Gravity

Part III: Starlight and Moonlight

(three weeks after the preceding events)

Hold me 'neath the London skies
Let's not talk of how or why
Tomorrow's soon enough to die
But right now the war is over.

The night air was unseasonably chilly for May, and Remus shivered as he stood on the flat's cramped balcony, wishing now that he hadn't decided to leave that muggle-style pullover inside.

"Sirius," he asked, knowing that he probably sounded as if he were whining, but not particularly caring at the moment, "how much longer is this going to take?"

"I've almost found it, really," Sirius replied absently, most of his attention focused on the giant and unwieldy telescope with which he was currently attempting to locate Jupiter. "Remind me never to go months without usin' this ever again," he added. "The damn thing's out of alignment. I'm gonna have to take the entire bleedin' telescope apart later to fix it."

"Couldn't you just use some sort of charm on it?" Remus suggested. "Like the one you put up to prevent weather damage?" He was beginning to recall exactly why he'd never signed up for Astronomy class at Hogwarts--all of the labs seemed to take place in the middle of the night, and usually consisted, according to those who'd suffered through them, of spending hours locating whatever the students were supposed to observe only to be driven inside by rain before anyone had gotten more than a few moments' glimpse.

"Moony, you're a genius," Sirius said. "Ah! Found it!" He looked up from the telescope's eyepiece, grinning triumphantly. "Quick, go and look before it moves."

Remus bent obediently to peer into the tiny eyepiece where, amazingly, the bright star on the horizon, half obliterated by city light pollution, became a rust and cream-striped globe. "Wow," he exclaimed, excited despite himself. "It's got stripes. And a big red splotch. And hey, what are those little bright things around it?"

"Moons," Sirius informed him, leaning against the balcony rail and lighting a cigarette. "Probably Io and Ganymede."

"You can tell which Moon is which just with this?" Remus was highly impressed.

"Actually, no," Sirius admitted. "Those were just the first two of Jupiter's moons I could think of. Io's really interestin'; it's got volcanoes." His eyes shone with enthusiasm as he gestured with one hand towards the small speck of brightness that was Jupiter, despite the fact that he'd only gotten off his shift at auror headquarters a few hours ago. Three weeks ago, there would have been a drink of some kind in that hand by this time of night. Tonight, there was none. Of course, the fact that Remus had thrown out every alcoholic beverage in the flat, down to and including butterbeer, may have helped. "What else do you want to see?"

"How about Venus?" Remus asked, stepping back from the telescope to allow Sirius access to the eyepiece again. "It's supposed to be the planet of love, after all." He felt a smile beginning to spread across his lips. He'd originally agreed to the late night stargazing session mainly to make Sirius happy, but it was turning out to be far more interesting than he'd anticipated, though the light of the nearly full moon that bathed the balcony was making his skin itch.

Sirius wrinkled his nose at the suggestion and shook his head decisively. "You don't wanna see Venus. Trust me on this. It's real borin'; just a big yellow disk. And it's a nasty planet anyway. The surface temperature's somethin' like 400 degrees. I was thinkin'..." he paused, and looked over at Remus with something almost like shyness. "I was thinkin' that we could maybe look at the moon. That's why I brought you out here tonight. It's only a night away from full, so this is the most complete view we're gonna get."

Look at the moon? Remus's first impulse was to outright refuse the suggestion. The very thought of getting any closer to that malevolent white sphere than he absolutely had to filled him with something almost like revulsion. I don't want to see it close up; it's ugly enough from a distance.

Sirius obviously saw his distaste at the notion, because he slid a few steps sideways on the narrow balcony to lean an arm around Remus's shoulders. "We don't have to if you don't want to," he offered diffidently. "But you really ought to see it. It's the most beautiful thing in the sky, even better than Jupiter. "

"If you want to look at it, I'll look at it."

