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Tweak says, "Who put bacon in the soap?!"

Lily Evans Potter (sagelily) wrote in asphodel,
@ 2008-07-04 22:12:00

Who: Lily and James Potter
When: the evening of 04 July
Where: Godric's Hollow
Rating: TBD
Summary: They have to resolve yet another fight that resulted in Lily sleeping alone and James on the couch.

The words kept running through her mind: a cook, a maid, a whore - the ideal woman. No matter how she put them, how much or how little emphasis she put on each word, Lily still felt offended. She had even read through their conversation several dozen times the night before since she was unable to sleep; from the first time they shared a bed together, Lily preferred to snuggle up to James than sleeping alone. While she was fiercely independent in her own right, him being right next to her was a comfort, and the best feeling in the world.

Having only a few hours of sleep in which she mostly curled up onto James' side of the bed, Lily woke up the following morning with a headache. She hadn't cried, not yet anyway, but she was offended and hurt, especially the latter since he had insinuated that she should have married someone like Remus. That was the second time he had implied that their marriage wasn't working and each time it felt like a smack in the face and a punch to the gut.

She had wrote to Marlene earlier that morning and even getting the words out and hearing what her friend said didn't help. Pressing a hand to her forehead, she stared at the ceiling, contemplating a shower. It would help clear her head and maybe get rid of the headache. With a sigh, she crawled out of bed, not even bothering to make it with the flick of her wand, and headed for the bathroom. Hopefully a shower would clear her thoughts and help her figure out just what she needed to do. She hoped, anyway.

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prongsie_potter
2008-07-05 02:43 am UTC (link)

As James lay on the couch on the morning after his argument with Lily he couldn't help but wonder how the bloody hell they had managed to make such a huge deal out of things and how he had actually voluntarily forfeited his bed to sleep on that bumpy couch! Who'd picked out that thing, anyway? Everything now seemed like a blur and blown ridiculously out of proportion. Unlike Lily, he hadn't been able to read the conversation again. He knew better than to allow whatever stupid feelings he'd had that night resurface. Though he was sure he could remember staying calm for a small period of time before Lily had managed to hit a nerve.

Rolling his eyes James got off the couch and went to the kitchen to make himself some coffee, careful to leave enough for when she came down later. Then, still with a hot mug in his hands, he went upstairs to retrieve his towel and toothpaste.

Though he had opened the door carefully, expecting his wife to still be sleeping (it wasn't even seven in the morning yet!) Lily appeared to have only just finished with a shower, her hair was wet and her figure was wrapped around a towel. James glanced at her once and then at his coffee mug, glad of the fact that he had something on his hands to occupy himself with.

"Hi." he muttered, before walking into the bathroom to get his things. The first sodding time in the history of our relationship that she's up before me, and we are on monosyllable word terms again...

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sagelily
2008-07-05 02:55 am UTC (link)

Lily hadn't predicted that James would come upstairs, but she should have guessed he would eventually; all his stuff was up there and he would need his toothbrush and a change of clothes eventually. She didn't hear the door open, but heard the creek as he stepped inside followed by a muttered greeting. Unimpressed and really not in the mood to see or speak to him at that moment, she settled for a chaste, "Hello," before going over to her vanity and retrieving her lotion.

As she applied the lotion to her legs, she didn't even glance over at him in the bathroom. Instead, she kept a watch on her journal and waited for Marlene to reply as a means for distraction while he was in there. They had had fights, hundreds probably, and this one wasn't much different from some of the others except for the derogative names used and another hint about their marriage.

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prongsie_potter
2008-07-05 03:12 am UTC (link)

Her coldness toward him was not unpredicted, but he still couldn't help but feel hurt by it. It seemed that this time he would be the one who'd have to fix things, since Lily was being so incredibly irrational about it. Not at all in the mood to deal with another one of her incomprehensible fits, James took his sweet time in the bathroom so that, by the time he was out, she was fully clothed and staring blankly at her journal.

Making a huge effort not to role his eyes (or snatch that book off her hands...was she rereading their conversation?), he sat on the bed and looked at her. "Can we...er- I was hoping we could talk, Lily. You know, once you are done finding more degrading things I've said about you on my journal." He winced at the unnecessary comment and added. "Okay, I'm sorry, can we just talk? Please?"

Because they both knew how much he loved to beg!

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sagelily
2008-07-05 03:25 am UTC (link)

She was biting the inside of her cheeks as she read Marlene's latest reply where the other woman said that she would hex someone who said those sorts of things about her. She had a point, but Lily wasn't exactly the sort to hex James unless it was in jest. She wasn't malicious - angry and upset, yes, but not vindictive enough to do that.

