Chapter Text
Masquerade Challenge - Jilytoberfest, 2021
Prompt: “You hit my car with your car at a stop sign on accident, because you saw a cat you needed to rescue”
Pickles
Her body slams forward. The dash lights up, her hands fly to the wheel, bracing herself. There’s a slight ringing in ears, her shoulder stings where the seat belt digs into her skin, and she has to blink a few times to regain her focus. Other than that, she feels okay. Her car on the other hand, probably not.
She groans, turning her wrist over, the silver watch sliding as she catches the time. She curses the emergency call that had made her rush out, cursing being on call, cursing not getting enough sleep the night before.
Begrudgingly, annoyance already bubbling under skin, she pushed the door open, poking her head out first to try and catch the dim-witted prick that just ran up the arse of her car. She groans, inhaling deeply, as her eyes run over the sleek lines of some sports car. Low to the ground, impeccably clean, all black with the exception of the red rims attached to the ties.
Great, she thinks, a rich, dim-witted prick.
She straightens her scrub top as she gets out of her car. Reaching for her phone in the middle console, she quickly flicks to her notes app where she keeps the important details her dad always told her she had to remember; like car insurance details, for example.
“Lily? Lily Evans, no way that’s you.”
Her stomach drops, the oh-so-familiar voice washing over her. She takes a gulp of air before looking up. That voice, his voice, has been haunting her for the last six months. Fuck. She drinks him, borderline hungrily, and she can’t help notice the way he’s filled out his frame. Standing in front of her, blankets bundled in his arms, was her right place wrong time, her one the got away, the… well, her big love, if her friends were to be believed.
“James?” It’s a question, but there isn’t a doubt in her mind that it’s him.
“All these cars and I run into yours.”
His smile still hits her right in her chest, hard and fast, winding her. The annoyance still bubbles, but it’s shifted. She’s thinking about her face— what a day to not wear make-up— and her hair— tied into possibly the messiest bun, on top of her head, in a rush to get to work on time— and her clothes— when was the last time she washed these scrubs? No, they’re fresh… she hopes. God, why didn’t she make more of an effort. He looks… he looks like he’s made an effort, at least.
No longer sporting the plain white t-shirt that he’d lived in that summer, or the cut up shorts that she’d his teased him about endlessly, James’ light blue button down is tucked into his tan-coloured dress pants, the brown dress shoes (replacing the converse trainers he’d worn to death, just to buy a new pair of the same trainers) shinier than her car, and his hair is some-what tamed (something she finds she hates immediately). She’s never seen him in his ‘work’ clothes before.
Christ, he looks good.
She realises, as she drags her eyes back to his face, that he’s speaking. “… so you see, I was just looking at the map, because I’ve never been to this vet— any vet, actually— and this was the closest one to the house, and I mean I couldn’t just leave Pickles to suffer on the street, you know.”
She laughs, completely lost, “Sorry? Who is Pickles?”
“Pickles… the old cat that hangs about… got hit by a car this morning? Evans, are you not listening to me at all?” She notices that his smirk sits the same across his face, even if his jaw chin is shadowed by facial hair nowadays.
“No, of course—”
“You look good too, by the way.” She feels the heat rush to her face, flaring up the back of her neck. “Hey, do you know where this vet is? My map said it was literally right around the corner?”
“Not Paws Clinic?” She shifts on her feet.
“Yes! That’s it. Google said it was the closest Vet to me…” He trails off, following her movement as she pulls out her ID tag, which was attached to a bright orange lanyard with the words Paws Clinic written in bold print, “Unbelievable.”
She can’t believe it either. For a moment, they just stare at each other, small smiles etching across their features.
“Fuck.” James breaks first, turning to the cars, “Shit, Lily, I’m so sorry, your car!”
“Oh,” Right, she thinks, of course, the cars… the cars that had promptly slipped her mind the moment she’d heard his voice.
The last time she’d seen him, he’d been dead asleep, face pressed into a pillow, arms outstretched across the sheets. She’d dressed as quietly as she could, having just slipped from those very same sheets, and had given him one last, longing look before leaving. Within hours, she’d been on the train to Scotland, back to university and her life, and desperately trying to get him out of her head.
She thought about their summer together— memories of his face, his hands, the way his lips felt on her skin, hot and everywhere— so often, the sunlit days and warm summer nights replayed in her mind with perfect recollection. Lily had returned to London for the summer at the request of Mary, her best friend since school who had decided Oxford was more her style then following Lily to Edinburgh for university, and she’d promptly been introduced to Mary’s charming, hilarious, frankly downright god-like housemate, James Potter.
It took approximately four days of light banter (read as: heavy flirting) for them to fall into bed together. Her summer with Mary turned into her summer with James. As they always do, the summer came to an end and she’d left all the same. Frankly, it had fucking terrified her how quickly she fell in love with James, and while they never discussed what would happen when she did go back to Scotland, she knew deep down that if he had asked her to stay, she fucking would have. She would have done anything he asked of her. The knowledge of that, the knowledge that she would one hundred percent uproot her life because a boy, a man, went against everything she had ever thought about herself… and it had been enough to cause her to have a complete meltdown, leave in the middle of the night, and then go on to diligently ignore all calls and messages from said man for over a month until he eventually stopped trying.
