by eemolu on archiveofourown.org
James didn’t think he’d ever been this tired. Not in a haven’t slept, can’t keep his eyes open kind of way. He’d taken his A-levels and pulled plenty of all-nighters revising, not to mention the shows and parties and afterparties that led basically into the next day’s show. No, James was tired in the bone-deep, soul aching way. The kind of tired that screamed I can’t do this anymore, the kind that people in James’ line of work called “uninspired.” They prescribed the usual: sex, drugs, think about how many people would kill to have what you have and then get over yourself. The problem was, he’d tried all that, and it hadn’t worked.
Lily wasn’t tired. If anybody asked, she’d described herself as content, but that wasn’t really true. She was dormant, quietly absorbed in the monotony of her daily life until something came along and took her out of it. People always thought it would happen soon; anyone with eyes and ears could tell Lily had the kind of spark that would take her far. But she never allowed herself to be taken and instead kept working, half asleep, playing at happy.
And then Lily met James and James met Lily.
By all rights Cokeworth shouldn’t have been as big a festival as it was. The town was run down, in the middle of nowhere, and boasted no claim to fame other than the aforementioned festival every summer. But that was why people loved it. It seemed uncorrupted, just for the art, the place so many musicians had found their first big break waiting for them among the weeds. At least, it seemed that way to tourists. To anyone actually from Cokeworth, the festival was more about making money that would last them through the off season. The people who flooded in were a necessary evil. And so our two protagonists were already opposed.
This particular year, there were a lot more teenage girls and sullen parents looking for places to stay in Cokeworth. They told anyone who would listen: James Potter is going to be at the festival. We’re here for James Potter.
Lily’s parents smiled and nodded and handed these girls the food they had ordered. Usually it was Lily on the floor taking orders but she worked the festival and had the week off. As much as all of it was commercial and frustrating, the pull of the music meant Lily had never been able to stay away, and playing music locally during the off season meant she knew most of the organizers well enough to get good work, important work.
So that’s how we set our stage. James, in town to perform and so tired he was winking out of sight. Lily, waiting in the wings to be woken up.
James was ushered into his hotel room by four people. He only knew three of them, but that was normal. He’d long since given up on getting to know all the people that were hired to keep his image afloat. Most of the time he focused on staying upright until someone put an instrument in his hands and told him to perform.
“Were you listening?” Addie snapped at him. James wondered, like he always did, how she didn’t cut herself when she tapped her lip with those long red nails. “We need to start thinking next album now that we’re in the final leg of your tour.”
“This is the festival circuit,” James said. Why else would they be in Cokeworth?
Addie gave him the look that meant he was being stupid, but at least she refrained from her long-suffering sigh. “We talked about this. We’re considering it the last leg of your tour. Hometown boy can’t resist a chance to see his fans again after traveling the world, and aren’t these festivals just the perfect opportunity?”
James tried to sigh himself, but he sounded much more pathetic than Addie would have. She ignored him and launched into a one-sided discussion about possible features he could have on the next album and connections he could make during his stay in Cokeworth.
“Addie, please,” he said when she pulled out her phone to make calls. “Can I sleep for a bit? I’ll meet you at the stage for rehearsals and you can make whatever connections you need in my name.”
Addie softened immediately. She wasn’t used to hearing anyone say please, so it had a definite effect. “I’ll send a driver for you so you don’t get lost.”
“I can find my own way,” James started to say but the door was already shutting behind her. And it probably would be nice to be in a vehicle with tinted windows and avoid the people that were likely milling about, hoping for a glance of him. All there was left to do was lie down and close his eyes.
Lily was helping the sound guys when she got the call. She’d picked up a number of certifications and even more informal expertise on most of the equipment that kept the festival running. Given that she’d been around since she was fifteen, it would have been more surprising if she wasn’t a jack of all trades. But when Caradoc asked her to be a shadow, that was new.
