#oliver is VERY disappointed she doesn’t want to go to archery camp

[jiilys]

with you, i aim to please

APRIL JILY CHALLENGE: @jiilys vs @petalstofish

‘we have rival camp cabins and my cabin is totally gonna kick your cabin’s ass in the talent show’

(thanks to @bantasticbeasts and @alrightpotter who suffered with me. love the #crew) 

Sirius rapped loudly on the window and then without waiting for an answer, barged into the cabin and hit Annabel Stevens in the back with the door.

“James yo- oh shit, sorry- you’re never going to fucking believe this. Evans is here.”

James, sitting on the floor and surrounded by children, said “Piss off,” then realized where he was and added, “…is not something we should be saying at camp.” He turned back to Sirius, “You’re kidding.”

“Nope. Just saw her in the girls loos and she gave me the finger.”

“Why were you in the girl’s loos?” asked a child whose name James had forgotten.

“Cleaning.” both James and Sirius said at once. “She gave you the finger?” James questioned, grinning.

“And told me I was a sack of toenails.” Sirius rummaged around in his pockets and pulled out a cigarette. “It’s absolutely her.”

“You can’t smoke in here.” Annabel Stevens told him, indignantly. Sirius stuck his hand out the still open door.

Tommy Elliot, high off hearing so many swear words in succession, piped up and asked, “Whose Evans?”

“Evans! Fancy seeing you here!” James exclaimed, trying to look like he hadn’t asked thirteen people where she was.

Lily, standing in a field with gumboots on trying to show eight uninterested children what a dragonfly was, thought about throwing herself into the lake. “Well if it isn’t Satan’s moldy bread bin.” She said, and James smirked.

“Charming. Gang, meet Evans. Evans, meet my kids.”

“My condolences on your counselor.” Lily offered before turning to Sirius. “Black. Where are your kids.”

“Bathroom.”

“All eight of them?” Lily asked.

“They drink a lot of water.”

James, feeling like the interaction had veered away from him somewhat, said “me and Lily went to camp together when we were your guy’s age. We knew each other quite well.”

“Were you boyfriend and girlfriend?” Adelaide Kipling demanded immediately.  

“No, fortunately I have taste.” Lily responded.

“Not in clothes. Your shirt looks like it was pulled out of my dad’s wastepaper bin.” James said.

Lily folded her arms. “Your dad’s obviously misusing his wastepaper bin seeing as this shirt is made of fabric and not paper.”

“Don’t lecture me about recycling.”

“Somebody’s got to. The Planet is dying.”

“Your chat just keeps getting better and better Evans.”

“Rather like your chances of being strangled by a disappointed sexual partner.”

“I hate you.” James said, conversationally. “Also, your kid is about to fall in the lake.”

“What?” Lily protested, and turned just in time to see Jonathan Sykes hit the water.

“I can’t believe you’re the adult here.” Oliver Callaghan stated, rather cuttingly, and James threw a marshmallow at him.  

The story of what happened sounded very traumatic in James’ head, but as he repeated it to eight eleven year olds around a campfire, it seemed dramatically less so.

“That’s stupid.” Elisa Mortman said, flatly. Several people nodded. James was appalled.

“I think you’re missing the point” he said, “I didn’t win because of her. I was robbed.” They were all staring at him. The second-hand embarrassment was almost palpable.

“Remembering the worst thing anyone’s ever done to me-“

“Oh my god-“

“-doesn’t make me petty, it makes me wise.”

Lily sat forward in disbelief. “If the worst thing anyone’s ever done to you is pull the fire alarm while you were weirdly shuffling around on stage-“

“I was dancing” James objected.  

“You were dying.” Lily corrected, leaning back and eating a spoonful of cornflakes. “you clearly got up there and had nothing planned.” This was true, but enough years had gone by that James could pretend otherwise.

“This year I’m going to be standing by the fire alarm, making sure you don’t sabotage another child’s performance.”

“You know there’s more than one fire alarm, right?” Lily swallowed more cornflakes.

“Of course I did.” James lied, “Sirius and Remus are going to monitor the other ones.”

“What about me?” asked Peter through a mouthful of toast.

“You can’t monitor the fire alarm Pete. Someone has to watch the kids.”

Lily smirked. “Look at you, thinking of the children.”

“I’m always thinking of the children Evans.”

“Oh yeah?” Lily pointed at a kid two seats away from them, “What’s his name?”

“Steven.” James bluffed.

“Wrong.” Lily said, “it’s David.”

The child- who was called neither- got up to get more toast. Remus thumped down his coffee and said, “His name is Aaron.” It was not.

“I could push you down here.” James said casually, as both he and Lily stood at the top of the mudslide. Behind them, Oliver Callaghan was whining about how people kept cutting in line while Amad Presh put on his goggles. Their camp groups got on unfortunately well, and James believed his lot were doing it to spite him. Lily thought the same.

“Touch me and you lose a hand.” Lily threatened.

“I could still push you with only one hand.” James said, and to demonstrate, did so.

“I bet you were the kind of douchebag in high school who made people take off their shoes before they got your car.” Lily accused, standing behind James in the dinner line.

