s just not going to work that way. I can shake him up, but then it’ll only hurt things more. I can leave him be, but it’ll just hurt me more. Sometimes I wonder if I shouldn’t hurt him, just so he knows what it feels like.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s what he thought too, at one point,” he mused. “And it seems like you want him back.”

“Maybe. I mean, I do. He’s got more from me than I intended to give up, and I don’t think I can get it back.”

“You can buy a new promise ring at Claire’s for about thirty bucks,” he offered with a chuckle. She let out a weak chuckle in return.

“Cute. I meant… well, I don’t think I gave him my heart, but I gave him a place in it. And all of his things are still there. I keep thinking he’ll come back to get them, and I can’t bring myself to get rid of them. They’re his. I want him to come get them. I want him to come get them and realize it’s where he belonged all along, and I want him to come back to stay. But the way he’s been acting, it’s made me feel that maybe I don’t want him after all, if this is how he’s going to be. I don’t need to invite someone whose true nature is like this into my life. Implacable. Uncivil. Presumptive.”

“Avoidant. He hasn’t seen you long enough to be uncivil. He’s just not coming back for his things. You probably ought to throw them in the trash. Metaphorically speaking.”

The target passed out of sight, his friends and lover in tow. She heaved a sigh and picked herself up from her spot on the couch. “I ought to. I just keep turning them over in my hands, wondering why I wrecked it when it was all so good. And then sometimes I wonder if I want him at all, or if I just wanted something that could have been good as opposed to many things that were definitely bad. Or maybe I’m just convincing myself that he’s awful and I was indifferent to avoid the truth.”

“Which is?”

“I’m lonely, and he made it go away. He made me brave enough to make it go away. And I don’t know what that means anymore, because I got scared enough to let go of it, and now I’m just lonely again. I tried to do the right thing in order to be happy, but the selfish thing might have saved me. Or maybe I did the selfish thing, and that’s why it’s all gone now.”

“It’s not all gone.” He smiled and rubbed her shoulder encouragingly before giving her a hug, which she sunk into without resistance, but also without enthusiasm. “You’ve got a number of things that have nothing to do with him.”

“Funny how little that seems to matter when he’s got his arms around someone else, beaming like he’s happy while I continue to crumble. When he holds his grudge even though he’s got someone else to hold now. When I have nothing at all.”

[poiwritesnstuff]

October 29th

Lily woke up to an open window and a barn owl snuggled into her covers. Reluctantly, she reached out of bed for long enough to close the window, but the barn owl woke to her movement and hooted blearily as it held out its foot. In its grasp was a small note that read I did split house patrols for Monday night instead of all Slytherins. Clearly the worst choice of the two but you’re welcome. 

She let out a soft laugh and opened the window again to shoo James’s owl out into the cold morning air. Pulling on a robe, she darted over to James’s room and knocked on the door. “I woke up with your owl in my bed. It’s terribly strange that you cuddle it at night, I hope you realize that.”

There was no response. Lily knocked again and put her ear to the door, but all she could hear was an insistent tapping. The door was unlocked, so she pushed it open and let James’ owl into the room, where it hooted and flew to its perch in the corner instead of settling on the lump on the bed.

“James? Didn’t you hear your owl at the window?” Not exactly what she wanted to ask, but she pushed at the lump and found that the black hair emerging was much longer than it ought to be. Beneath the covers was Sirius’s pale face and shoulders as he blinked at Lily in response to her existence. “Sirius, what are you doing here?”

“I was up until four working on--” He yawned, but by the time he finished, he was already snuggling back into covers. “Just two more hours.”

“Sirius, it’s ten in the morning. And anyways, where’s James?”

This seemed to register with Sirius because he re-emerged to look at Lily. “He’s getting ready, or he’s left already. Hard to tell when you’re asleep.” He propped himself up on his elbows. “Say, Evans, don’t you have a thing today?”

“Why am I not surprised that you know about it?” She asked, looking around the room to avoid his gaze.

“Because he loves me more than anyone,” he said with another great big yawn. “And he’s perfectly aware that my intentions are honestly dishonorable and has embraced it, unlike you.”

Lily just frowned at Sirius and sat down on the bed, forcing him to make place for her.

“I don’t have dishonorable intentions. I don’t think I have any intentions.”

“It’s unforgivable to do anything without intention. Idle action is pedestrian at best,” he declared.

“What philosopher did you have for dinner last night?” Lily asked.

