FIC: It Was Not Love
Title: It Was Not Love (Until It Became Impossible To Be Anything But)
Author: shyath
Pairing: Lily/Narcissa
Rating: PG-13
Prompt: #34. Lily/Narcissa (Marauders Era), ‘I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,/or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off./I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,/in secret, between the shadow and the soul.’
Warnings: Hints of rough sex
Summary: It was not love, what they had. It simply could not be.
Author’s Notes: I hope I’ve done an adequate job of resisting the siren’s call of fluffiness (my usual mode of writing) and written something that’s on par with what the prompter’s envisioned and in line with the rationale of the fest. In any case, I do hope everyone will enjoy the fic and please, please comment (it doesn’t take long and it’ll make me go aww). Also! For those who would like to see a fluffy continuation to this fic, please include the phrase “Fluffy Bunnies R Us” in your comments. Cheers!
It was not love, what they had. It simply could not be. Narcissa knew this: because if it were (love), she should not want to hurt Lily the way she was (pulling and pushing until only choked sobs could leave Lily’s lips at her touch). If it were (more than a simple need for physical contact), Narcissa should not feel like her heart was pounding to the point of shattering whenever Lily murmured her name. She should not want to keep the redhead quiet with kisses hard enough to bruise, hard enough to be something that could no longer be described as such. She should not feel the urge to mar flawless skin with unforgiving nails, should not allow her hands to roam (and claim) and bury themselves so, so deeply that it ended up feeling like they had fused their two separate selves into one homogeneity (LilyandNarcissa - and no, it could not mean anything that she felt something at the mere notion of it).
So, it could not be love, Narcissa knew what they had could not be love, was not love. For although she understood that she should not hurt Lily (sweet, trusting, beautiful, oh so beautiful Lily), not like this, not Lily, in any case, she just could not stop herself (from reaching out, from breathing Lily in, from drowning in all that was red-haired and pale-skinned and green-eyed until, until her darkest, deepest thoughts had had the time to find chinks in her armour and succeeded to escape their cage and transform themselves into actions - and her apologies, however sincere and heartfelt they might be, were always so coloured with fury and self-loathing and general confusion so as to lose the effectiveness of the gesture itself) and Lily, dear Lily was not stopping her either (so, how could anyone expect her, expect Narcissa Black - who was easy on the eyes, but honestly, was that not all there was to her? - to stop herself?).
“Why won’t you just leave me?” Narcissa would invariably enquire (in a voice desperate enough to sound like a plea, the intensity of the emotion growing more so every time the question was asked of Lily) as they lay spent next to each other, limbs tangled with the intimacy of familiarity and routine, hair splayed and twined endlessly as they shared a single pillow, fingers and eyes kept apart from each other by a gaping gulf that was more imaginary than real (and they were so painfully aware of this, but it was so much easier to focus on the physical issues than on all that remained unspoken).
There was a short quiet that followed, but Lily could never ignore Narcissa for very long, would never be able to pretend that she could not understand the underlying sentiments beneath Narcissa’s hesitance and resistance and denial and, therefore, had decided from the very beginning to be, out of the pair, the one to never shy from voicing and showing exactly how she felt. “You know very well why,” Lily responded softly, her voice more than a little frail and delicate, very much like the rosebud Narcissa had always secretly compared her to.
“I can’t stop myself!” Narcissa snapped, her eyes burning as she glared at Lily as if it were the redhead’s fault (and in a way, it was - for Lily had deviated from the script, so to speak, and Narcissa was not positive how to proceed and she was noticeably floundering as she struggled to maintain composure in the face of an entirely novel circumstance - and what did it say about Lily that she felt somewhat exhilarated to see this side of Narcissa for the first time?). “So you have to.”
“Don’t tell me what to do!” And there it was: the fire that helped the Sorting Hat decide that Lily was a Gryffindor rather than a Ravenclaw, the barely there but more than adequately sharp thorns that cemented Lily as a rose in Narcissa’s mind instead of her namesake.
“I’m not,” Narcissa argued weakly, dropping her eyes.
“I know what I want,” Lily said in a gentler voice. And you’re it.
Narcissa scoffed as she pulled away from Lily’s warmth. “I hurt you, Lil.”
“And I keep coming back for more. Doesn’t that tell you something?”
“Yes. You’re just as messed up in the head as I am. At least I have my family as an excuse, what’s yours?” Narcissa grumbled.
“I know what I want,” Lily repeated firmly.
“I wish you didn’t,” Narcissa murmured.
Lily reached out to brush her knuckles against Narcissa’s cheek. “I wish you’d stop fighting this.”
Narcissa swallowed thickly and turned away from Lily’s beseeching eyes. “You should go. We don’t want our friends to get suspicious.”
“I’ll wait for you,” Lily said finally after a few seconds of tense silence had passed.
Narcissa shook her head half-heartedly. “Don’t. I won’t come.”
“Yes, you will,” Lily told her, leaning in to press a lingering kiss against the corner of Narcissa’s pursed lips. “You’ll see.”