Sirius immediately began fiddling with the telescope again, swinging the thing around to point it in the direction of the rising moon. In the sudden silence, traffic noises drifted up from the street below, slightly muffled by the building's wards. The balcony, with its piece of tripod-mounted muggle technology, was the flat's greatest security risk, but it was a feature Sirius had insisted on when picking the place out. "Some things," he'd said at the time, "are worth a bit of extra risk."

"I've got it lined up," Sirius announced after a few moments, looking up from the telescope to grin encouragingly at Remus. "With this much magnification, you can see practically every crater."

"Brilliant," Remus replied, with as much enthusiasm as he could summon--which wasn't much. He obediently bent to look through the eyepiece, fiddling with the focusing knob until the grey and white surface came clear. Bright highlands and dark, crater-pocked plains gleamed empty and lifeless, cold, sterile rock reflecting the sun's light back into space. It looks like a barren desert. He said as much, but instead of immediately yielding the telescope to Sirius, he continued to stare, compelled by a sort of sick fascination.

"It doesn't," Sirius protested. "It's clean and perfect. All white and silver and pure, and out of reach. Reminds you of all the things you can't have, but want anyway." A hand descended to Remus's shoulder, warmth seeping in through the fabric of his shirt. "It's been my favorite thing in the sky since I was twelve. Well, more like nine. I spent about two solid years mad for space after the Yanks landed astronauts on it. Wanted to be an astronaut myself up until I got my Hogwarts letter."

Sirius liked the moon? Well, it only made sense. His lover--what a beautiful, beautiful word, so much fun to think--his lover liked everything about the sky, from clouds to comets. But it was odd to realize that Sirius's perception of the moon was so different from his. Almost as odd as the mental image of Sirius wearing one of those funny-looking muggle spacesuits. "Sirius Black: Space Cowboy. Now that would have been interesting." Maybe too interesting. Remus didn't even want to think about the sort of stunts Sirius could have pulled with a rocket. The Black Bitch was trouble enough. "Too bad Britain doesn't have a space program."

"Yeah, the 'movin' to America' part of the plan was somethin' of a drawback." Sirius laughed a little. "I don't think I've ever told anyone about that before. Wantin' to be an astronaut sounds so, so muggle. I got enough flack at school for talkin' with a stupid accent and never havin' any money. I didn't need the sort of shit Lily had to go through."

"You picked on her too." Remus straightened up, pulling away from the telescope and leaning an elbow on the balcony's rusty iron railing. He had a much better view that way. Sirius presented a far better picture than the moon did; the bluish sheen of moonlight on his black hair was ten times more entrancing than the harsh whiteness of solar light reflecting off rock. He ignored the little voice in the back of his head that whispered that the railing was sure to break and send him tumbling down to the pavement below at any moment. It's perfectly sturdy. Sirius leans on it all the time. Of course, Sirius, lacking the self-preservation skills most people were born with, didn't have any problems with heights.

"Hey," Sirius protested, "I teased her because she was funny looking and had big ears and collected coins, not because she was muggleborn." He made a face. "She deserves all the sympathy she can get in the relative department. I mean, I thought my sister was bad, but hers..." He let his voice trail off, leaving the condemnation of Petunia Evans unspoken.

"We're going to have to tell them, you know," Remus said. "James and Lily. And Peter, too."

"Yeah." Sirius didn't sound very enthusiastic at the idea. He was no longer smiling, but instead staring down at the cigarette cupped in his hands, not meeting Remus's eyes. Strands of hair were starting to creep out of his ponytale the way they always did, brushing against his cheeks and forehead. "I really, really hope they don't freak out on us. Especially Lily. I mean, you know how the wizarding world feels about two guys getting' together? Muggles are ten times worse about it."

"She didn't have any problems with my being a werewolf," Remus reminded him.

Sirius shook his head. "I know that, but I've still got this naggin' image of her standin' with the finger of doom pointed at me, announcin' that I'm a weirdo who's unfit to be godfather to her kid."

"Sirius, she tells you that about once a week anyway."

"Well, yeah, but she never means it. Not really." Sirius slipped his arm around Remus's shoulders again and leaned the side of his face against the top of Remus's hair. "You're just the right height, you know that? I was never able to find girls tall enough for me."