“I didn’t have dinner last night. When I don’t sleep, I think, and I can’t come up with winners every time.”

Lily looked over at this and saw the discomfort beneath the air of amusement he was studiously maintaining. Tugging on a lock of hair, she lay down next to him, opting to stare at the ceiling instead of facing him.

He spoke again. “So you really have no idea what you’re doing with all this?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I just said we should have tea but we didn’t actually agree on a time or anything and then we just haven’t spoken about it since. It’s--”

“I meant generally,” Sirius said. “Not to protect his virtue-- in fact, I’m hoping you’ll do away with it entirely-- but he’s not exactly a versed seducer. You might get his hopes up if you don’t tell him what you want.”

Lily thought about this for a moment. “I’ve got no idea what I want. We’ve known each other for so long that I hardly know what I want, let alone what he wants, except for that I want tea.”

“Well, that’s encouraging. The great Lily Evans doesn’t know something.”

“I’m not the anything, and certainly not ‘the great.’ I might be the confused Lily Evans.”

“The bemused.”

“The befuddled.”

“The belabored.”

“The discombobulated,” she said.

“The Potter,” Sirius said with a laugh.

“The excuse you?” Lily’s face went red, which only made him laugh harder.

Sirius lowered his voice conspiratorially and said, “He used to doodle your name with his on his notes, you know. ‘Lily Evans Potter’ with great big hearts all around it like a smitten bird.”

“Oh god, he never,” Lily said, covering her face with her hands, trying to ignore the little flutter of her heart and her stomach at the thought.

“That’s right, he never,” came a voice from the doorway, and the two turned to see James standing in the doorway. He had on a pair of sweatpants and a towel around his neck. Lily studiously avoided looking anywhere below the towel. James’s gaze was scanning over the bed and he had a slightly strangled expression on his face.

“He absolutely did,” Sirius retorted, and Lily could hear the delight in his voice.

“Leave it,” Lily whispered despite herself, both frustrated with and grateful for his presence.

James crossed the room to start rooting through his drawers. “Sirius is misremembering it-- he’s the one who was writing ‘Sirius Potter’ through half of third year after he visited us for the summer.”

“You’d want to be a Potter too if your only other choice was to be a Black,” Sirius said.

Lily, whose eyes had followed James, was watching the way the muscles in his back moved as he pulled the towel off of his shoulders and selected a shirt.

James turned around, shirt half on, and said, “As though you needed the name to be one of us.”

But he had looked at Lily as he said it. Her stomach clenched, and she was suddenly very aware of the morning breath and messy hair and bare legs that she hadn’t thought about while it was just Sirius.

A born leader. Lily had not been in doubt of James’ ability to carry out his Head Boy duties, but this was the first time that she felt that he was what a Head Boy ought to be.

Sirius, satisfied with the answer he’d got, let out a laugh and settled back into the covers as Lily jumped up from the bed.

“I should be getting ready. I overslept,” she stammered before rushing out of the room, her heart and thoughts racing.

An hour later, Lily had gone through three hairstyles (settled on a ponytail), four attempts at makeup (ended up with nothing on), and six outfits (her coat covered it all anyways) before she was wearing something she could live with. She walked out to find James sitting on the couch, a collar peeking out from under his jacket.

“Has Sirius gone or will he be joining us today?” She asked, enjoying the way he smiled up at her as she approached him.

“He’s gone back to bed but I’ll wake him up for you if you’d like,” he said, standing up to greet her.

“No, no,” she said quickly. They met in the middle of the room, silence falling faster than either of them had anticipated. Lily started to reach out for a hug and ended up redirecting her movement into crossing her arms over her chest. James just watched her move. “We should go before he wakes up again.”

“Right. Let’s go,” James said. They walked in silence through much of the castle, exchanging passing remarks here and there, separating one group on the verge of fighting, but it wasn’t until they were out on the grounds that Lily remembered the note he’d sent her.

“Thanks for finishing up the schedule. I wasn’t looking forward to figuring that out,” she said. “It’s so hard to figure out which of the pairs would actually work together.”

“Oh, I didn’t even bother with that. It’s Halloween-- I tossed coins and let them decide who’d walk together.” James laughed. “I’m looking forward to Monday.”

Lily grinned despite herself. “Is that your big prank, forcing all of the worst pairs to walk together?”

“Oh, that’s not it. It’s going to-- well, it’s going to be fun. Sirius and I were up fairly late working on it, in fact. We did some finishing touches.”