He was cagey on the phone, wouldn’t say who it was, but Lily knew it must’ve been someone big. That was why they’d picked her. She knew her shit and she didn’t take any from anyone else. Then she pulled up to the service entrance at the inn and out walked James Potter. Lily realized how much more tenuous her connection to life had become. She was going to get trampled to death by rabid fans. She was going to get poisoned because she dared to stand next to him. She was going to-
“Hello,” James said as he climbed in the backseat.
Lily glanced at him in the rearview mirror. He sounded so normal. “Hi.”
They sat in silence for a long moment.
“So where are we going?” Lily asked finally.
“Oh,” James said, and he sounded flustered. “The festival? Uh, main stage, or as close as you can get me. I’m sorry, I thought my manager would have told you.”
“I work for the festival, I haven’t spoken to your manager,” Lily said. Then she cranked up the volume on her music and started driving.
James sat in the backseat and tried not to stare. This girl was beautiful. The red hair, the green eyes she’d narrowed at him in the rearview mirror. Not to mention the music she was playing, old folk songs he hadn’t heard since he was a child, and louder than he was used to. People usually turned it down so they could talk about James, and who they knew who loved him, and how he should be living his life better. This girl simply drove, and was beautiful.
He didn’t believe in love at first sight, no matter how many songs he’d written about it. But this girl made him want to look again, and again, and again.
They were at their destination far too quickly, before James was able to come up with a way to start a conversation that didn’t feel creepy or self indulgent. So he just said, as she put the car in park, “Thank you very much. I’m James, by the way.”
“I know who you are,” said the girl. Her tone wasn’t rude, or distrusting, just matter-of-fact. “I’ll be around if you need anything. All you have to do is ask.”
“Who should I ask for?” James could hear how desperate he sounded for her name, any way to identify her in case she drove off and he never saw her again.
She just shrugged. “If they work at the festival, they know who I am.”
Against her better judgement, as James walked away, Lily called Mary. She picked up on the third ring and screamed when Lily told her she was effectively working for James Potter. “I thought you were over your Marauders obsession,” she said when she was sure she hadn’t gone deaf.
“Please,” Mary said. “I never liked their music, only their bodies. And now you have direct access to one, which you absolutely need to be taking advantage of.”
“Look, I called you as a courtesy. One I wouldn’t have extended if I didn’t know you were out of the country and therefore unable to show up here and get me fired.”
Mary huffed. “I wish you would get fired. I still think it fucked you’re working the festival still instead of playing it.”
“I’m going to hang up now,” Lily said. “I love you and miss you and next time I see you lunch will be paid for with all the money I made working this festival instead of playing it.” And without waiting for a response, Lily ended the call.
Technically, it was for business. She really was supposed to be alert in case anyone needed anything. But it was also because she didn’t want to hear yet again that she should be taking her music “big.” One gesture could certainly serve two purposes.
Lily slipped her phone into her pocket and started to wander, looking for things that needed doing. Keeping the festival up and running, like always.
James caught another glimpse of his driver when he squinted up into the blinding brightness of the stage lights and saw her hanging there. Not like an angel, because she was wearing the same ratty old T-shirt and clearly strapped into the required safety harness, but still welcome. Still ridiculously beautiful.
“If you’re up there, who’s going to bring me a Coke when I ask?” James said, because he couldn’t think of anything else to say.
The girl shrugged. “I delegate. Marlene, go and get-”
“No, please,” James said, holding up a hand. He knew his band was looking at him carrying on this conversation, but he’d decided not to care. “I’m not even thirsty, I don’t know why I said that.”
“I figured it was a power trip. You know, ask me for something you want, figure out how fast I run to get it.”
And so James said what he really meant: “I just want to know your name, if I’m being honest.”
She squinted at him, then pushed a filter in front of the light she was working on. Suddenly, the whole stage was bathed in blue. “I’m Lily.”