Mary’s called her a daft idiot every day since.
But, now, here he was. Still perfectly god-like, still smiling at her like he had through the entire eight weeks spent wrapped up in each other's arms almost six months ago, like she hadn’t left him without so much as a word of goodbye.
“Sirius runs a shop, he’ll get them fixed, I’ll get him to come tow—”
“No, that’s okay, you don’t—”
“Evans,” he cuts her off, “I insist. Besides, he’ll die when he hears you're back in town.”
Back in town.
She’s forgotten. Forgotten in her rush to move, to take up the job offer that would count towards her grade, to organise her schedule at her new campus. She’d forgotten that she was in his territory again, having given up her rights to walk guilt free through the streets of London when she’d run back to Scotland.
It wasn’t as if she hadn’t thought about him every day since she’d left— because of course she has, he’s had the monopoly on her thoughts since the first time he’d kissed her, looked at her even— but in the haste of it all, she’s forgotten.
His smile doesn’t waver as he presses the phone between his ear and shoulder, the blankets still bundled in his arms. She catches the small orange paw that swipes upwards and moves forward. James’ eyes follow her, brows knitting together the closer she gets to him. She shakes her head and reaches for the cat bundled in his arms, pulling Pickles out from James grasp and into her chest.
She cradles the cat, gently checking his paws, his legs, his tail. She stretches gently behind one of his ears and the cats’ eyes close.
“You’re a natural. You still doing it then?”
“Huh?”
“Studying to be a vet?”
“Oh,” She catches his eye, “Yeah.”
“Good. Every time you spoke about it, you just had this way about you. I always thought you were so in love with it.” The warmth in his voice is so familiar it settles deep in her core. She feels out of breath.
“Sirius is…?” She nods to his phone.
“On his way, five minutes.” He steps closer, “How’s Pickles?”
She looks down, her fingers still scratching lazily behind the cat's ears. “Okay, I think.” He beams at her, the relief visibly flooding through him as his shoulders drop, “But, I should probably take him to get properly checked out. I’m only a student assistant… what?”
Something shifts in his expression, leaving her unable to read him as she had been able to do so easily back in the summer.
“How come you're back?” She knows he doesn’t mean it as an accusation, and she knows that he probably doesn’t mean for the hurt to seep into his tone, but it does anyway, and it hits her right in the gut.
“I… I got offered a…” She inhales, shakily, her lungs shuddering in her chest as the intensity of his gaze scorches her skin, “I missed home. Edinburgh just felt odd after—” She stops herself.
“After…?”
“I just missed home.” She does her best to give him her most convincing smile.
She rocks back and forth, the cat still cradled in her arms. She tries not to stare at him too much, her eyes flickering from his face to his shoulder, his arms, his chest.
“I—“
“Wh—”
They laugh, hazel blazing into emerald, hearts pounding in their chests.
“You go.”
His hand lifts into his hair, “When?” he asks.
“Only a few days ago. I got the call Wednesday, found a flat Friday, got on a train Sunday… it all happened really quickly. I still have six months left of school so transferring has been a nightmare but this job counts as a placement so I only have to finish up two extra classes and then I’m… sorry, I’m rambling.”
“I remember you used to do that when you were nervous about something.” Lily nods, her mouth drying, cheeks blazing, “You never called. Hell, you never called back.”
“I—” She hesitates. At the end of the street, a tow truck turns the corner. Lily lifts herself up on her toes, watching it over James’ shoulder. His gaze doesn’t leave her face, and as she brings herself back down, she wavers slightly. His hand reaches out, steading her, fingers scolding even through the fabric of her scrubs.
“Would you have called?” His voice is low, questioning, and it draws her eyes back to his, “Did you think about me at all after you left?”
“All the time.” The words left her mouth before she’s able to catch them, “I— Of course I was going to call. I—” She exhales, leaning into his touch, “I didn’t think you'd want to hear from me, if I’m honest.”
“Are you kidding?” He steps closer, once more, the gap between them shrinking into nothing.
“Well, I did just sneak out and get on a train to Scotland…”
“A little dramatic, yes, but hey—” A finger brushes against her cheek, trailing to her jaw, gently tilting her face up, “I happen to like some dramatics from time to time.” He’s smiling, making a joke, doing his best to make light of the shit situation she put them in.
“I’m so sorry, James.” She starts, but he shakes his head, “No, I am. Leaving was fucking shit thing to do. I should have… we never talked… I thought about you all the—”
Pickles is pressed between them as his lips find her hers, his hands reaching up to cup her cheeks, his fingers brushing against her jaw. His kiss is light, at first, and when she leans into him, tilting her face up to allow him to deepen it, he obliges. He breaks from her, his forehead pressing against hers, their chests rising and falling heavily as they try to catch their breaths.
The tow truck parks. .
“Hi, I’m James.” He whispers, “I have a thing for helping stray cats, I work in finance, live with my brother and his girlfriend which can sometimes drive me a bit insane because they like to have loud fights in the kitchen at two in the morning, and I fell in love with a girl over summer who ran away back to Scotland before I could tell her.”
“Oh.”
“Oh?” He laughs.
“I’m Lily,” Her eyes flicker downwards, her fingers still buried in Pickles’ fur, and then back to his face. “I fell in love with you too.”