“Won’t you tell me what it is?” Lily asked, moving closer to bump his arm with her elbow. James just smiled politely and led her down into the village.

They arrived at the tea shop a little while later, deeply engrossed in gossip about the prefects. They were so engrossed, in fact, that they hadn’t realized exactly what they’d walked into until they were seated in squishy black and orange chairs that squeaked a little every time they moved. The table between them was still bright blue but was covered in a tablecloth that had featured a dizzying pattern of dancing pumpkins. Above them, happy skeletons were flying around, throwing confetti and cackling pitifully. A harried server swimming in old dress robes pulled a tea cart to the side of their table.

“Will that be all? Sorry! I meant, would you like to order something? Oh, you don’t have your menus, give me just a moment, I’ve got a large party to seat-- where the hell is Alice?”

Two minutes later, they were outside again. Lily couldn’t hold back her laughter and James joined in after a moment, looking both embarrassed and relieved. “I’ve never actually been inside. I just knew it was around--”

“--all those patterns, it was so busy and ridiculous! I would never have suggested it for a date if I’d thought it was going to be quite like that,” Lily laughed. “The Three Broomsticks should be just fine… James?”

James had stopped in the middle of the lane, staring at Lily. She glanced around to see if anyone was nearby-- they were fairly isolated-- and walked back close enough to see that his cheeks were as pink as his lips and why on earth was she staring at his lips. She stammered out a random string of syllables to try and get James to stop looking at her quite so intently when he cut in.

“I actually had something of a backup plan… Do you trust me, Evans?” He asked, offering her his hand.

“I… Well… yes.” She took his hand, and a thrill ran through her as his fingers closed around hers. “Lead the way.”

He did, smiling brighter and brighter until he caught sight of her again and bit back his enthusiasm, and Lily could barely hold back her laughter. Not that she quite understood what she had to laugh about, except for that it was a Saturday and they were in Hogsmeade and James Potter, who had fought with her former best friend for six years and had been bothering her for a date for the last four years, was holding her hand and her heart was thudding in her chest as though it was strapped to the front of the Hogwarts Express.

They finally found themselves in front of the Shrieking Shack. James checked to make sure nobody else was around before silently unlocking the door. Lily walked in after him, lingering in the entryway as she traced her fingers over the long scratches in the wall. It was bare of any loose furniture or personal touches, but he moved around it like it was home. She knew what the shack meant. The gesture of coming here seemed momentous. James reappeared with a small picnic basket, unaware of the change in her mood.

“The shack isn’t so bad during the day, for all that it’s supposedly haunted--”

“I know, James.”

They stared at one another.

“You know…”

“I… Yes.”

They continued staring. A full stampede of emotions were crossing James’s face. Lily wasn’t sure her face wasn’t doing the same.

She finally spoke again. “Do you have a blanket?”

A pause. “Yes, actually.”

“We should set it down.”

James nodded and pulled the blanket from the basket,  taking a second to collect himself. As he was smoothing down the corners, he looked up at her and asked, “What exactly is it that you think you know?”

“I don’t think I know, I know that I know. About Remus. He told me. Well, he didn’t tell me like that. I had my suspicions and asked him late last year and he told me the whole story. It made some amount of sense.” Lily loosened the scarf around her neck and sat down on the blanket, gesturing for James to join her.

“He’s never hurt anyone since he’s been here,” James said quickly, joining her. “Dumbledore wouldn’t have let him stay if he could hurt people.”

“I know. I know he’d never want to,” Lily said. "I love Remus, he’s a very good person, and that hasn’t changed for me. I’m not scared of him. If anything, it just seems terribly lonely, him having to go through that alone every month.”

James looked up from his shoes to Lily’s face. “That idiot.” When Lily looked at his expression, he smiled, the relief evident on his face. “He doesn’t go through it alone. He hasn’t since fifth year. Sirius and Peter and I, we all go with him.”

Her stomach dropped. “What--”

“We come here with him.”

“He mentioned the shack but how do--”

“We’re Animagi.”

She was stunned into silence. Despite the gravity of the situation, James couldn’t quite look contrite enough to cover his pride in his accomplishments. The worst part was that within the horror and worry and confusion, she felt proud. Her already confused emotions were flying into a full-fledged storm. He rustled in the basket for something and she quickly brushed away the tear that had slipped out.