"You're changing the subject," Remus said.

"Yes," Sirius said. "I am." He sighed. "Well, whatever happens when everyone finds out, at least they can't kick me out of the aurors. We need people too much. Anyway, I don't think Captain Moody cares if you sleep with men, women, livestock, or inanimate objects, so long as you stay alert, do your job well, and perform regular sweeps of the squad room to search for surveillance spells. I can just imagine the rest of the squad's reactions, though. The men's locker room will be so much fun. McKinnon will refuse to change in front of me, and Frank Longbottom will start doing stripteases in an attempt to make me blush."

Remus started laughing uncontrollably at the mental image of Frank Longbottom, commonly agreed to have the largest sideburns and hairiest chest in the wizarding world, performing a striptease. It was strangely compelling. Like a train wreck. "Denise would hear about it and kill you," he gasped, when the laughing fit had subsided. "And him. And then sue your family for the money she'd need to bring up her now half-orphaned son. That woman is the most hard-nosed Hufflepuff I've ever met. And you're still changing the subject, only this time in a more subtle fashion."

Sirius sighed, his breath stirring Remus's hair. "Yeah, Moony, I know we're gonna have to tell them. I just can't decide whether we ought to break it to them gently, or just start snoggin' in front of them. I mean, I didn't even tell you that I was in love with you for ages because I was afraid you'd freak out and never want to be friends with me again. And we did share a room with Peter and James for seven years. And I used to change in front of Prongs after quidditch practice. He's going to hit the roof."

"You don't mean that you were checking him out back then?" Remus asked. He felt a momentary flare of jealousy. He'd have given just about anything for the opportunity to ogle Sirius after quidditch practice.

"Eeew! James?" Sirius's voice was filled with deep disgust. "We're practically related. It'd be like lustin' after one of my sisters!"

"Good. I don't have to track him down tomorrow night and have venison dinner."

"He'd be stringy anyway, skinny as he is," Sirius said. He sighed again. "We can tell them this weekend, when we go over to James and Lily's and cage dinner off of them. Hopefully, it won't be the last dinner we eat there." He started to raise the cigarette in his free hand toward his lips, then realized that his mouth was about three inches away from Remus's hair and halted the motion, resting his hand on the balcony rail beside the other man's.

"Well," Remus ventured, "it won't be the first surprise we've sprung on them. If they could handle my being a werewolf, and your, well... what you did sixth year," Remus and the others never mentioned the Shrieking Shack incident among themselves, or to anyone else--there was still too much unresolved guilt and hurt floating around the topic, "they ought to be able to handle this." I hope.

"Sixth year." The fingers of Sirius's right hand tightened on Remus's shoulder. "I don't know why you put up with me. I'm half Cockney and half Scottish, half muggle and half wizard, half dog and half human, half straight and half gay, half an alcoholic... for once, I'd just like to be something whole."

"I'm a whole werewolf. I win." Remus fiddled with a piece of black paint that was peeling off the iron railing, picking it off to reveal the rust underneath. "Anyway, you're wholly mine." Oh God, that sounds sappy. "And wholly an auror," he added pulling away from Sirius slightly to lean against the balcony rail, where he could look up at the other wizard. From this close, he could see the dark stubble on Sirius's cheeks, and every detail of those long, dark lashes. "And wholly an idiot, sometimes." He could feel himself smiling, remembering some of those times. "This telescope is pretty muggle, though. I don't think wizards have used mirrors for this sort of thing for years."

"My Dad gave it to me when I got a NEWT in astronomy." Sirius grinned, patting the thing with almost the same sort of fondness he displayed towards the Black Bitch. His fingers brushed along the long, black tube with surprising gentleness. "I think he had secret hopes that I'd become an astronomer after I got out of school, instead of an auror."