“Actually, that was me.” Sirius cut in, leaning over Lily’s shoulder. She flicked him on the nose and returned to James, who had started speaking.

“I bet you were the kind of girl who didn’t share her fries at McDonalds because you were that cheap.”

Lily, offended, said “That was way meaner than what I said.”

James shrugged. “I stand by it.”

“Git.”

Lily hid his gumboots. He put ants in her water bottle. She got her kids to soak his clothes in mud. He roped his into filling her sleeping bag with sand. He was washing off the dick she’d drawn on his face when she comes up behind him in the bathroom.

“Shame. I think it makes you look better.”

“How so?” James watched her in the mirror.

“Well anything’s an improvement on your current look, really.”

Sirius keeps telling everyone they’re in love. It’s very annoying.

“You’re destined to be together.” He said, watching James supervise archery, or rather, watching James watch his kids try to figure out a bow and arrow. “it’s fate.”

“It’s bloody not. She puts tomato sauce on lasagna and also ruined my life when I was eleven.”

Sirius rolled his eyes. “Your life was already ruined when you were eleven. You used to wear a matching sweater and beanie to school.”

“Shut up. That was a look.”

“Only if ‘look’ is now defined as ‘travesty’”

Remus invited her to their nightly poker games because he’s a traitor. James suggested switching location without telling her, but Remus has a private cabin because he sleepwalks so that’s the only place to go if they want to speak any louder than a whisper. James instead resolved not share any of his secret beer, but accidentally opened her one while they were arguing about who had the better childhood pet.

(She had a cat, he had a dog, Sirius claimed to have a horse but was then exposed to have a lizard, Remus spent the entire argument laughing at the fake horse name Sirius had chosen which was ‘Prancer’ and Peter had an ant farm, though nobody asked him.)

Lily was terrible at poker, and James had a habit of cheating, so both stopped playing around twelve to have conversation about beer labels, and then about condensation on beer bottles, and then they were googling why condensation didn’t affect beer labels, and Sirius had lost £30 to Remus, and Peter had finished all the crisps, and Lily was wrestling James’ phone away because he’d spelt ‘condensation’ wrong.

The most annoying bit was, he’d started to like her against his will.

“You did this. I know it was you.” James said, sulky, lying on a stretcher in the med bay.

“Oh, I got a bee to sting you now did I?” Lily laughed, sitting on the edge of his bed and eating rice crackers. He couldn’t remember the reason she came in, only that it had now been an hour, and they’d spent twenty minutes at least arguing about who made the better cheese sandwich.

“You trained it. You don’t even go to uni at all, do you? Why would anyone want a bloody art history degree. No-“ James sat up, getting into it, “You’re a bee trainer. You set that bee on me and now you’re sitting here laughing.”

“Doesn’t sound very profitable. Bee training.” Lily said, smiling.

James grinned. “It’s a growth industry.”

Once, at one of the nightly poker games, Lily mentions she missed gummy bears. James, inexplicably, ordered some, then snuck them into her cabin while she was white water rafting. He didn’t want to think about it that much.

She confronted him at breakfast. “Did you order these for me?” she asked, holding them up. Her shirt was slipping off her shoulder slightly, and James swallowed.

“God no, I don’t even like you.” He lied. She grinned and hit him with the bag.

“Why would you want an art history degree?” he asked, standing on her cabin porch. He had accidentally walked her back after dinner. He wants the record to reflect that he did not mean to.

“Because everything else is shit.”

“You’re shit.” He said, a reflex.

“Tell me Potter,” she crossed her arms over her chest, “Is it hard having the IQ of a squashed grapefruit?” He laughed.

“We have to win this talent show. It’s a matter of pride.” James said to his cabin at large.

A sleepy eleven-year-old muttered, “It’s one in the morning.” James rolled over and turned the lights on.

“Tell you what Jason that doesn’t sound like dedica-“ he started, but was then hit in the face by several pillows and stuffed snake.

“Your friendship bracelet looks like shit.” James commented to Lily across the table.

Lily, running on two hours of sleep because Stephani Harris got a vomiting bug, hissed, “My friendship bracelet is going to murder your friendship bracelet and bury it in a shallow grave.”

“Christ” James said, alarmed.

Upon hearing that she was in the med bay after a nature walk, he laughed for a solid minute before abandoning his game of Go Fish to go take the piss out of her himself.

James walked in imagining a rope burn, a scrape, a bee sting, and instead sees blood on the floor, over the stretcher, on her hands. His stomach plummeted so quickly he physically jolted, staring, his head a horrible riot.

“I fell into a rock pool.” She explained, and he could see a huge cut on her forehead, the skin peeling away on her leg, a bruise pouring over her left arm. He felt sick. “Also, a crab bit me.” She added.

He didn’t say anything, just looking at the blood and bandages and the line of freckles along her collarbone. “Your leg is going to scar.” He croaked. This is an understatement. It looked like half her skin had been ripped off.

“Yeah, I know,” she looked down, “the crab really did a number on me.” He half laughed, and she grinned at him, all teeth, that way girls did when they really meant it.