“We’re unregistered, obviously. Dumbledore absolutely doesn’t know, though Minnie might. She hasn’t said anything if she does. And nobody can know,” he added, handing her a thermos of tea. “I’ve been thinking about it-- I thought at one point that we could wait until we were of age and then we could register and pretend we hadn’t done it before, but now I think it might be safer if nobody knows.”

“What do you change into?” She asked, her voice barely a whisper.

“Same as my patronus, a stag,” James said, unscrewing the cap on her thermos for her. “If you don’t mind, I’ll leave it to the others to tell you what they are, if they want to.”

“Right, of course.” Lily sipped the tea. It was just as she liked it, which was both comforting and upsetting. The tears started falling faster. James had been so much more for years than she had even thought to be. Everything was happening all at once-- when had everyone suddenly grown up? How did the world get to this point? And why did she feel like she was falling behind and so unprepared?

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you--” James said, wiping her tears away.

The tender gesture made her cry harder. “It’s nothing, I’m fine. The tea is just really good.”

James paused to look at her with such a look of teen male confusion that she laughed just long enough to stop crying.

“I thought you needed to know. I’ll be going to help him every month and you’ll need to manage all the Head Girl stuff on your own sometimes,” he explained. After a moment, he added, “I’ve got pumpkin pasties and some cucumber sandwiches from the kitchens, if you’d like.”

They distributed the sandwiches between them, eating slowly as their arms occasionally touched. Lily stewed in her feelings and her thoughts before finally speaking again.

“James, I lied. Earlier.” She could feel him tense, so she continued quickly. “I am scared. I know Remus and I trust him, but I also know what a werewolf can do. I’m… I’m scared of what could happen, even if we’re doing everything we can to keep it from happening. And I’m scared of what could happen to him if people find out about him.”

Lily was aware that she was rambling but she couldn’t seem to stop the words tumbling out of her.

“I know that Severus followed him to find out and nearly got hurt because of it. He tried to tell me about it, but I refused to listen. And you must have done something too, because he treats you differently now. I can tell. He hates you so much more, but he won’t pick fights with you, and the only thing he hates more than you is being in someone’s debt. He’d be telling anyone who’d listen if you had hurt him, but you didn’t. You helped him or saved him, and I was so awful to you after that. I didn’t even see it until this year but I was so unfair to you last year. You changed. And you’re the same, and you were good all along, and I never saw it until you changed.”

Silence, again, but tense this time. Lily picked herself up abruptly, face red. She tugged on her scarf, mumbling a hurried apology, trying to find the fastest way to run back to the castle and never talk to James Potter again. Maybe she could hide in Hogsmeade, cut her hair, and glamor her face unrecognizable. Dumbledore would understand, surely.

She nearly made it to the door when James grabbed her hand. She spun around and he was towering over her, looking down with his deep brown eyes and his wild hair and his ridiculous cheekbones under light brown skin, and she hated how much understanding was in his expression.

“Lily,” he whispered, his face far too close, his expression far too vulnerable. Her chest hurt. 

She lifted her chin, tilted her head so that she could brush her lips against him. James was solid and tense, holding himself so still that she had to struggle to feel him breathing. She ghosted a kiss along his jaw and one over his cheek. She took hold of the lapels of his jacket and dared to touch her lips to his, so softly that she was only sure it had happened by his reaction. She did it again, longer and closer this time, felt her head spin and her stomach drop as he pressed into the kiss as well.

“James…” Their foreheads were touching. She could feel the warmth radiating off of him, feel the miniscule spaces between them as he trapped her against the wall. “I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know what I want or where this is going to go...”

“This right now. Do you want this?”

“...Yes.”

He was on her in an instant, pressing her against the wall, one hand holding her waist in a crushing grip and the other holding her head as he kissed her senseless. It took a couple of clumsy moments to get used to the new position before they started to learn. Lily wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him closer, reveling in his attentions. He wasn’t artful or confident, but he kissed her like a desperate prayer, too honest and open to deny its sincerity. She slipped her fingers through his hair, tugging gently as she returned his kisses with all of the enthusiasm she could muster. 

When he finally pulled away, panting slightly, Lily tightened her grip and buried her face in his neck. He wrapped his arms around her and held her as tight as he could. She could feel his heart racing as fast as hers, could feel him trembling ever so slightly as he held her, willing her to stay in that moment forever.

“Fuck, Lily,” he sighed, his hands sliding over her back as he hugged her tighter. Her name on his lips was a dangerous combination, if only because her heart was leaping for the chance to hear it again.

“I told you,” she said softly, still hiding her face, “I don’t know what I’m doing here. Or what I want. But I think… I think you’re the one I want to figure it out with.”