“Excellent,” James said, and because he sounded like an idiot he said it again, “excellent, Lily. It’s nice to meet you.”
“Sure,” Lily said, and then she disappeared into the light and James had to go back to rehearsal.
He couldn’t sleep that night. He knew it before he even bothered to put his pajamas on, he just sat on the side of his bed still wearing his shoes. It used to be he could just go for a walk, disappear into the labyrinth of sidewalks in whatever city he was in and come back with his mind blank and empty. Sink into a deep sleep that actually left him feeling rested, when it was over.
But that was years ago, when his career had just begun and the studio hadn’t even been willing to get separate hotel rooms for the four of them. They slept two to a bed, Sirius kicking all night and James sleeping anyway. Now he had to text Addie whenever he wanted to leave and there were arrangements, bodyguards, hostesses that had to sign NDAs if he wanted to be anonymous, photographers tipped off if he didn’t.
There was a buzz in his veins he couldn’t seem to shake off, though. He hadn’t met someone who felt like they’d woken him up in so long. He could just go, if he wanted to, walk and stop at whatever struck his fancy and deal with the consequences tomorrow.
What was funny was that he hadn’t been looking for her. When he’d left the hotel, almost skipping and giddy with the freedom he’d only just discovered, James felt himself heading towards the center of town. Or, whatever passed for the center of town in Cokeworth, which was one road that held the inns and the tourist traps, and then one that crossed it that held a seedy bar and a grocery store, and what looked like a boarded up ice cream shop.
He heard music from the bar and he ducked inside. It wasn’t too crowded but the stage was obscured so he made his way to the bar and ordered a drink. The bartender did a double-take but didn’t say anything, which was about as good as it got. He got his pint and found a table, leaned against the wall and set down his drink. “Thank you,” said whoever was singing. “You know I hate festival season and that it pays my bills, so here’s one I hope you’ll like.”
And then they started singing his song. Not the first single off the album, the one that had made his solo career instead of breaking it, but the second one that he hated because it was so obviously to him that it was a desperate plea to his audience. Do it again, the song whined whenever he listened to it, was forced to play it on stage after stage. Make me the most loved man in the world.
Whoever was singing it, though, was singing it as James had written it. Before the producers had gotten their hands on it, changed it into the chart-topper it became. It was perfect. He wanted to scream. He wanted to weep. He settled for standing up, leaving his beer abandoned on the table and pushing forward so he could see who was playing.
It was Lily. Of course it was Lily, of course it was her, with her long red hair and her lips centimeters from the microphone, the guitar strap across her freckled shoulder and her eyes closed as she sang James’ words. Who was this girl? How was she real?
Lily always played the bar the night before the festival. She treated it like a fuck you to the whole thing, the fact that there were the most famous musicians in the country in her town and she was at the local spot like always, playing the same songs to the same people. This was what she wanted, and this was what she had.
But it wasn’t like that. There was an energy about the town when it felt important, when it felt like it was doing something, and Lily craved it. People were exhausted but they came out anyways, proud of their little corner of England and excited to hear one of their own sing. And usually Lily did her own songs. She’d written plenty of them, crowd pleasers and dirges and a riddle or two that always seemed to end in silence and then someone coming up to her after and telling her she was going places.
This time, though, Lily had just driven James Potter to his stage rehearsal. He’d looked up at her while she helped the lighting crew with the bulbs full blast in his eyes and he hadn’t blinked once, taking her in. And even though she’d always said she didn’t like his music, she didn’t really mean it.
It was just that she could hear the songs the way they’d been written inside what was put out on the radio, these drowned little things that could be beautiful, if they’d been given any time, any air.
So she picked one, and she breathed life into it.
“Think about me, think about me, time kissed your lips like the shore and the sea,” Lily sang, and James found himself taking big, heaving gasps of air so he wouldn’t cry. “Go gentle, my love, for a while we’re three.”
