Fic, for prompt seven

They fill the empty night with cruel words that bruise like their kisses and teeth used to, destroy the best magic they've ever known with half finished sentences that should never have been begun. You lie better than... And you hurt without caring because...

And, of course, predictable as the fight, the crack of apparition that leaves only silence behind and the taste of what might have been, already slipping away like a dream that was too good to be held onto.

Then there is darkness that seems not to give way to light. Frost on a window pane, curling and looping in lines of white that promise that this is all there will ever be, because summer is gone and the memory of warmth cannot stand against the reality of cold.

Remus watches until his eyes begin to hurt, and he wonders if centuries have passed while he tries to decipher the messages of an oncoming winter. He doesn't hear Sirius arrive, and he doesn't pull away when Sirius comes to stand behind him, close like they used to be.

"It's been dark for hours." And the voice is unexpected, the sudden burst of speech like blasphemy in the church of Remus's solitude.

"That's what night is."

"There's too much night."

"I agree," Remus says, and wonders where the trivialities of how was your day? and Harry got his first tooth today went. He wonders where I love you, went, too, but he thinks he'd trade it for the offer of a cup of tea and a story of the old woman who flirts with Sirius every time he sees her.

"I have something to show you."

"I've got work in the morning," Remus says.

"I know. I've got something to show you anyway." A hand warm on his shoulder, so familiar and unexpected that Remus could almost cry, thinks that maybe if he did it might melt more than just the frost in front of him.

He turns, though, and his eyes stay dry, because he is no longer a boy who believes promises of everything will be fine, and he nods at Sirius. "Come on then."

He follows outside, and for a dizzying moment they are children again, Sirius showing him his latest prank, and there is a future before them that can hold only good things.

"You didn't?" he says, but he knows Sirius has.

"Turned out I just had the charms in the wrong order," Sirius replies, and his smile is real, a firework to mock the night.

The motorbike gleams, too, and Remus doesn't hesitate when Sirius climbs on. He follows, wrapping arms around a body he still needs and wants to touch, and Sirius kick-starts the bike into the air, as though he's been doing it all his life.

Remus woops, throws his head back and holds tighter to Sirius. The wind is freezing against his bare arms, but Remus is warmer than he has been in months, and, when he looks, he sees that the sun is finally beginning to rise. he knows it can't be symbolic of anything - that it's only timing, a coincidence that means nothing - but for a moment he believes they will fly right alongside the sun, and that the world, so fresh and new below, has been made just for them.

"Let's keep flying," he says, leaning forward with his mouth pressed right to Sirius's ear to be heard over the wind, and there is a tingle in his belly when Sirius shivers pleasurably beneath his hands.

"I want to," Sirius shouts back, and for a while, they fly as though they really can leave everything behind.