Author: shyath
Pairing: Lily/Narcissa
Rating: PG-13
Prompt: #34. Lily/Narcissa (Marauders Era), ‘I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,/or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off./I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,/in secret, between the shadow and the soul.’
Warnings: Hints of rough sex
Summary: It was not love, what they had. It simply could not be.
Author’s Notes: I hope I’ve done an adequate job of resisting the siren’s call of fluffiness (my usual mode of writing) and written something that’s on par with what the prompter’s envisioned and in line with the rationale of the fest. In any case, I do hope everyone will enjoy the fic and please, please comment (it doesn’t take long and it’ll make me go aww). Also! For those who would like to see a fluffy continuation to this fic, please include the phrase “Fluffy Bunnies R Us” in your comments. Cheers!
It was not love, what they had. It simply could not be. Narcissa knew this: because if it were (love), she should not want to hurt Lily the way she was (pulling and pushing until only choked sobs could leave Lily’s lips at her touch). If it were (more than a simple need for physical contact), Narcissa should not feel like her heart was pounding to the point of shattering whenever Lily murmured her name. She should not want to keep the redhead quiet with kisses hard enough to bruise, hard enough to be something that could no longer be described as such. She should not feel the urge to mar flawless skin with unforgiving nails, should not allow her hands to roam (and claim) and bury themselves so, so deeply that it ended up feeling like they had fused their two separate selves into one homogeneity (LilyandNarcissa - and no, it could not mean anything that she felt something at the mere notion of it).
So, it could not be love, Narcissa knew what they had could not be love, was not love. For although she understood that she should not hurt Lily (sweet, trusting, beautiful, oh so beautiful Lily), not like this, not Lily, in any case, she just could not stop herself (from reaching out, from breathing Lily in, from drowning in all that was red-haired and pale-skinned and green-eyed until, until her darkest, deepest thoughts had had the time to find chinks in her armour and succeeded to escape their cage and transform themselves into actions - and her apologies, however sincere and heartfelt they might be, were always so coloured with fury and self-loathing and general confusion so as to lose the effectiveness of the gesture itself) and Lily, dear Lily was not stopping her either (so, how could anyone expect her, expect Narcissa Black - who was easy on the eyes, but honestly, was that not all there was to her? - to stop herself?).
“Why won’t you just leave me?” Narcissa would invariably enquire (in a voice desperate enough to sound like a plea, the intensity of the emotion growing more so every time the question was asked of Lily) as they lay spent next to each other, limbs tangled with the intimacy of familiarity and routine, hair splayed and twined endlessly as they shared a single pillow, fingers and eyes kept apart from each other by a gaping gulf that was more imaginary than real (and they were so painfully aware of this, but it was so much easier to focus on the physical issues than on all that remained unspoken).
There was a short quiet that followed, but Lily could never ignore Narcissa for very long, would never be able to pretend that she could not understand the underlying sentiments beneath Narcissa’s hesitance and resistance and denial and, therefore, had decided from the very beginning to be, out of the pair, the one to never shy from voicing and showing exactly how she felt. “You know very well why,” Lily responded softly, her voice more than a little frail and delicate, very much like the rosebud Narcissa had always secretly compared her to.
“I can’t stop myself!” Narcissa snapped, her eyes burning as she glared at Lily as if it were the redhead’s fault (and in a way, it was - for Lily had deviated from the script, so to speak, and Narcissa was not positive how to proceed and she was noticeably floundering as she struggled to maintain composure in the face of an entirely novel circumstance - and what did it say about Lily that she felt somewhat exhilarated to see this side of Narcissa for the first time?). “So you have to.”
“Don’t tell me what to do!” And there it was: the fire that helped the Sorting Hat decide that Lily was a Gryffindor rather than a Ravenclaw, the barely there but more than adequately sharp thorns that cemented Lily as a rose in Narcissa’s mind instead of her namesake.
“I’m not,” Narcissa argued weakly, dropping her eyes.
“I know what I want,” Lily said in a gentler voice. And you’re it.
Narcissa scoffed as she pulled away from Lily’s warmth. “I hurt you, Lil.”
“And I keep coming back for more. Doesn’t that tell you something?”
“Yes. You’re just as messed up in the head as I am. At least I have my family as an excuse, what’s yours?” Narcissa grumbled.
“I know what I want,” Lily repeated firmly.
“I wish you didn’t,” Narcissa murmured.
Lily reached out to brush her knuckles against Narcissa’s cheek. “I wish you’d stop fighting this.”
Narcissa swallowed thickly and turned away from Lily’s beseeching eyes. “You should go. We don’t want our friends to get suspicious.”
“I’ll wait for you,” Lily said finally after a few seconds of tense silence had passed.
Narcissa shook her head half-heartedly. “Don’t. I won’t come.”
“Yes, you will,” Lily told her, leaning in to press a lingering kiss against the corner of Narcissa’s pursed lips. “You’ll see.”