"You couldn't stay still long enough to have a nice, desk-job sort of academic career," Remus said. It was true. Sirius had been one of the most endearingly twitchy students he'd ever had to sit next to. "I'm surprised you like astronomy so much, considering the amount of waiting and standing still that goes into it."

"I like the stars," Sirius answered simply. "Stars are distant, clean, remote. There's no emotion there, no pain. Even Venus, nasty little Hell-world that it is, looks calm through a telescope." He tilted his head to the side slightly, blue eyes gazing past Remus, up at the sky above them with its faintly glittering lights. "I bet that's what the Earth looks like from space. All blue and green and swirlin' clouds, and no sign that underneath those clouds people are hurtin' and killin' each other. You can forget, lookin' at the stars." He grinned suddenly, half-ruefully. "Escapism is what I do best, after all."

Sirius was not going to go all self pitying and depressed tonight. Remus wasn't going to let him. The moonlight tingling in his blood was suggesting various ways to distract him, many of them involving teeth and fur. Usually, Remus tried to ignore any and all "canine" instincts, but this time his furry side was starting to sound pretty persuasive.

"Hey, if you're done with the telescope, I want to take a look at it again," Sirius announced suddenly. "I didn't bring you out here to listen me babble, I brought you out to show off my incredible knowledge of astronomy and giant, phallic-lookin' telescope. The moon's prob'ly moved too far to still be in the field of view, so I'm gonna have to re-adjust it. You want to check out Canis Major instead? Or the Orion Nebula?"

Remus turned around, tipped his face upward, and kissed Sirius on the side of the jaw, lips sliding along his face toward his mouth.

"Or we could not look at them," Sirius muttered, hand coming up to wrap around the back of Remus's neck. The cigarette went spinning over the balcony rail, falling into the street below like a miniature comet. "Not lookin' is good too."

"Looking at Canis Major sounds good to me. In fact, I don't want to look at anything else for the rest of the night." Remus wrapped his arms around Sirius, sliding one hand up under his shirt, against the skin of his back. It was warm under his hands, a welcome antidote to the chill of the night air.

Sirius took a step backward, away from the railing, his mouth sealing against Remus's. Teeth bit down on Remus's lower lip, and fingers began lacing themselves into his hair, pulling with a grip that was almost painful. Remus leaned forward, closing his eyes, losing himself in the taste and scent of his mate.

Sirius leaned back and nearly fell into something that scraped across the cement of the balcony's floor. The telescope tripod.

"The telescope, Remus," he moaned, disentangling one hand and reaching behind him to support himself against the brick of the flat's outside wall. "Remember the telescope. It cost a bloody fortune."

There was a pause.

"Oh God! Forget the telescope, do that again!"

^_~

(the morning after the following night)

Remus groaned. He hurt. He hurt all over: muscles, bones, head. Everything ached, as if someone had been stretching him on the rack, and the memory of the previous night was hazy in his mind. I hate full moons.

Something cold was pressing into his face. It took him a moment to realize that that something was Padfoot's nose. One black paw was firmly planted across Remus's chest, and his head was resting against a furry ribcage. A moment or so later, a warm tongue began licking him.

"Stop it," he moaned. "M'not a wounded puppy."

The licking turned into a pair of lips against his forehead, and a pair of arms were suddenly around him. "Oh good, you're awake."

"I hate full moons," Remus moaned, while he tried to summon up the energy needed to move. "I really hate them. You have no idea." No, scratch moving. Staying put was fast beginning to seem like a very good idea, especially since one of Sirius's hands had begun stroking his hair.

"No, I have absolutely no idea what it's like to wake up sick, with a splitting headache and a hazy memory of the previous night." Sirius's voice was gentle and amused, but with an underlying note of concern. "But I made a wild guess and got the aspirin ready. And I put tea on. It'll be ready in a few minutes."

"I love you." Remus reached up and cupped a hand against Sirius's face, staring up into tired-looking eyes smudged with dark circles. Neither of them got much sleep on these nights. Sirius leaned into the touch, eyes drifting half closed. He was always unusually fond of physical contact the night after full moons, as if bits of Padfoot's personality carried over into his human form.