[poiwritesnstuff]

October 12th

(Date on the label is the date featured in the story. Enjoy!)

The common room that connected the Head Boy’s quarters to the Head Girl’s quarters held a small couch set around the fireplace and a couple of small tables. At the table closest to the fireplace sat a tired lump called Lily Evans. Lily was currently slumped over the table, her red hair covering an open textbook, and her right hand was clutching a quill leaking ink on her unfinished Transfiguration essay. Draped around her shoulders was a blanket and there was a mug of tea that was still piping hot even though it had been poured and placed there an hour ago. 

She woke with a start and reached to rub her eyes when she heard, “You’ll give yourself a black eye doing that, Evans.” She blinked once and realized that her hand was covered in ink as well. 

Turning back, she found James lounging on the couch behind her, an arm thrown over his eyes and a small stack of textbooks sitting on his stomach. He grinned, dark brown eyes peeking out from under his arm, illuminated by the firelight. She turned back to her essay and carefully vanished the spilled ink, but the desire to keep working on it had vanished with it. Lily picked up her tea and walked over to the couch, gesturing for James to sit up so that she could sit next to him.

“You could have gotten your own chair. I was quite comfortable, you know,” James complained. Lily rolled her eyes as she kicked off her shoes and curled up on the couch, mug resting on her knees.

“The other seats are too close to the fire. This is the best spot to sit.”

“Yeah, that’s why I took it.” He watched her, studying her thoughtful mood as she sipped from the mug and stared into the fire. “I was thinking of marking my territory, in fact, right until you pushed me out. Thought I’d whip out my tackle and piss all over it, see.”

She snorted. “Thanks for the tea. I didn’t realize you knew how I liked it.”

“Yeah, because it’s bizarre. Half milk and half tea and a single granule of sugar. You’d get on great with my mother.”

“And you brought me a blanket.” She looked at him, cheek pressed against her shoulder, expression unreadable.

“I brought me the blanket. It just liked you better.” His cheeks were heating up faster than the fire could warm him. It was unfair, frustrating, downright maddening that she should sit there looking so lovely and looking at him and he was barely holding it together under her gaze.

“No reason it should.” She looked away again, focused on drinking her milky tea.

“It likes that you drew up the prefects schedule last week since I was recovering from the weekend, that’s all.”

“It doesn’t need to pay me back for that.” She lifted the blanket off her shoulder and offered it to him, avoiding his eyes the whole time. “James.”

She was trying to kill him.

Body tense, James took the offered end and wrapped it around his shoulder, acutely aware of the fact that he was sharing a blanket with Lily Evans in a room alone late at night and, as far as he could tell, he was awake. He held himself still, trying to calm his speeding heart and the seven different spots on him that suddenly all itched at once.

Lily Evans hated him. Had hated him. Had gone from explicitly hating him to disliking him to nothing-ing him. Had finally made her peace with him late sixth year and was friendly to him, perhaps even with him. Lily Evans was finally a friend.

And as for him, James Potter had gone from friendly to arrogant and bored and intrigued to persistent by force of habit to actually interested to liking her to being genuinely in love… to being heartbroken. To waking up to the idiocy of years past, to understanding that being genuinely in love hadn’t started back in third year when his body first reacted but on the train ride home after their fifth year, when they finally had it out so angrily and honestly that he hadn’t hoped to ever talk to her again. To slowly but surely building the wall against his feelings so that he could focus on himself, so that he could become the person he once thought he was. To prove that he deserved a love as good as hers, even if he’d never get it. To realize that there was a world outside of Lily Evans and his obsession and even Hogwarts, one shrouded in a growing darkness that he was fast approaching without a clue about how to fight it.

And now they were sharing an itchy woolen blanket on a too-small couch that was apparently called a loveseat and her pale hand was curved around her arm and centimeters from his bare skin and he thought for a moment that perhaps he could do without this madness and perhaps Dumbledore would understand if he couldn’t be the Head Boy anymore because he’d rather throw himself to the giant squid than let all of his idiotic feelings come back and take over when he had finally got on her good side.

“Thanks, Evans.”

“James,” she said, and he once again had to rein in his racing mind. “What are you doing on Halloween?”

“Um.” Before he could respond, she continued speaking.

“No, you’ll have something planned for Halloween, surely,” she mused.

“Maybe not,” he protested a little too quickly. “It might be time to retire that whole pranking gambit. I’ve been busy with all this and we haven’t had the time to plan anything. I don’t think it’ll happen.”

