In London They Kiss on Main Street

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London does not suit Remus: though there is a soft breeze in the air, mingling with scents from various food carts set up along the Thames, the slippery concrete is black and brimming full with muddy slush tracked and packed by boots and sneakers and pointed high heels. Even the shining cobblestones on the older streets are hardly recognizable under all the grime and muck.

It is snowing, though, and Remus does like the snow--but London does not. The snowflakes melt before they hit the ground, heated from all the crushing bodies and screeching automobiles that honk their way through traffic. He can't even catch a snowflake on his tongue, the air is so warm--he hardly needs his winter coat, and his gloves are already tucked away in his pockets.

But as the streets begin to narrow into quaint homes that, even packed together, are cozy and sweet, a tunnel of silent, shivering trees contrast the roads with the hoarfrost laid on their branches, clean and hung like laundry out to dry. Sirius always tells Remus he is like a naked tree, free from leaves, because Remus is so thin and always cold. Remus agrees with him: life would be simpler if he were a tree.

Birds nest in the spidery black fingers reaching up from the tree trunks, and their screams are softened by the grey clouds--the sun is no longer out to blind them. The birds have all but disappeared, Remus notices as he walks past row upon row of houses, because the birds are buried deep down beneath an overlaying ground of snow that covers their twiggy homes.

Remus wonders if there will be a wall between him and Sirius--they have lived together, for seven years now, but even when they wake up in tangled bedclothes and reeking of boyish sex, James and Peter were still there. It isn't a physical wall Remus is worried about--it is the invisible one, a wall that Sirius could put up that even if Remus presses his shoulder to it, he might not be able to hear through. And Sirius is so deeply in love with London, whereas Remus has already been splashed by passing baby carriages and been squirted with mustard from a hot dog stand, and is not feeling quite so in love with London as Sirius might like.

When Remus finds the brass number on the door to Sirius's--to their flat--the door is flung open before Remus can even click the knocker, because Sirius has been waiting at the window all this time. Sirius takes Remus's suitcases and throws them down the front hall, where they skid to a stop at the foot of the stairs. He beams so widely his face is split in two, and ushers Remus in to a cup of hot tea made with their red kettle and their tea, poured into their mugs, in their cozy flat that is all their own.

Sirius rambles on about how many corner cafés there are just around the block, and how there is a farmer's market two streets away, and how there is a bookstore just over the bridge. Remus can see it in his eyes--Sirius loves London.

Sirius loves London, and Remus loves Sirius--so Remus decides that London will have to suit him afterall.

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