He was still staring as the song finished, as she opened her eyes and looked right at him. Blushed and put down her guitar. Only when she stepped off the stage and into the back room did he move, but away from her, back to the bar. “Do you know who I am?” he asked the bartender.
“Yeah,” he admitted. “I thought it might be weird to say something. You’re just trying to have a night out, you know?”
“I do know, and thanks for that. Really. But right now I need you to tell me where I can find that girl.”
The bartender frowned, looked behind him as though someone was going to come advise him on what to do. “The one who was singing?”
“Yes, Lily. I met her at the festival, and-” James scrubbed a hand through his hair. “She just sang my song. I would really, really like to speak with her.”
It seemed as though James had made him understand, because the bartender reached down and slid a tiny can of ginger ale across the bar. “If you tell Tony over there you’re bringing her this, he’ll let you in.”
And Tony did. Lily was sitting on a worn down couch that barely fit into the room it had been shoved in, on the phone with someone. She hung up when he walked in, and frowned. “What are you doing in here?”
James held up the ginger ale. “I’m the one bringing you drinks, now.”
She reached out and took it. “I don’t mean back here. I mean-” she paused, clearly frustrated. “Shouldn’t you be in your hotel room drinking honeyed tea and snorting something?”
“I was restless, so I took a walk.” He didn’t say it was because of her, because the sight of her had made him realize he couldn’t keep going the way he was for much longer, that he wanted more. “I heard the music.”
Lily huffed. “So you’re one of those .”
“One of what?”
“The people who act like because they made it big they have this special access to music that the rest of us don’t have.” She pitched her voice lower, the mocking clear in her tone. “It’s more like the music writes me, you know? I just follow it around. And it let me to you, sweetheart.”
James couldn’t keep in his surprised laugh.
“What?” Lily asked. She wasn’t defensive, but she was close. “You don’t think I’m telling a true story?”
“I think you’re a little too good at impersonating most of the people I meet at parties. Are you sure you’re not one of them in disguise?” James was relieved when she rewarded him with a small smile. “Look, I had to speak to you. I already wanted to, after this morning, but you…”
Lily patted the guitar that lay across her lap. “Played your song. It’s okay, you can say you hated it. I get it, I changed it all around.”
“It was perfect,” James said, and he meant it. “That’s exactly how I pictured it sounding when I wrote it.”
“Oh,” she said. “Who made it worse?”
“It was about my mum,” James volunteered.
“You don’t have to -”
“No, it’s okay. It didn’t used to be kiss your lips, you know. It was kiss your cheek. She, um, she doesn’t remember much anymore and I always thought of it as kind of a lament? But my producer thought it would sound better as a love song, one of those up-tempo ones people like right now.”
Lily picked at her guitar, more anxious than musical. Dissonant G notes punctuated her sentences as she spoke. “Those lines sounded familiar when I heard them for the first time. I wrote something like that after my dad died, but the metaphor doesn’t work. Time as a kiss is much better.”
“You write?”
“I do.”
“I’m sorry about your dad,” James said, because he was.
And Lily said, “I hate when people say they can’t imagine what you’re going through, because they can. You can imagine anything. They’re just saying they’re glad it’s not them, which is fine, but it’s not a very nice thing to say. Anyways, I can imagine what you’re going through, it sounds awful, and I’m sorry you have to go through it with your mum.”
James bowed his head in acknowledgement and changed the subject as fast as he could. “Your songs. Would you play one for me.”
“Why would I do that?”
James knew he was still standing in the doorway, knew he’d only met her that morning and that they’d barely had two full conversations, but he had to tell her: “I’m sorry, I know this is weird, but I feel a sort of pull to you. Even this morning, it was sort of…”
Lily looked at him levelly. “I don’t.”
“You don’t?” James asked, only he wasn’t sure how it came out because there was a rushing in his ears and a flame in his face he knew Lily could see.
