The credits were rolling on the telly screen.
"Wasn't that incredibly brilliant?" Sirius asked, and he turned and punched James in the shoulder. "Wasn't it grand?"
"I found it incredibly unbelievable," said Remus, who sat hugging one of the throw pillows, staring at the screen.
"UNBELIEVABLE?" Sirius shouted, and he threw a handful of popcorn across the couch at his husband. "What do you mean - unbelievable?"
Remus shrugged, "I mean - an alien man who gets superpowers from the light of the sun? C'mon."
"Says an actual, literal wizard werewolf," James answered, snorting and kicking Sirius off him.
"Yeah, you lot don't really get much say on what sounds believable or not," Lily laughed.
Peter spoke up, "Besides, it's a film, Remus, it isn't meant to be believable! I think it's brilliant, Sirius."
"Anyway, the thing that's least believable about that movie isn't even the fact that Superman is an alien or his super powers. The least believable bit is that Lois Lane went two and a half hours without dropping her panties for Clark Kent."
Sirius grinned widely from his perch on the arm of the couch, "Damn, you've really got a type, haven't you Evans?"
"What do you mean?" she asked, looking up.
Peter handed James a napkin. "Thanks," James coughed, wiping himself down.
"Dark, muscle-y, and bespectacled," Sirius's eyes glinted with amusement. He elbowed James.
"Actually, Sirius... my love. The real punchline in that regard, of course, is that Lily thinks Lois's two and a half hours is a long time, yet she went seven years herself," Remus said.
Sirius hooted a laugh and slid off the arm of the couch into Remus's side, grinning like a wild animal. "Nice one, Moony."
James smirked and leaned forward to give Sirius a high-five. "I do bare a slight resemblance, Evans," he said.
Lily flushed as Sirius laughed all the harder. "James, you'd look spiffing in those tights."
"Is Lois Lane secretly Wonder Woman?" Peter asked.
"I don't think so, Pete," Remus said. "Wonder Woman's real name is Diana."
"Oh." Pete frowned. "Superman should get with Wonder Woman. They'd make a fantastic duo."
"THEY WOULD MAKE WONDER BABIES!" Sirius shouted.
"Well hang on, how would -- you know -- that all work?" Remus mused.
"What?" James asked.
"You know, the -- logistics -- of Superman... coupling?"
"Always wanting to know the logistics - that's my Moony," Sirius crowed.
James snorted, "What logistics?"
"Well wouldn't Superman super kill anyone he slept with?" Remus asked, "Especially a human like Lois Lane? I mean. He leaves fingerprints in steel."
"He just controls that bit of him is all," James shrugged, "Same way you would when you get in the passion. Right Sirius?"
Sirius looked up, a smirk on his face, "Are you sure you want to ask me for details about something like this, Prongsy?"
"Don't do it!" Peter begged.
Sirius laughed loudly and James looked at him warily, then turned back to Remus, "I mean, he wouldn't want to hurt Lois, so he wouldn't."
"Okay, sure, except that - scientifically, orgasm is a loss of control of the muscles --"
James choked on his pumpkin juice.
"-- so when he -- you know -- he'd lose control and shred Lois Lane top to bottom like a gutted fish." Remus waved his wand and produced a cup of tea on the arm of the couch as though he were talking about something perfectly academic and not the sex life of Superman. Sirius was snorting, very loudly, and Peter and Lily both stared gape-mouthed at Remus. James choked so hard on his pumpkin juice that some escaped his mouth and dripped onto his shirt - which only made Sirius laugh harder so that he slid sideways off the couch. "That's assuming that the biology even works. We don't know what Kryptonian anatomy is like."
"Those tights left very little of Kryptonian anatomy to the imagination, rather," Sirius grinned and wiggled his eye brows. He looked at James.
"These are all reasons why Superman should be with Wonder Woman," Peter interjected. "She's just as powerful as he is."
"I forget - is Wonder Woman Kryptonian?" Remus asked.
"No, she's the daughter of Zeus," James answered.
"The god?" Remus guffawed. "Alright so then there's a whole other thing to contend with if he's to sleep with Wonder Woman. For example, are the gods of Earth gods on Krypton? Who's greater? Superman's race or a god of earth?"