Lily seemed surprised, and not in a way he expected. “What, you’re going to give up on your final Halloween prank? You’ve played Halloween tricks every year we’ve been here. You can’t tell me that the Marauders would give up on their chance for a last hurrah. It’s your last year to do something.”

“We’re too old for that now,” James insisted. “We’re all of age, and the tricks and jokes are childish. Besides, look at what the world looks like. We can’t pretend like we’ll be in school forever and things’ll always be fun and games. It’s time to--”

“That’s exactly why you should do it.” Her fingers wound around his arm, then the wrist and the rest of her arm. Her knees moved down, brushing against his thigh as she leaned toward him. Fire spread from every point that his body touched hers. The itching on the small of his back made him want to howl in pain.

“I… don’t follow.”

“It’s terrifying out there, not just for me or the rest of the muggleborns but for all of us. I think we need a reminder that things aren’t all doom and gloom. Something that feels normal, like everything isn’t going to change. And what’s more normal than a Halloween prank by the Marauders?”

He could feel her shoulder pressing against his tricep.

“I’m Head Boy,” he protested weakly.

“So you are. But you’re also James Potter. I doubt Dumbledore put you here to stop you from being yourself. Maybe he thought we needed a Head Boy who could remember how to laugh.”

He couldn’t suppress the shiver that ran down his spine as he thought for a moment. Maddening woman. Since when had she understood him? And why did it have to be now when he couldn’t do anything about it? 

But then… perhaps he could. “Sirius.”

“What?” Lily pulled back from James to look at him, only to find that he was pulling the blanket off of his shoulder.

“I already told him I wasn’t keen on it, so he’s angry with me. I’ll have to sort things out with him before we can do anything, but I’ve got a couple of ideas already,” he said absently, pulling on his shoes and searching for a sweater to pull over his shirt. “Remus and Peter will be easier once I’ve got him on board, but it’ll be brilliant, I promise.”

He stopped in his frantic searching to look at Lily, matching her confused smile for a glowing smile of his own. James crossed the room again in a couple of strides. When he was close enough to see Lily looking up at him from the couch, he handed her the pillow from the armchair and pulled the blanket more securely around her shoulders.

“Thanks, Evans.”

“Of course, you’re welcome,” she said softly, watching as he walked away. Just before he opened the door, Lily called after him. “Wait… wait, James, wait!”

“Yeah?” He asked. Lily suppressed a laugh at the sight of James with his sweater half on, hair wild and eyes glowing with excitement as he beamed at her.

“I was trying to ask if you’d maybe be free on the Hogsmeade weekend before Halloween to have tea. Maybe Madam Puddifoot’s or the Hog’s Head? You could show me how tea ought to be prepared,” she offered.

James nodded. “Yeah, Evans, it’s a--” His smile dimmed for just a moment. “For sure, I’ll see you there.”

[poiwritesnstuff]

October 4th

(Note: The titles refer to the day featured in the fic, not the day that this was published. I wanted to write one October day/event for each day– let’s see if it actually happens.)

Lily Evans nervously wiped her prefect’s pin as she walked down the corridor to the Astronomy Tower. It had been over a month since she’d started fulfilling her duties as a prefect and a full four months since she had received the initial letter, heavy with the weight of responsibility and metal. That still hadn’t been enough time to calm her nerves about being out close to curfew. It also didn’t erase the sting of embarrassment from the time two weeks ago when Mrs. Norris had come prowling up the corridor and she’d run to hide before she remembered what she was doing.

She liked being a prefect. She wasn’t as keen on comforting and corralling the younger years as Remus seemed to be, but she found a pleasure in being able to guide and warn them as their senior. She thought for a moment that perhaps this was what Petunia must have felt as the older sister, but sadness bloomed in her chest and she waved away the thought.

Once she got to the tower, she climbed up, the chill of the October night air more prominent the further she went. As she approached the top, she could hear the sounds of guffawing and idle chatter. So much for an uneventful evening. She pushed the door open to the tower to see Remus and Peter sitting to one side, textbooks open before them, Sirius propped against the wall with a bottle in his hand, and James hovering midair on his broom, his pet snitch in his hands as he talked animatedly.

“Remus! I thought you were patrolling,” Lily said, narrowing her eyes at him. 

He started, surprised by Lily’s sudden appearance, and shrugged sheepishly. “I am. That is, I just got here and Peter needed help on a question, but I’m getting them back to the common room after.”