When James sat on the bed, she scribbled a comment to Marlene and closed her journal. "I wasn't even looking for anything you said," she clarified, pulling her still wet hair out of her ponytail and drying it with her wand. "Fine," she said, tossing her journal back onto the pillows and pulling her legs up in the bed and crossing them. "What do you want to talk about?"

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prongsie_potter
2008-07-05 03:38 am UTC (link)

Yes, they had been through quite a few fights in their day, but this was the first time in a long time that James was reminded of how it had felt to be ignored by Lily. She may have agreed to talk to him, but she still looked completely uninterested in what he had to say, as though she was doing this out of mere lack of option. He may as well have tied her, gagged her and forced her to have this conversation. It made him feel like there was something unpleasant stuck in his throat - something he recalled quite plainly from the many, many, many times she had denied his requests to take her out.

As quickly as he had gained it, James lost his nerve, and focused his attention on the bed sheets he had always hated, but Lily seemed to have loved since she picked them out at the store. He had never told her of this particular dislike.

"Well, erm - I, wasn't really planning on having a fight with you last night and..." Did that thing actually have purple flowers in it? He thought Lily wasn't a huge fan of purple. He shifted slightly away from her so as to look at it more closely, reminding himself that he still needed to be the one doing the talking. "Um, I think things just got a little out of hand and I never realised..." He looked up at her, trying to make his voice sound a little less insecure. "I have no idea what I did wrong." He finished, biting his lip before looking back at the stupid sheets.

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sagelily
2008-07-05 03:46 am UTC (link)

Unintentionally, Lily was coming off as if she were disinterested in what he had to say. Really, however, she did want it clarified and she wanted an apology most of all. How could he have not understood that what he had said offended her greatly, especially since those labels had been visible to anyone who happened to read them at their own discretion. Nevermind that it was something they made as children, it was still offensive and left her upset.

"I wasn't planning on having a fight either," she cut-in, furrowing her eyebrows as he - was he examining the sheets? He was right though, things did get out of hands and she wound up even more hurt after he suggested, once again, that there was something wrong with their marriage. However, his last comment had her looking at him dead-panned. Was he being serious; he had no idea what he did wrong?

"You don't know what you - you practically called me a cook, a maid, and a whore, James! Right there for everyone to see - your friends, my friends...the people we went to school with and even the Death Eaters themselves if they felt so inclined!" She didn't want to start another shouting match, she was on too much sleep, but surely he had to realise how upset that had made her. "I know you said it was something you made up as a kid, but couldn't you have... I don't know, insisted I didn't need to know or put it in a way that wasn't so offensive?"

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prongsie_potter
2008-07-05 04:08 am UTC (link)

Though she seemed to have expected him to know all this, James' eyes widened at Lily's remark and he shook his head thoroughly, a slight frown forming on his face. "No I didn't!" He spat out indignantly, before he could contain himself. Was she insane? Why on earth would he call the person he most loved in the world something incredibly shallow and degrading? Did she not see just how much she was letting his small remark grow in huge proportions? "Lily, this is crazy! I most certainly did not say that you are a maid or...or a whore! How can you even think that?" He didn't know whether he should kick himself or feel betrayed that after all this time she could still make such a mix up where he was concerned.

"For Merlin's sake, it's just a stupid label! It's so we have something to CALL it when a girl is talented in bed or a good house keeper! And not even that because we all know there is more to it than that!" He couldn't believe they were even having this conversation. That his back was stiff over this! "I wasn't even thinking of any girl in particular when it was made up! If anything, it's supposed to be flattering! Not degrading!"

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sagelily
2008-07-05 04:16 am UTC (link)

Lily opened her mouth to say something, but was cut off. Several times, actually; she wanted to interject as certain places, but he wouldn't let her. Finally, she was just forced to keep her mouth shut and actually listen to him, something she apparently didn't do a lot of whenever she was upset at him.

"Then why didn't you just say that instead?" she asked, her voice a lot calmer than it had been before. She was starting to understand. "I'm not fishing for compliments, but just saying someone is good in bed or a good homemaker is a lot more flattering than saying a woman's a maid, a cook, or a whore. It's less offensive." She reached up and rubbed her forehead, wishing she had taken a potion for headache or advil after she had woken up. "I thought - I don't know. I might have taken it the wrong way, but I read it as if you were saying it about me..."

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prongsie_potter
2008-07-05 04:29 am UTC (link)

"Honestly Lily," James said, rolling his eyes impatiently, all of a sudden not as keen to patch things up with her as he'd been just ten minutes before, "I can't believe that after all this time you would actually think me capable of doing something like that to you!" It was just so...insulting! Her lack of confidence in his motives was actually insulting! "Every time I let myself believe that we are doing alright, you just have to show that you have no faith in me!" Just like when he'd ask her out and she assumed it was just for a laugh. Just like when he was a bully to her.