"Sounds like we need to schedule a showdown," Sirius declared, "Alien man versus god. Who will win?"
"Zeus controls lightening," Peter said, "The sun is way more powerful than lightening."
"Actually," Remus murmured, "Lightening can heat the air it moves through up to five times hotter than the surface of the sun."
"Remcyclopedia!" James chanted.
"I mean whether that means the lightening is more powerful than the sun is an entirely different debate altogether. Lightening may be able to do that but it can't hold it at a sustained rate. So which is more powerful? Somebody that can sustain power over a long period of time or someone who has a quick flash of exaggerated power five times as strong as the other?"
Lily shook her head and got up, scooping up a bowl from the table full of popcorn. "You boys are getting far deeper into this debate than I'm interested in," she laughed as she stepped over James's legs and headed to toss away the popcorn. She could hear the lads still arguing, going back and forth over who was stronger and how that effected Superman and Wonder Woman's theoretical relationship, and whether this meant they could achieve having sex without one of them tearing the other one apart limb from limb. She tossed away the popcorn and magicked the dishes to start doing themselves, the sink filling with bubbles and the remaining dishes in the living room flying out to join the bowl in the depths of the sudsy water.
Lily sniffed - something smelled foul. She turned and breathed as she moved through the kitchen, trying to figure out what the smell was and finally landed on a bowl of fruit that sat on the counter. The citrus scent was turning her stomach. She made a face and upturned the whole bowl of oranges and lemons into the rubbish.
"Did those oranges offend you in some way, Lilith?" Sirius asked, smirking as Lily made a gagging sound and threw the bowl that had held the fruit into the suds. The sponge hovered over the sink, scrubbing out glasses and bowls and rinsing them off before they dropped into a drying rack on the sink board.
"They've gone bad," she answered.
Sirius passed by to the door.
"Where are you going?" Lily asked.
Sirius pulled his cigarettes out of his pocket and shook one out, grinning, "My box of Blacks calls," he answered, and he slipped out the door into the dark.
In the living room, James and Remus's debate had taken on a new level and Lily could hear Peter yelling over the din of the other two going on still about super hero sex lives, so Lily opened the fridge and pulled out a bottle of gillywater and followed after Sirius.
Sirius was sitting on the wall of the garden like he might sit on a horse, his boots hooked onto stones that stuck out a way, his face upturned to the sky. He looked up when he heard the back door open and smiled, "Lilith, doth thou choose to join me on this dark night in the garden?"
"You're so strange," Lily laughed.
Sirius grinned, "You'd have it no other way."
"I'd have it no other way," she agreed. She walked across to where he sat and pushed herself up onto the wall. She took a sip of her water and looked over at him as he blew a lung-full of smoke into the air. "Why do you like smoking those things? They smell dreadful."
Sirius looked over at her, "They calm the nerves, Lilith, and when your nerves are as shot-to-shit as mine are, you take pretty much anything you can get by way of calming them down."
"You don't feel nerved up right now," she answered.
"It's an addiction, really," he said.
"Mmhm," Lily nodded. "They're terrible for you."
Sirius took a long drag, then grinned, "And?"
"You should take better care of yourself."
Sirius shrugged.
Lily looked up at the sky. "I barely remember any of what we learned in astronomy."
"It feels like ages ago we took it," Sirius agreed. He paused, then said, "A ridiculous amount of my family was named after stars and constellations and such."
"I know you were," Lily nodded.
"Well Regulus is a star cluster - four stars in a Regulus. Like a hotel rating," Sirius murmured, "And me, I'm a one-star. Seems about right. He was classy as fuck and I'm -- not." He grinned. "Besides that, Regulus's first name is a cluster and his middle was Arcturus, which is that bright little thing up there -" Sirius pointed, "In the constellation Boötes."
Lily stared up at it.
"Then there's Orion, Cygnus, Bellatrix, Andromeda, Alphard..."
Sirius paused. Something about the way he'd landed on Alphard caught Lily's attention and she looked over at him.
He felt her stare and he looked over, lowering the smoldering cigarette from his mouth.
"Can I tell you something? But you can't tell the other lads?"
"Seems I'm the go-to for secrets these days," Lily said.
"Why who else told you one?"
Lily shrugged.
