Jily oneshots

Salmon Fishing in the Olympics

by GhostOfBambi

Lily doesn't see him coming until he's right-bloody-there, directly in her face, and there's no escaping him after that.

It's Beatrice's birthday, so they're in Beatrice's regular, a place that could be called a dive bar if one were feeling generous, which Lily isn't. More accurately, the pub is trying to be a dive bar and attaining the barest minimum of success. It has everything a person might recognise from the movies: an old-fashioned jukebox, neon light fixtures and various iterations of 'Route 66' on the wall, for that American road trip feel, but this is Islington, not Oklahoma City, and the overall effect is rather ruined by the church garden and the Carluccio's on the other side of the street.

Regardless of the aesthetic of the bar, it can't be blamed for the opportunistic sleaze who has chosen to sidle up to her now. Deviants and perverts frequent every pub in London, and tonight is her turn to catch a mouldy old boot while she's fishing for salmon.

Not that Lily's on the prowl. She's happily single, thank you very much, but if she wants to wear tight jeans and show off her new haircut, why shouldn't she? Can't a girl be fabulous without every reprobate within a fifty-metre radius assuming that she's all dolled up especially for them?

Evidently not.

"Alright, gorgeous," he says, and slaps the bar with an unnecessary amount of force - look at me, I am a MAN - not a modicum of subtlety to his mating cry. He crams his large, muscular body between Lily and the bloke on the next stool over, and already his chest is pressed against her shoulder. "I'm Paul. Fancy a drink?"

"No, thank you," she says, though not unkindly.

"'Course you want one. What are you having?"

"No, thank you," she repeats, and swivels her stool in the other direction. He circles her immediately.

"What are you doing, drinking all by yourself?"

"Waiting for someone."

"Let me buy you another drink."

"I can pay for my own."

"You're not being very nice," he says, yet he's still undeterred. He won't be, of course. Lily can tell by the cut of him, by the way he holds himself, by the offensive slogan on his too-tight shirt and by the obscene amount of cologne he's wearing, or showered in, by the smell of him. Only a tsunami will prevent this clown from thrusting his middle finger directly in the face of courtship. Lily is a self-sufficient woman who needs a man about as much as she needs a knitting needle to the eye, but she's still a romantic at heart. She's seen all the films. She's sighed over Mr. Darcy's rain-soaked proposal and not-so-secretly envied Kat when Patrick Verona serenaded her at school. She has her standards - a salmon, not a mouldy old boot - and men like this are the reason she never waits at bars alone.

She doesn't respond, so he leans closer, one hand on the bar and the other coming to rest on the back of her stool. His thumb brushes against the curve of her bottom.

"Give me a smile," he instructs.

The queue for the ladies' room is really long. Beatrice probably hasn't gotten in yet, and the rest of her guests are in a booth on the other side of the bar. Damn her best friend's unreliable, traitorous bladder.

He starts to stroke her back.

"Right. No, I'm off," says Lily, and slides off her stool. She can buy another drink later, she thinks, or ask Sirius to get one for her if Creepy Paul lurks by the bar, but he blocks her path immediately, as if he was prepared for her to take flight. He's tried this move before, and failed, she surmises. Why he's trying it again is beyond her understanding.