"Yeah," Sirius's lips curved into a smile. "I know. Me too." He shifted his weight, arms wrapping around Remus more tightly. "Do you think you can stand up? The floor's not real comfortable."

"I'm fine, really." Remus began struggling to his feet, though whether his eventually success was do to his own efforts or to Sirius's aid, even he wasn't totally sure. "I'm just tired." Sirius, he noticed, as the pair of them moved the few steps toward the bed--Sirius's bed, actually, as they seemed to have somehow ended up in his room--was still mostly clothed. It struck Remus as distinctly unfair that animagi could transform without disrobing. The practice of removing all of one's clothing before a transforming into a werewolf, though necessary if one ever wanted to wear said clothing again, had caused him a considerable amount of embarrassment back in their school days. The first time Sirius had seen him naked, he'd announced out in shock that Remus's right arm looked if something had been chewing on it--at which point Peter had elbowed him in the ribs and hissed viciously that something probably had and he should keep his clever comments to himself.

"At least we don't need the first aid kit this time," Sirius said, as he half-lowered Remus onto the bed. "We were too busy trashin' the flat to bite each other much."

Remus realized then that the mess in the room far exceeded it's usually untidiness. Clothes, usually gathered in a single pile in the corner, were strewn everywhere, and one flannel shirt looked distinctly chewed on, as if it had been used in a vigorous game of tug-of-war. The bedside table was knocked over--the lamp miraculously unbroken--and the assortment of motorcycle magazines and auror training manuals usually stacked on it had spilled out across the floor. He let out a low whistle.

"Yeah," Sirius agreed. "Good thing we've got decent silencin' spells built into the walls and floor, or God alone knows what the neighbors would be thinkin'."

"What did we do?" Remus wasn't sure whether to be horrified or amused, though Sirius definitely seemed to have come down in favour of amusment.

"Well, first I chased you, and then you chased me, and then we got into a fight over my flannel shirt, which you decided to chew on, and then I chased you some more, and you let me catch you and I pretended like I was gonna bite your throat out..." Sirius let his voice trail off. "It was fun. Really. I'd say we should do this more often, but it sort of makes me feel evil. I mean, since my transformations don't hurt like yours do." He knelt down beside the bed, picking up the bedside table and righting it. He replaced the lamp, but left the magazines where they were. "I'll pick it up, don't worry. Well, the worst of it, at least." He looked up at Remus, who was sitting on the edge of the bed, gaze slanting up through his eyelashes. "You want me to go get that tea now?"

"Yes, please," Remus said fervently. He could smell the tantalizing scent of Earl Grey drifting in from the kitchen, a siren song promising hot, caffeinated comfort. "And clothes, too."

Sirius, halfway to the door, bent and scooped the flannel shirt up off the floor, tossing it underhand at him. "Here. You seemed to like this one last night."

"Oh, thank you, generous one," Remus muttered, but he put the shirt on anyway, hiding his scars from view and enveloping himself in the scent of Sirius, which permeated the soft, worn flannel.

Moments later, Sirius returned, a steaming mug in one hand and a pair of white tablets in the other. The scene was a near duplicate of the one three weeks ago, Remus mused to himself as he accepted the mug of tea. One of them in bed, and the other bearing aspirin and a hot drink. It was an old routine by now, perfected through months worth of bad shifts and drinking bouts and full moons. Still, there was something nagging at the back of his mind.

"Don't you have to go to work soon?" he asked, before swallowing the first of the painkillers.

"Nope." Sirius grinned, his eyes sparkling like moonlight on water, gleaming that way that they always had back at Hogwarts when knew he'd gotten away with something. "I called in and told Frank Longbottom that I was sick. He thinks I'm in bed nursing a hangover. Nobody expects me in until noon. I'm yours to wait on you hand, foot, and paw. Want me to go fetch the paper?"

Let us run beneath the moon
Forget the times are out of tune
The morning always comes too soon
But right now the war is over

^_~