@jilytoberfest 31 Prompts: Day 3 || 1187 Words || Read on Ao3
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Green eyes scan the available options of a paltry dinner for one, hidden away behind freezer doors. The rain outside pounds the roof hard enough to echo inside the unusually deserted Tesco as Lily chews her lip, squeezing some excess water from the strands of copper hair plaited over her shoulder.
It had been one hell of a week, only for her to wind up home and hungry, Sam having eaten the last of her frozen meals before jutting off for a camping weekend with Graham and Marlene.
Lily had had a week, and she didn’t think it was too much to ask for a sad, frozen meal, a glass of wine, and a night binging a couple of ridiculous video essays on Youtube. She hadn’t planned on leaving her apartment, as evidenced by her oversized shirt (paint-stained and holey), grey sweatpants, and hair—plaited and slicked back by coconut oil and (now) rain—and, most embarrassingly, a few hits into a joint that sits rolled and waiting for her on the coffee table.
And thank God for that joint, because in no other world would Lily Evans have felt as easy-going looking like this in a bloody Tesco, if it hadn’t been for that magical little bugger.
She doesn’t know how long she’s stood there staring at the variety of frozen pizzas when a song over the speakers jolts her out of a trance.
“Hurry boy, it's waiting there for you...”
A smile pulls at her lips and she finds herself swaying to the music, all thoughts of dinner momentarily erased as the drums crescendo and break for the chorus, her heavy limbs pulling her to the rhythm and she sways side-to-side in time with the familiar melody.
With the first pining declaration of the chorus, her head lolls from shoulder to shoulder and her eyes close as she loses herself to the music, mouthing the lyrics ever-so-slightly out of time. She abruptly stops halfway through, a laugh bubbling up at the irony of it all.
The rains. It’s raining now.
Eyes shoot open at this realization. It’s raining. She’s wet from the rain, because she walked here to get food because she’s hungry and needs to eat dinner, and the song is talking about rains in Africa. The coincidence makes her giggle and she reaches for the freezer door, opening it and looking within, which results in a blast of cold air that nearly sobers her up.
(That is, until that bloody chorus starts again).
Lips twitch in preparation for the all-consuming giggles that threaten to take over, shoulders still rolling with the rhythm—never having stopped in the first place—but she’s distracted by a humming next to her.
Lily’s eyes widen as they take in the stranger to her right—tall and tan and dripping with water. She can tell he’s handsome even when he’s at such a disadvantage as to have floppy, wet curls drooping into his face and sticking to the lenses of his glasses. Her eyes briefly (well, briefly to her) drift down to where his shirt clings—soaking wet—to every muscle of his abdomen, and Lily has never felt more completely out of her depth than here, high in a Tesco, with this magnificent specimen of a man watching her with a raised eyebrow.
“Sorry, was I humming too loud?”
It takes a moment for her brain to process his words—his voice so smooth, so velvety that she can feel the timbre wrap around her. Dumbly, she shakes her head. “No. I like this song, is all. Didn’t realize there was anyone here.”
The man looks around, and she notes the gold and green flecks in his otherwise brown eyes. They land on her and she feels something beneath her skin begin to hum with excitement as his lips curve into a smile. “I could tell. Sorry for interrupting.”
“It’s alright,” she finds herself saying. “It’s just…you know it’s one of those songs you hear all the time everywhere you go, right? Normally I don’t even process it’s playing but tonight it’s just so quiet here and it was easy to really hear it, you know? Like all the little”—she stops talking, instead gesturing with her fingers to some particularly accenting flute notes, and laughs at the look of surprise on the handsome stranger’s face. “And then the rain!”
“Oh yes, I’m aware of the rain,” he grimaces, gesturing to his floppy hair, and she’s shaking her head quickly to correct him.
“No, no, no. Well yes, but also in the song. Just, the timing of it. It’s all very funny.” She shrugs, suddenly feeling a little self-conscious with how much she’s babbled, an unfortunate side effect for her when she gets in this state. “Anyway, yeah, I like this song, I suppose, which I’d never really thought about.”
He blinks at her, a curious expression on his face—something pleasant like surprise and intrigue—and then her hands are in his and he’s spinning them around with a bright grin.
A surprised laugh bursts forward. “What are you doing?”
“You said you liked this song,” he answers, releasing one of her hands to twirl her under his arm. “And I certainly ruined your experience with my presence, so I wanted to bring the energy back up.”
“You ruined nothing,” she laughs, stretching up on her toes and holding their hands up so he can twirl beneath them.
“I disagree. Usually when I see a pretty woman dancing and she stops as I approach, I’ve done something. So please, just let me atone.”
The song fades out and Lily finds she’s sad to let go of this stranger’s hand. Faintly, she can hear the pumping of her heart in her ears as she meets his smile—he doesn’t immediately make to leave and she feels some sort of cosmic pull, like how she felt when she made the connection between the song and the weather.
The joint has made her a little looser, a little bolder, than she’d typically be. “I didn’t get your name.”
His hand rakes through the wet curls atop his head—she mindlessly wonders if they’re always that dark or if it’s a product of the rain—and he reaches for the freezer door. “I didn’t give it.” He closes the door, frozen lasagna in hand and a smaller, more bashful smile on his face. “It’s James.”
Even as she extends her hand to him, she knows it’s just an excuse to touch him again. “I’m Lily.”
He shakes her hand with a hint of amusement in his brow. “Well, Lily, have you decided?”
Eyes wide, she blinks in confusion. “What?”
He jerks his head towards the freezer. “I imagine you weren’t just standing in this aisle for the acoustics.”
“Oh! Right, right,” she hurries to grab the first thing she sees—a pizza with some sort of assorted vegetable topping—and holds it up successfully.
Unexpectedly, he swipes it out of her hand, and she lets out a cry of protest.
“I’m buying you dinner,” he laughs, holding the pizza out of her grasp, “and then making sure you get home. You’re high as a kite.”
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I have created like two aus in just as many days but the thought occurred to me:
What if Scott knew his life was connected to Xornoth's long before the battle that sealed him in a crystal?
What if he knew he was going to die, one way or the other? What if he resigned himself to his fate, convinced himself that his sacrifice was for the greater good?
What if he sat alone at night, contemplating if he should just end it now and put an end to the misery of his people, only to back out and continue to pretend that defeating Xornoth in combat was the only way to defeat them, because he's afraid to die?
What if he thought himself selfish for repeatedly postponing the inevitable just so he could live one day more?
What if he couldn't sleep, plagued by the thoughts of what would happen to his friends when he was gone? To Jimmy? What if he doubted if they would celebrate him as a hero, or if they would think him terribly cruel for forcing them into this hell just because he couldn't accept what he knew was always coming?
What if Pixl could see Scott's candles dimming with each respawn, and knew that soon, the flames would forever go out?
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