broken

broken

Sometimes James hated Peter. He loved him too, just as he loved Sirius and Remus, but there were moments when he wanted nothing more than to hurt Peter, to destroy him with careful comments and to bruise him with fingertips that gripped just a little too hard. Sometimes James wanted to rip Peter into jagged pieces for not being Lily, no matter how hard he tried.

Peter was so selfless that it ached. He came to James's bed at night with icy feet and summer-warm lips, pressing against James in a tangle of hands and legs and eagerness to please. Every time, James tried to end it; every time, James succumbed. Peter's caresses were artless and inexperienced, but he was always enthusiastic and ceaselessly true. And James was sixteen years old and lacking the kind of willpower that was needed to say no.

In the morning, James's neck would be bruised and Peter's shoulders would be speckled black and blue, but the others never said anything, pretending not to notice Peter emerging from James's bed. During the day, James followed Lily about the school grounds and spoke endlessly about the way things would be when she finally came to her senses. Peter nodded and agreed and kissed James once the lights were out and the curtains had been drawn around his bed.

Peter's body was soft in the wrong places. He'd never grown out of his puppy fat and James couldn't decide whether the curve of Peter's stomach was comforting or disgusting as they curled tightly around each other in the dark. When Peter's mouth was hot and wet around him, James imagined that it was Lily's hair that he tangled his fingers in, that it was Lily who kissed him slowly and stickily once James had come. It was hard to pretend, though, when Peter was hard and thrusting into the circle of James's hand, and impossible to swallow his hatred when Peter arched beneath him, forever compliant with James's desire.

Peter would whimper quietly when James bit into the curve of his neck. James didn't know if he ever truly hurt Peter, and most of the time he didn't particularly care. He felt like he became a different person once the silencing spell was cast: cold and hard with fingers that clawed rather than caressed. Afterwards, Peter's tears were sometimes hot against James's shoulder, and he would stroke his friend's hair with a forgetful hand, whispering away the moment with words he might have meant.

When Lily stopped looking at James as though she despised him, James stopped allowing Peter into his bed. Peter pouted and didn't understand at first, and James never hated him more than he did the first night he refused to pull back the bedclothes, simply shaking his head and saying, 'I can't. Not now.' Peter's face was white in the moonlight and he kissed James with his hands tight around James's neck. James closed his lips against the push of Peter's tongue and Peter retreated, beaten, to his own bed. James didn't feel guilty; Peter gave him no reason to. The first time he and Lily kissed, James felt like he had swallowed all the stars from the evening sky.

James loved Peter but sometimes he hated him. He wished that Peter would stand up to him, that he would learn to tear James into pieces, just as James had broken him every night. But Peter wore his emotions on his face and in the trembling of his hands. Loving Lily could never fully quench the urge to smear the obsequious stain from Peter's face. James would dream of bruised shoulder blades and pillow-muffled moans, and in the morning he would smile at his friends over breakfast while holding Lily's hand. Peter watched but did not comment. His silence hurt James's ears.

Peter thought only of James, never of himself, and in the end he had been far too easy prey for James to bother to pursue. And, when James was facing Voldemort with only a shaking wand between life and his imminent death, it was hard to believe that things were exactly as they seemed. Because in the end, as it turned out, Peter had hated him too. And, as the air turned green with a flash of fatal light, Prongs loved his Wormtail with a sad ferocity that would have broken Peter's heart, had it not already been shattered one night beside James's bed.