I'm an alligator
I'm a mama-papa calling for you
I'm a space invader
I'll be a rock and rolling bitch for you
Keep your mouth shut
You're squawking like a pink monkey bird
And I'm busting up my brains for the words
You know I am
Keep your electric blue eye on me, babe
Put your ray gun to my head
Press your space face close to mine, love
And freak out in a moonage day dream, oh yeah...
Remus was laying on his back on the floor, eyes closed, fingers laced through Sirius's. Sirius was loudly singing along with the words of the lyrics as Bowie played, the guitar riffs felt like they were controlling the floor's stability and Remus laughed as they tilted.
"I feel sideways."
"You look sideways," Sirius said.
"I think we are sideways."
"No we're laying down."
"That is sideways," Remus was honestly not sure even as he spoke, "Scientifically speaking."
"Is it?"
"Well maybe not. I don't know. I can't tell anymore."
"Maybe we're laying up?"
"What? How does one lay up? Like in sportsing? That's sportsing. Muggle sportsing," Remus rambled. "Basket ball."
Sirius waved his palms like he was playing basketball.
"What are we talking about?" Remus asked.
"I don't know anymore." Sirius snorted and covered his face with his free palm, laughing into his hand.
"Tell me about the Bowie concert?" Sirius asked. "Was it as amazing as this is right now?"
"I told you it was not fun," Remus said, "But this is."
"Who did you go with?"
Remus was quiet.
"Mooooooony."
"Spencer Stewart."
There was silence for several long minutes, then, "I suppose I ought to have guessed that."
"If it helps any, neither of us were really happy about it by the time the night was over," Remus said. And suddenly this was no longer a tragedy, but a comedy in his mind and he started laughing, covering his face with his palms, "Oh my God, it was so bad, Sirius." He started laughing so hard that he brought his knees up to his chest and hugged them as he rolled to the side so he was staring at Sirius.
Sirius's hair was splayed out around him like he'd been poured onto the floor, his brightly printed shirt unbuttoned and laying opened, butterflied on the ground so that his chest was bared and his tattoos showed dark against the skin.
Remus shifted closer.
"I mean it would've been a mistake if it had. We were - sort of - business partners by then."
Sirius laughed, barking. "One way to put it."
"I mean --"
"Business partners," Sirius snorted.
"He didn't remember hardly any of even the concert the next day. I barely remembered anything that happened either. But I panicked all night that he would remember clearly and that I might have done something stupid or careless and it would turn into a whole THING if you know what I mean."
"A whole thing," Sirius murmured.
"An entire thing," Remus said back.
They were quiet a few minutes.
The record had switched songs several times by now and it was playing Starman now.
"Tonks sent me howlers when I was in Azkaban," Sirius said suddenly, and now he was laughing.
"What?"
"She's so fucking brilliant, that child... She sent me howlers with music."
"Noooo. Did she? That really is brilliant."
"Yes," Sirius snorted. "It was fucking awesome. I looked forward to them like you cannot imagine. She sent me one of Starman once. Suddenly an owl appears with a jittering envelope, it falls on the grimey, filthy floor of my cell, and I just stared at it... and it bursts out and starts singing, loudly, and Bowie's voice is echoing off the walls of that whole fucking jail and the dementors were positively pisser about it. Guards came running upstairs and everything. By the time they get up there, the howler's - poof - gone and they're confused as fuck. WHERE'S THE MUSIC COMING FROM?!" Sirius wheezed. "You'd hear my dear cousins shrieking with confusion. Really would cause a ruckus in there."
Remus's eyes were squeezed shut as he laughed, too, picturing perplexed dementors, confused guards, and loads of Death Eaters with their faces pressed to bars, looking about, trying to figure out how the bloody hell muggle music got into Azkaban. "She would love knowing that."
"She would."
Remus laughed, "She's quite the little woman, you know. She's very, very clever, and very funny. She reminds me a lot of you. Another thing she'd love to know."
"Yeah? How does she remind you of me?"
"Just her personality. She's funny as hell, Sirius, and she's so confident and kind. Bloody hell, is she kind. She's such a good person, and she genuinely just cares so much about everyone she comes in touch with."
Sirius smiled.
"She was the only person that I felt really understood what I was going through when I lost you, all those years... She used to just pop in and check on me, or bring meals out of no where when she knew I was struggling... Just so thoughtful... Invited me to Christmas one year."
"Yeah?"
"Yes. She was the only person who listened to me when I just... just had to talk about you. No one else ever wanted to hear, no one else knew you like I did... besides her."
Sirius closed his eyes. "The floor still moving, Moony?"
"Yes," Remus said, and he moved closer to Sirius so their bodies were pressed against each other. "Hold me closer, Sirius."
Sirius splayed out his arm and Remus moved into him, Sirius wrapping his arm around him, his fingers clutching tight to Remus's shoulder as though anchoring him, and Remus hummed happily at this.
"You know, I think this really might help the moon pains," Remus murmured. "Possibly better than aconite."