“Why an art history degree though, for real.” James asked, sitting on a large boulder. They’d ditched poker night once Sirius started using Pringles as betting chips. As Lily had explained, they were terrible players, but they still had standards.

“What’s with you and your fascination with my art history degree?” She answered, leaning on her elbows.

“I dunno’ it just…” he doesn’t know how to explain it. “When we were eleven you wanted to be a journalist.” He said, and smiled at the memory. Her, hair frizzy in the heat, standing with her hands on her hips and calling him a shitbitch for flushing all her hair ties down the toilet, saying one day she would expose him in print.  

“You wanted to be a soccer player” she said into the quiet, and he let himself look at her, stretched across the grass like a dead body. Her shirt had ridden up and in the moonlight, he could see a slice of hipbone, the edge of a jawline, her hair pouring over her shoulders like spilt water.

I want, he thought, ridiculously, like he was four years old, I want.

They were supervising their kids at the lake, which basically entailed being able to identify screams of fun from screams of drowning, and James was looking for his sunglasses when Lily threw the sunscreen at his back. “That’s going to bruise.” He complained.

“Jesus weeps.” She deadpanned, and damn her, she was wearing his fucking sunglasses. “Black,” Lily turned to Sirius, who was lying on a towel with a hat over his face, “Where are your kids?”

“Went home.” He said.

“Camp doesn’t end for another month.”

“They all got sick.” Sirius said, in a tone that indicated they had not.

“Yeah, of having you as a counsellor.” Remus cut in, and Lily laughed. Sirius gave them both the finger without taking the hat off his face.

They were playing poker again in Remus’ cabin, drinking and swearing and watching Peter bluff terribly, when it started pissing down with rain. “You can’t go out in that.” Remus said simply, and threw about eight blankets at them, all of which Sirius promptly stole.

James woke up with a start to the lightning, the window alight, and realized Lily’s hand was on his collarbone. Her fingers were stretched over his throat, face impossibly close, and he could see every freckle on her nose. The still-healing cut on her forehead. Each of her eyelashes.

He couldn’t breathe for a minute. He wanted, in this order, to wake her up, kiss her, bet her ten dollars that he could beat her in a running race and then kiss her again.

“You know I’m still wondering when the talent show is.” James wondered aloud to the not-listening Remus while standing in the lunch line.

“Oh, they don’t do that anymore.” Some kid said in front of him. James blanched.

“What?”

“Yeah, some girl pulled the fire alarm during some guy’s performance and it cost the camp a fortune to get the firetrucks out here so they stopped it. Also, the prizes sucked.”

James couldn’t believe it. As in he literally didn’t believe it. “Who are you?” he accused.

The kid turned to him. “I’m in Sirius’ cabin. We’ve meet about thirty times. You called me Steven at breakfast once.”

James burst open the door of the boiler room, saw Lily standing alone by the clothes line, and stormed over, shouting “They don’t even do the talent show anymore!”

“Oh.” Is all she said, like this wasn’t important, and continued to hang her shorts.

“What do you mean ‘oh’. This is huge news.”

Lily gave him a look. “Tell me you didn’t come all the way out here to tell me that.”

James, who had done exactly that, said “No,” and then: “You don’t care about this.”

“Correct.”

James stared at her, now pegging down a t-shirt, and said “I have no earthly idea why I like you so much” before he could think about it. She froze. He remembered, too late, that when he said things aloud other people could hear him.

“Come again?” she choked, still not looking at him.

“I said I hate you.” James amended, desperately. He wanted to be eaten by a black hole or maybe a rabid dog.

“No, you didn’t,” she said, looking at him now, “You said you liked me.”

“What? No I didn’t. Why would I say a stupid thing like that?” James babbled, flushing.

She was walking towards him, all slowly, and he couldn’t feel his hands, “I’m not sure.” She said, “Maybe because you do.”

“I don’t like you.” He reinforced, a lie so unbeliebably false even a rabid dog wouldn’t have believed it.   

“Really?” she stopped walking, “because I like you madly.”

His heart jumped so hard in his chest that he was sure he’d broken a rib. “Ah.” He said.

“Yeah.” She responded. He could not stop looking at her. Thank God you are you and not somebody else he thought, and then said:

“Bit of a shame I don’t like you then.”

“Ugh” She dropped her head, laughing, “You’re such a fucking asswipe-” and then she was kissing him, and it could not have mattered less that he never got to beat her in the fucking talent show. How ridiculous it seemed, really, to think anything was ever important than this.  

#THIS IS LONG AND IT IS LATE AND I HAVE SCHOOL TOMORROW AND IT IS LITERALLY AN HOUR BEFORE THE DEADLINE I WANT TO FUCKING DIE #jilychallenge #jily #james potter #lily evans #carolineswritingtag #brotp: the lot #cant be bothered tagging them all but theyre all in here #THE VIBE OF THIS IS WERID BUT I DONT CARE IM SO FUCKING TIRED WHY CAN I NOT MANAGE ANYTHING I HAVE TO GET UP AT SIX TOMORROW IM