“Lighten up, Evans, it’s Saturday!” James said, flying four feet over to greet her. “And Remus here’ll take care of it. How’d you like the match earlier today?”

“I really enjoyed all the showboating that would’ve cost us the match if Wilkes hadn’t fumbled at the last minute. Get off that broom, you shouldn’t be flying indoors.”

“You gonna give us detention, Evans?” Sirius asked, taking a swig from what appeared to be a butterbeer bottle. “We’re being escorted by a prefect, after all. There shouldn’t be a problem here.”

Lily took one look at him and frowned. She’d learned to identify his moods, and sometimes it was better not to engage with him. “I’m not fighting with you, Sirius. You should be in the common room, at least. Curfew’s up in ten minutes.”

Sirius mouthed ‘groooooovy’ and grinned as he offered the bottle to James, who flew over, took it, and polished it off.

“Sirius,” Remus said warningly, though it came out more tired than stern. Standing up, he turned to Lily. “We’re done here, we’ll be going.”

Lily nodded at him, feeling annoyed and sorry at once. Remus was the smartest, kindest, and most responsible of their little group. He should have been stronger than he was. If she didn’t know better, she might have said that they bullied him at times too. She could see why they were friends but the way Remus deferred to them was bizarre at best.

But Dumbledore had to have known what he was doing when he made Remus a new prefect. Remus often capitulated to his friends’ whims instead of standing up to them. That was no kind of a person to put in charge of others, especially the same people that were often targets of pranks and bullying. Or Remus ought to have realized how important the position was and started acting stronger accordingly.

Sirius’s voice snapped her out of her musings. “Hey, space case, don’t you have rounds to finish?”

Lily looked away from Remus, realizing she’d been staring right at him, and fixed her eyes on James instead. He had floated out of the window and was now tossing the bottle around as he swayed back and forth on the broom. She might have admired the way his muscles flexed with each effortless lean and grab if it weren’t for the cocksure smirk painted on his face. He was absolutely insufferable, the way he looked at her, expecting her to swoon as he leaned forward, farther than he should have as the bottle slipped through his fingers and he and the broom fell out of vision with it.

Lily froze. They’d all seen it, but nobody was reacting. Maybe they were in shock too. She let out a shriek and ran to the window, but it was too dark to see so far down. Remus rushed over to join her at the window and put a hand on her shoulder. Sirius remained in place, while Peter went over to him and whined in low tones that Lily could not make out the meaning of.

“Potter!” She shouted down into the darkness.

“Lily, don’t worry, he’s fine,” Remus said.

“He’s not fine, he fell. I saw him lose his balance.” Her voice began to rise, notes of panic laced throughout. “Remus, he fell!”

“He does this a lot, it’s a trick,” he tried to explain, but Lily hurriedly lit the tip of her wand and stuck it out into the dark and called for him again.

Just as she turned to do something, anything that wasn’t waiting for the inevitable sound of James Potter hitting the ground, the bristles of his broom slowly floated into view, followed by the sleek handle that had a single brown hand wrapped around it. Half in amazement and half in horror, Lily watched as James floated back into view, holding onto his broom by a single arm. In his other hand was the butterbeer bottle he’d nearly dropped.

“You sounded worried, Evans. Don’t worry, I saved it,” he said, tossing the bottle neatly in the window. “Were you scared I’d really fallen? You can come out on a date with me and I’ll tell you how I did it. No need to worry a precious hair on your head about me when I’m flying.”

Silence fell over them. Remus backed away from Lily, and even Sirius stood up. Lily’s tense figure was radiating an anger that everyone noticed… except for James.

“You’re such a bloody prick!” Lily screamed, surprising James enough for him to grab onto the broom properly. She bent down, picked up the bottle, and hurled it at him before she turned on her heel. “All of you can go to hell!”

James managed to dodge the bottle and quickly seat himself on the broom. He called after her, but Lily had already stormed down the stairs by the time he flew into the tower and got to the door. “Merlin’s beard, but what’s with her?”

“She’s just mad. Girls are all mental,” Sirius offered, staring down the staircase next to James.

Remus pushed past them, glaring at the floor. He got down a few steps, stopped, and looked up at the three pairs of eyes watching him. “That was badly done, James. Really badly done.”

James and Sirius stood in the doorway as Peter scurried down the stairs, calling after Remus while casting fearful glances back at the other two.

“What’s with him?” James asked.