"It is as good as a chef, as good as a maid, as good as a whore! Not actually a chef, a maid and a whore! There! Is it clear now? You can check the journal, that's what I said from the start!" What he wanted to do at that moment was to just get up and walk out. But he was just so tired of all the fighting that he resisted the urge to do that. They would sort this out here and now, whatever the outcome was. “I just said you filled all the good requirements, I never recall saying you were one of the labels. Though I’m sure most people can figure that out.”

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sagelily
2008-07-05 04:43 am UTC (link)

While she didn't want this to escalate into another fight, she could feel the tension rising in the air between them again. Everything he said was only causing her shoulders to stiffen - there was no appeasement, even though she had said a mere minute ago that she might have taken it wrong. She was giving him the benefit of the doubt and letting him it explain it before she became accusatory again!

He did explain it, but adding things such as: you have no faith in me or I'm sure most people can figure that out. Those added little comments - they didn't help. "I have no faith in you?" she echoed. "And you're under the assumption that I'm not intelligent enough to figure something out that you wrote?" She stood up, pacing a few paces in front of the bed and trying so desperately hard not to make this into a shouting match.

"How can you say that? How can you honestly sit there and say that I have no faith in you?" That was a slap in the face, too. "I - I have always had the utmost faith in you, more than anyone else - how could you not know that? At school, I supported everything you did when we got together: Quidditch, examinations...everything! And now - you wanted to do more missions for the Order and I completely support that too! Where - how can you possibly say that I, of all people --- your wife for goodness sake -- don't? You're the one with the lack of faith here - the one questioning our marriage! The person who - who thought we might have gotten married too soon or... or that I should have married someone like Remus instead of you. Do you have any idea how much that hurts, James?" Her voice gave a small hiccup at the end; her eyes were slowly welling up with tears as she looked at him. Did he really think that she didn't believe in him so much?

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prongsie_potter
2008-07-05 05:02 am UTC (link)

Her reaction made him feel a little ashamed, not because of things he'd said right now - he still meant those - but because of stupid comments he might have made in the past that, without meaning too, had clearly hurt her. For a second he forgot about her having accused him of calling her a whore and sat in silence waiting for her to finish what she had to say. Then he slowly walked over to her and grabbed her by the shoulders, forcing her to look him in the eye.

It was settled. There was nothing he hated more in this world than to see her cry. "Lily, I love you, so, so much." He said quietly, looking down for merely a second before forcing himself to look back into her tear stricken eyes. "I have never, ever questioned my choice to marry you. Not once. I thought about this long before asking you. I picked out a ring, I went to look at a house, I was so caught up on being with you forever that I didn't even care that the sheets you picked out are...a little strange." He gave a small smile. "There is nothing you could ever do that would make me doubt my decision to marry you. That's never going to change, alright?" He gave her a small kiss on the forehead. "And just so we are clear on something - if Remus ever proposes to you, I will have to kill him."

He gathered her toward him and ran his fingers through her hair, hoping she wouldn’t pull away. “And I was really offended at your suggestion that I might actually be the one to say something as horrible about you in my journal. Don’t you think that, you being my wife and all, I’d want to preserve you? I just meant that everyone knows how much I care about you, so I’m sure they knew I wasn’t actually calling you names.”

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sagelily
2008-07-05 07:20 am UTC (link)

At first, she contemplated just pulling away from him like she usually did when she was upset, but didn't. Not this time, anyway. Instead, she looked at him, her eyes dancing back and forth between his as she listened to him. Oh, James. She knew he had done all those things before they had gotten married, but it had been awhile since she had thought about that or he had brought it up. She returned his small smile and reached up to wipe at the corner of her eyes. She even momentarily ignored the comment about her sheets. The smile turned into a small laugh as he said he'd kill Remus if he ever proposed to her.

"He knows better," she muttered, leaning into him as he wrapped her up in a hug. Her arms wound themselves around him and she rested her head against his shoulder. He did have a point though, a really valid one, and now she felt guilty about what had transpired. She really felt guilty about the fact that he had to sleep on the couch; that thing was definitely not comfortable to sleep on. "I'm sorry, I misinterpreted what you meant," she said against his shirt.