Sirius eyed her a moment, then decided to let it go -- for now -- and continued on, "I had a coin in my pocket that I've carried so long as I can remember. I was very small and my Uncle Alphard gave it to me."
"That's lovely," Lily said.
He shook his head, "I found out just the other day that it wasn't a coin."
"No? What was it?"
"A cog," he said.
"A cog?"
"Like machinery. A key, really, at that."
"A key? To what?"
"A Gringott's vault." Sirius stared at Lily and his eyes sparkled.
Lily's eyes dawned with understanding, "That's why you were able to get the Wolfsbane. He left you money."
"He left me money," Sirius nodded. "A whole load of money."
"I'm very happy for you," Lily said, "You and Remus must be so relieved."
Sirius shook his head, "I haven't told Remus, exactly. I mean, I paid all our bills and such, I was responsible with it, and I'm sure I'll tell him - soon or later - but I - I don't know. Something about it feels rather private and I'm not sure why."
"Even from your husband?" Lily raised an eyebrow.
"I'm not sure why," Sirius repeated. He leaned back, laying across the stone so he was staring up at the stars and he took a drag off his cigarette. Then he looked over at her. He squinted his eyes at her, then he sat up again. "I think Remus rather likes being independent, at least a little bit, you know? And I think it already hurts his feelings that we borrow money from James and I think as weird as it sounds, though, that James at least... like, he gave James something. He gave James's family his old house, you know, so it's sort of like he's given something in exchange for James's help on some level. But if I have money and he's taking it from me --"
"You're married, that's how things like that work," Lily said.
"Yeah, perhaps," Sirius blew out the smoke he'd inhaled, turning his face so it would go the opposite direction from Lily. When he turned back again, he said, "See, though, I think it's a part of Remus's masculinity or something."
"Boys and your masculinity."
"Hey I try rather hard to challenge mine most of the time, thank you," Sirius grinned.
Lily laughed.
"But I think it means more to Remus."
"It's silly. He should be happy for you."
"He would be. But he'd feel lesser himself. And Remus already feels small enough most of the time. One day, he's going to be making loads of money - he's so smart and he's so good at everything he does and he'll be brilliant at anything he puts his mind to, I know it. So when that day comes, then I'll tell him the whole truth. 'Til then..." Sirius shrugged.
"What are you going to tell him when you're running amok buying things like a year's worth of wolfsbane?" Lily asked, "Don't you think he'll catch on eventually that you're getting it somewhere?"
"I work at Spillers."
Lily snorted and shook her head. "I understand why you think you need to keep it a secret but I think you'll end up in trouble for it, and I think you ought to tell him. Sooner, rather than later, and deal with the other bit when it comes, rather than assuming. You oughtn't keep anything from your husband. Particularly when it's something so good as an inheritance that should be celebrated by you both!"
Sirius nodded, taking in that information thoughtfully. "I suppose." He breathed out a stream of smoke and forgot to turn away so that the wind caught his breath and brought it her way and Lily gagged. "Sorry," he said and he put the cigarette out.
"It's just so nasty."
"It never bothered you so much before?"
"Well it is now," she complained. "Did you get a new brand?"
"No," Sirius shook his head. He held up the pack. "Players Black. Same old same old." He shook it, then shoved it back in his pocket.
"Well they're nasty."
"Yes and so am I, but like I tell my Moony --" Sirius shrugged, "The heart wants what the heart wants, Lilith."
"You ought to quit."
"Quit?" Sirius raised an eyebrow, he snorted, "I'm not a quitter, darling."
Lily got up and slid off the stone wall. "Once James and I have a baby 'round here I don't want a single one of these bleeding things anywhere near him."
Sirius solemnly raised his palm, "Lilith Jupiter Potter I swear unto thee that I, Sirius Orion Black, shalt put down my pack the moment you pop out a Prongslet and that doth shalt be the day upon which mine lips shannot taste the nectar of sweet nicotine again..."
Lily laughed and pushed his shoulder gently, but he pretended it was quite hard and threw himself over the stone wall, disappearing into the taller grass of the field. "You're such an idiot," she said, laughing as she walked for the back door of the house. "Come inside when you're finished smoking your tar sticks, arsehole."
Sirius's head popped up over the stone wall, "Yes Lilith."