“You’re nicer than I expected. And I always thought there was more to your music than what it came out sounding like, that’s why I did that out there. But it’s not… it’s not fate or anything. I’m not going to fall over myself just because you’re you and you paid me a compliment and a bit of attention.”
Lily was lying. Everything she was saying had a bit of truth to it, sure, but the real truth, the honest kind that she usually lived by, was that she did feel tethered to him. Not the man in the magazines, or the voice on the album, but this person. The boy in front of her, holding a ginger ale, who’d written the song she’d just sung how she’d sung it.
But she had a rule. Even if she’d broken it by not sending James away the minute he entered the doorway, even if she broke it every time she wanted more even when she told everyone she didn’t. So she said, “you have a show to play tomorrow, you should sleep.”
And James wasn’t stupid, he knew what that meant. He took a step closer but only to put her drink down on the table before he gave her a small sad smile and a wave, and then he was gone and she was left thinking, wait, please, stay, and staying totally silent.
The rest of the festival wasn’t any different than it always was. James didn’t need a shadow past soundcheck, and he was quiet and polite in the car on the way over. She stole a glance at him in the rearview mirror and he met her eyes, but it was only a second, and then it was over. Lily made sure to delegate well enough that she didn’t have to hold his gaze ever again.
He was, though, the main attraction of the festival, and so she was forced to watch him play. Because her friends dragged her, because she wanted to be close in case anything went wrong, because Mary would kill her through the phone if Lily didn’t experience it in her honor. There were a lot of reasons, and none of them were because she wanted to see him perform.
Of course, he was fantastic. A little tired, but Lily thought it was hard to notice when he was putting so much into it. For a former boyband member he definitely knew how to take up the whole stage, how to keep all eyes on him. But his songs would’ve been nothing without him, Lily realized. The words were there but they were hollow, and only the fact that he was the one singing them propped the song up enough to keep it going.
But it wasn’t her business. James would leave that night, and she would never see him again, and that was fine. So she took a video for Mary and tried to enjoy the show.
James knew he was good on stage. That was part of the reason why Addie kept him going, why she’d done this festival circuit. Everyone was putting out good music, but not everyone could engage an audience like James Potter. That night, though, he knew he was doing better than usual. He was scanning the crowd, connecting with them, even while he was looking for Lily. He smiled at them even if they weren’t her, because they weren’t her, because they loved him in the uncomplicated way they always had.
His setlist had been carefully curated and he knew his last song was the one Lily had sang the night before. He could feel his band waiting for the cue, ready behind him, but then he thought fuck it . He couldn’t play it that way anymore. James didn’t think he could stand it, not when he’d heard it the way it was supposed to be.
So he turned around and he waved them down, and he stepped forward to the microphone.
Lily knew this little speech James was about to make wasn’t planned. Even if she hadn’t seen the setlist when looking at the lighting cues, she’d seen enough shows to know when you had to wave off your band, you were going off-script.
James ran a hand through his hair–a gesture that elicited a scream, which he ignored–and took a deep breath. “This next song I’m about to sing means a lot more than I let on. When I wrote it, it was slow. I told a someone it was like a lament. So I’m going to play it like that, like she did when I was still too scared to.” He leaned a little bit away from the mic and said, “can I get an acoustic out here?”
This time, it was Lily who went and found James. He’d told Addie there was only one person he’d allowed back, and she must have been feeling very generous because Lily and a few of her friends were sitting in the green room when he got out in his street clothes. He did the introductions, and the smiles, and the photographs, and then he said to Lily, “you’re back.”
“I am,” she said. “I figured what I did wasn’t fair. I really don’t want to lie to you.”
She glanced away from him and at the ceiling for a bit before she brought her eyes back to his. “You can lie to me if you want,” James said. “I don’t mind, as long as you don’t mind me staying here a little longer.”
Lily smiled. “How about I play you a song?”
And she did. She played him one, and then another, and then another. And James just listened.