“He’s basically a girl,” Sirius offered.

“Well. More room under the cloak for us. Let’s just go back.” James pulled the cloak over their shoulders.

“After we stop by the dungeons?” Sirius asked.

“And the kitchens. I reckon we ought to get back on Moony’s good side before the Charms essay is due.”

They headed down the stairs, Sirius on the lookout for Mrs. Norris while James replayed the scene in his head, wondering why Lily was so angry at him.

[poiwritesnstuff]

October 1st

(Note: The titles refer to the day featured in the fic, not the day that this was published. I wanted to write one October day/event for each day-- let’s see if it actually happens.)

There was a hint of chill in the air as the seasons started to change. October was here, and with it was the start of their second month of Hogwarts. James Potter was adjusting fabulously, which was to say that he’d already had detention with Professor McGonagall twice, set off a dungbomb in the corridor to the dungeons, and had a fist fight with Slytherins, insofar as screaming at fifth years and getting slapped so hard his glasses flew off counted as a fist fight. He hadn’t written about all of his escapades in his letters home, but his mother somehow knew everything he’d done, and she’d congratulated him as many times as she’d scolded him in her letters back.

The dormitory was sleepy this Friday morning as the Gryffindor first years got a late start, but James refused to miss breakfast. He shook Sirius awake and promised him a surprise before running down to breakfast, a small package in hand. By the time he reached the Great Hall, most of the other students were well into their meals, so he pushed into the free seat next to Lily Evans and started piling up the plate that had appeared to accommodate him.

“Potter, you nearly splashed me!” she complained, inspecting her book and wiping off a few stray droplets of pumpkin juice on the pages. “I’m trying to study for charms.”

“What do you need to study for? Flitwick’s already half in love with you,” James retorted, biting into a piece of buttered toast. “For all you kiss up and ask questions, your cat could shred your essay and he’d still give it full marks.”

“I’m not kissing up, I’m just trying to learn. You know, that thing you do when you open books and read? Not all of us are used to all this.” Lily huffed, turning away from him to indicate the conversation was over.

James paused his breakfast campaign to study her. She seemed upset, and he wasn’t sure what for, but he didn’t want her to stay that way. “All right, don’t cry--”

“I’m not crying!”

“--my mum sent me some sweets, do you want one?”

“It’s a bit early, isn’t it?” She eyed the box in his lap suspiciously. “No, thank you.”

“Have you ever had Indian sweets? They’re really good. My mum’s the best at them, I promise. Just try one.” He put the box on the table and started opening it. 

Inside the tied paper parcel was a steel container. James struggled to pry off the lid for a moment but when he finally did, Lily could see bright orange circles glistening with the sheen of sugar syrup. At James’s urging, she picked one up out of the box and was surprised to find that it was warm, almost hot. When she bit into it, the satisfying crunch gave way to a chewy fried batter and the syrup flooded her mouth with a flavor she’d never had before. It was different but so good that she finished the whole thing and licked her fingers clean.

“What is that?” she asked, wiping her fingers on her handkerchief as she remembered her manners. “It’s so sweet… but it’s really good.”

“Right? I told you, my mum’s the best. It’s jalebi, it’s my favorite. I told Sirius I’d give him some but I think he’s still asleep,” James said, closing the box and putting it away.

“You’re not having any?” She asked, slightly suspicious.

“Why, Evans, didn’t your mum ever tell you not to eat sweets for breakfast?” James flashed her a smug grin that turned her red with embarrassment. “Anyways, I’ve only got about six left. That’s one for Sirius and one for Lupin, if he’ll have one. That’s four left until November when she sends more. I thought I should save them.”

Lily studied his expression. “Is this your first time from home?”

“Yeah,” he said, his smile much more friendly this time. “I’ve never been away for so long. I know we’re supposed to do this for seven years but I can’t wait until we’re back home for the winter holidays. I miss my parents...”

They sat in silence together, just for a moment, before James looked up to see Remus and Sirius walk into the hall together, the former with an armful of textbooks and the latter with his robes on inside out, still rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

“You’re not the only one who feels out of sorts, you know,” he said, in the kindest tone she’d ever heard from him. He opened the tin, broke another sweet in half, and gave her one of the pieces. “See you, Evans.”

With the other piece in his mouth, James gathered his things and hurried over to the end of the table where his friends were sitting. Lily wrapped the sweet in her handkerchief and turned back to her textbook, determined to finish the chapter before their study period started.

[poiwritesnstuff]

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