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prongsie_potter
2008-07-06 03:00 am UTC (link)

James couldn't help but be relieved that she hadn't pulled away - he knew that she might and he really wanted to avoid prolonging this fight. "Nah, it's okay, that was a very stupid thing to bring up - I knew as soon as I noticed it that you would get mad. Obviously, not this mad!" He laughed and shook her slightly, "you know, just regular throw a pillow and sulk for five minutes, mad. I'm sorry it hurt you so much, but I swear it was never meant to be taken like that!" The memory of his conversation with Sirius prior to Lily's outburst made him smile even more. "Mind, you did scare my friends with that page stabbing incident! I should report to them and inform that I'm alive sometime! If Sirius isn't too busy trying to get a few words out of his boring girlfriend that is! Can you believe how boring she is?"

He kissed her temple and then sat back on the bed. "Oh, by the way? We are throwing that couch out! We need to replace it with something more fitting for when we have fights. I hear muggles make couches that turn into beds, we should get one!"

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sagelily
2008-07-06 03:32 am UTC (link)

"If I had known I would get this mad too, I wouldn't have pressed you like I did about it, but I really didn't have any way of knowing," she said thoughtfully, pulling back enough so she could look at him. She wasn't sure what he meant by the stabbing remark, having forgotten that she actually did that in the heat of the moment. "You think she's boring?" she asked slightly surprised. Granted, she was a bit stuffy with some of her replies, but Lily assumed it was because she didn't really know them and had no reason to open up to them. "I invited her over the next time we have a get-together. I thought it might be a nice gesture." She shrugged her shoulders, seeing nothing wrong with that since Sirius was now going out with Betty.

She looked down at him when he sat down and moved to sit next to him, leaning against the headboard and crossing her legs. "A sofa bed? They're not very practical and don't sit comfortably as a couch. What if I promise not to kick you out on the sofa again?"

Things seemed a bit more relaxed now. She was reassured that he didn't think she were those names he said and that he didn't think anything was wrong with their marriage; she only hoped he was reassured about everything else too. Still, one thing bothered her. "...You don't like the sheets?"

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prongsie_potter
2008-07-06 05:03 am UTC (link)

Preferring to forget that stupid fight once and for all, James decided that they were done with the apologies and focused on the next matter at hand. "Boring and also a little short." He said, feeling like a child who just found out that his mother also bought other kids candy. "I mean, I sort of already hated her to begin with, but then, so did Sirius! And now he's dating her so I thought I'd at least try and be nice. There must be something good about her. But no," his head shook vigorously as he looked at his wife for approval, glad that he now had someone with whom to comment about this, "she is just as dull as I remembered." Sighing he moved away a little and then lay down on the bed, resting his head on Lily's lap. "Yeah, I suppose you were right to invite her. I have to start getting used to putting up with her for his sake...the things I do for that stupid bloke! And did you know we can't make jokes?" He asked, feeling increasingly annoyed and lifting his head to look at his wife. "She doesn't appreciate them! We'll just have to sit and be as boring as she is!" That woman would end up sucking the very soul off his best mate! James didn't think he'd be able to stand and watch it...even though he knew he had to.

"Yeah? Ah, then we need to find a soft one!" But he laughed and shook his head when she said she'd never kicked him out again. "Don't count on that, love. There are a lot of stupid things I did in my school days you have yet to find out about." He smiled cheekily at her and then grasped her hand.

The question about the sheets had clearly been stuck in her throat since James had brought it up before. He couldn't help but chuckle when she clearly could no longer resist asking about it. "They were never really to my taste, no. But when you picked those out I was still ecstatic about the fact that you'd agreed to marry me, so I just wanted everything to be the way you wanted it to. It's fine, it's not like they bother me." Though, he would bet his broomstick on the fact that they would now bother her.

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sagelily
2008-07-06 07:22 am UTC (link)

While she knew that Betty wasn't exactly the most interesting person in the world, Lily wasn't sure she deserved that much criticism from James. Still, she let her husband get his little rant out and listened to him like he would her were the situation reversed. Finally, she shrugged her shoulders. "Maybe she's changed too?" she suggested. "Stranger things have been known to happen, but if Sirius fancies her to the extent that he would actually enter into a relationship with her, then there must be something about her that's interesting. We knew it takes a lot to keep his attention after all." Sometimes it was next to impossible, actually. "Just give her a chance - for Sirius' sake. She can come to dinner one evening and we'll all just see how it goes. Sound reasonable?"

Looking down at the sheets, Lily ran her hand over the fabric. "I'm almost afraid to ask about some of the things you did," she said honestly, stealing a glance up at him. Still, she was curious and would likely always be. Tearing a piece of lint off the sheets, she flicked it down onto the carpet with a thoughtful look on her face. "I can't believe you don't like these though... they were that Egyptian cotton everyone always raved about." She studied the colour. "They could be worse though; I could have gotten pink or bright green."

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