Sirius laughed. "Moon pains."
Remus laughed, too.
Neither really knew why.
Then, "Fuck I'm really hungry. Are you hungry?"
"Sort of," Remus said. He paused, taking inventory of his feelings. He felt good, that was first, then second there was a bit of a gnawing on his belly now that it was mentioned. "Actually, yes," he said suddenly, "Ravenously. I could eat a hippogriff."
"Don't eat Bucky!"
"I wouldn't eat Buckbeak!" Remus laughed.
"Do you reckon people do eat hippogriffs?"
"Too tough."
"With mustard."
"Gross."
"Yeah, gross."
"What's the dumbest thing you've ever eaten?" Remus asked.
Sirius snorted, and without any pause, said, "James once dared me to eat dog food while I was a human."
Remus made a gagging sound.
"It wasn't bad actually. Better as a dog, but --"
"What sort was it?"
"That canned shite, the stuff that's supposed to be like stew but it's just clumps of... whatever the fuck it is... in thick juice."
"Ugh!" Remus covered his face. "I wouldn't even eat that in wolf form."
Sirius laughed. "He gave me five galleons to do it."
"Not enough!"
"He got me to eat a lot of stupid shit for five galleons actually. This was back at Hogwarts, mind. We tried the real thing of a lot of the Bertie Bott's flavors, testing how accurate the beans were..."
"NO YOU DIDN'T."
"Let me tell you - some of those beans are rather mild compared to what they supposedly taste like."
"You are so fucking gross," Remus laughed. "I can't believe I let you kiss me with that mouth."
Sirius rolled over so he was leaning over Remus suddenly and he stared down at him, grinning wickedly. "I'll kiss you right now if you'll just hold still."
"I'm not moving," Remus said.
Sirius laughed, "You are moving."
"I'm not."
"Fuck I'm really hungry though. Aren't you hungry?"
"I am SO hungry!"
" We should eat something."
"What should we eat? Do you have anything?"
"No. Do you?"
Remus crunched up his nose like he was thinking. "Mmm.. nope."
"Remember mum's roast?"
"Remember Lily's?"
"The night she burnt it."
Remus was laughing so hard he was crying. "And James's face... They're literally out there, screaming in the street at one another?" He wiped his eyes. "You barking. The chaos."
Sirius fell back onto the floor, their heads pressed against each other, temple to temple. "Everything was bloody chaos that year."
"Yes it was," Remus sighed. "But godric-damn if it wasn't the best year ever."
"It really was."
"If I had a time-turner, that's the year I'd go back to."
"Yeah?"
"Yes. It was the one year that every single one of us was happy, truly happy. The calm before the storm."
"If you call that calm --"
Remus laughed.
Sirius continued, "The chaotic dysfunction before the fuckery is more like."
"Mmm, that sums it up in a neat little package, doesn't it?" Remus murmured. Then, "What year would you go back to?"
"The summer we spent in the woods."
"You know what I've always wondered about?" Sirius asked, yawning and stretching like a sleepy dog.
"What's that?" Remus asked.
"Who cleaned up the house."
"What do you mean?"
"When I was there... there was blood everywhere... I can still see it when I close my eyes, Remus." Sirius paused, and the pause was so heavy and so loaded and Remus felt his stomach twist inside of him, felt the buzz decloud, felt the world around him go strangely still. Even the record hung up on the needle, Bowie's voice like a hiccough.
If you think we're going to make it - make it - make it - make it - make it ---
"...but all the stuff in the Daily Prophet the next day and in like ten different wizard history books... they all say that it was the curse..." Sirius was saying.
-- make it - make it - make it - make it --
"And the curse leaves no mark. Leaves no stain, no trace, nothin'..." Sirius's voice seemed to drone on.
Remus felt dizzy for an entirely different reason now.
-- make it - make it - make it - make it - make it --
"All those aurors - some of the best the Ministry had... there's no way they didn't see all that blood I saw..."
Remus stared up at the ceiling, brows stitched together.
--- make it - make it - make it ---
"So who cleaned up the blood? Someone must've done. Or else..."
"Or else?" Remus pressed, his throat constricted. He looked up at Sirius. Sirius was nearly asleep, his eyes drifting closed... "Or else what, Sirius?" Remus pushed himself half-up on his elbow. He shook Sirius' shoulder. "Or else what?"
"Just that something must've changed," Sirius's voice faded into sleep as he spoke.
-- make it - make it --
Remus pulled his wand and with a flick of his wrist, the skip in the record was fixed.
--make it
You better hang onto yourself
Well come on, come on
We've really got a good thing going
Well come on, well come on
Ifyou think we're gonna make it
You better hang on to yourself....
Come on, ah, come on, ah
Come on, ah, come on, ah...
Remus stared at Sirius's sleeping form feeling as though the wind had been utterly knocked out of his lungs.
What had changed? he wondered.
By whom?
And when?
For the question wasn't really how.