Remus was sitting in the living room reading when the floo lit up green and shining and he put down his book. James came through the fire place, still a bit red about the mouth from having been kissing Lily for the past half an hour... or forty minutes... or longer, he really had no idea.

Once they'd been sure Mrs. Evans was asleep, they'd gone inside and snogged a bit in Lily's room until they heard Petunia come home from her evening with Vernon Dursley. Then Lily had shown James down to the floo, and - well honestly they'd snogged a but more on the couch before he had actually gone, but the intention was there at any rate.

Remus looked at James and for a moment, he considered abandoning his cause. James looked just so happy.

"Hullo Moony," James said, smiling and high on the still strong scent of Lily that permeated his clothes these days. Strawberries and vanilla. Remus couldn't ever get the lingering scent out of his nose. "What're you doing still up? And where's the dog?"

"In bed," Remus replied. He sat forward, leaning his elbows upon his knees and steepling his fingers before him. "We've had a row. Again."

James spotted the empty glads whose contents looked to have been chocolate milk. "Two in one day?" he clucked his tongue, "I've heard the phrase about being drove to drink but didn't think it was applicable to chocolate milk."

Remus looked up at James. "I told him. I told him it was too much tonight."

"And how did that go?"

"Spiffing, I'm sleeping in the living room because I enjoy the art of making blanket tents," Remus answered dryly.

"Okay, so poorly then." James sat down on the coffee table facing Remus, "I'm sorry, mate. So that's what you lot were fighting about?"

"Yeah," Remus sighed heavily. He looked up suddenly. "James. I need your help. I - he doesn't always listen to me, you know, he gets so defensive sometimes... but... I need him to hear me out on this. It's too much; too big. We can't afford -"

"I'm going to help every step, Rey," James interrupted.

"It's too much," Remus said firmly. "I just want him to slow down and focus and for it to be special... not outlandish and exaggerated. I just want it to be about him and I. About the new start. Not the unicorns and magical bubbles and three rockbands and whatever else he's added to it since I last looked at his plans."

James nodded. Something echoed in him from the conversation he'd just had with Lily. "You just want him to be there," he said.

Remus nodded. "That's what our fight was about. I told him it was al too much and if I had my way it would be just the pair of us signing paperwork to make it official. That's al that feels really necessary..."

James laughed, "You two are such extreme opposites."

"Yeah. I just - I want a happy medium. Something outlandish for him and yet simple for me. You know? But I haven't any idea how to find that balance or how to get him to understand and -"

James was grinning.

"What?" Remus asked.

James said, "Remus, I have a bloody fantastic idea."

"You do?"

"Yes. And you're going to love it." James leaned forward, "It all starts," he said, "With a pineapple."

Sirius was laying on the bed staring out the window, back turned to the door and stewing in his own frustration when Remus came into the room that night. He stiffened when the door opened and closed his eyes, instantly taking deeper breaths to seem like he was asleep.

Remus walked across the room and quietly undressed, the near-to-full moon light coming through the window burned his scars and he groaned as he worked at changing. Between the moon's rising and his long day with Dora Tonk, Remus was feeling quite sore.

He climbed into the bed behind Sirius, and crawled closer, wrapping himself around Sirius, hugging him close. "Sirius," Remus whispered, and he kissed the soft spot below Sirius's ear. He could feel Sirius's pulse with his lips, could smell his blood with his wolfish sense of smell. He pressed his face into Sirius's neck and found his hands, lacing their fingers together. "Sirius," he whispered again. "Wake up, my star. We need to talk."

Sirius feigned waking up, yawning widely and stretching. He shifted his weight, feeling the heaviness of Remus upon him and relishing it, wishing he wasn't angry and frustrated and just the tiniest bit afraid.

Remus moved so Sirius could sit up and there they were, cross legged and sitting on top of the blankets.

"I just want to start by saying I love you and I will love you, regardless of what we decide."

"Decide?" Sirius's eyes widened.

"About the wedding," Remus said. Sirius looked scared so Remus launched into his speech quickly, his words tumbling out. "know you only... grudgingly... agreed to us just going to the Ministry and signing the papers, but Sirius... I really, really think it's for the best. And then we can have a celebration, just us and James and Lily... and we can invite some others, too. Peter, Marlene, Emmaline... maybe even Regulus? And we can have a party. A nice party, one that's just comfortable and fun. Like old times. Like you've wanted to do for some time."

Sirius said, "But you still want to get married, then, yeah? This isn't you calling off the whole thing. You still want me, even though I'm a... a selfish, wicked thing?" His nervousness had his face a bit pale.

"You're not wicked."

Sirius looked at Remus with a pathetic expression.

"Of course I want you, Siri. There's nothing that you could ever do that would make me stop loving you."

"I've done it before."

"No. I never stopped loving you. Even when we were broken up. It hurt being broken apart. I hated every moment of it. I loved you always and I always will." Remus took Sirius's hands, "And I don't need laser lights and showers of gold sparks or dragons or any of that to celebrate our love. I just need to look in your eyes and tell you that I won't ever stop loving you."

Sirius had tears in his eyes. "Well fuck, Moons, if you'd said it like that earlier I'd have understood better. I - I don't need lasers and gold sparks either. You make me feel those things inside me when we're together, and I just wanted them to be on the outside, too, so others could see them as well and maybe get a small glimpse of what I'm feeling. But you're right, it - it isn't mportant, it's just - just that I get to feel it, that's enough for me, too."

Remus pulled Sirius close, and he hugged him tight and he thought about the pineapple in James's plan, and he smiled and said, "I'm so glad we're on the same page at last."

The morning of the full moon, an owl arrived at the flat and hopped through the open kitchen window that faced the alley behind the curry shop. Sirius was busy preparing sandwiches to bring with them on the full moon night and the owl sailed right in over his head and landed with a hoot on top of the refridgerator. He stuck out his leg to present the scroll tied on.

Sirius got up, licking peanut butter from his fingers, and took the scroll off the owl, who waited expectantly for a tip. Sirius looked about, then grabbed a piece of bread and ripped off the crusts, holding it up to the offended looking bird. "Well if you're looking for money you can hold your breath as we've got none to spare for you."

The owl hooted indignantly and soared out.the window.

"Arse," muttered Sirius, and he unrolled the scroll, getting peanut butter all over it as he did so. When he'd unrolled it, his eyes scooted over the words and he got to the end and paused, then reread them. "YES! YES!! MOOOOOOOOOOONY!" Abandoning the peanut butter sandwiches altogether, Sirius launched himself through the flat, waving the parchment and ran up the hallway to the bedroom he shared with Remus Lupin, nearly running James over in the hall as he came out from the bathroom, half asleep and disheveled. There was a great thump in the bedroom as Sirius leaped onto the bed, waking Remus up as he bounced on the mattress.

James peeked in from the hallway. "What's on?"

Sirius flapped the letter about as Remus rubbed his eyes and groaned. "Wh's'hpn'n?"

"I've got a JOB INTERVIEW, you lot! For a REAL JOB, for an actual, money-making real life job!" Sirius cried with excitement. "I'll be PAID."

"Bravo," James said, clapping.

Remus murmured something and rolled over, hugging his pillow.

Sirius scarcely noticed. He was on his feet then and dancing about, "I work all night, I work all day, to pay the bills I have to paay - ain't it sad? And still there never seems to be a single penny left for meeee - that's too bad! In my dreams I have a plaaaan, if I got me a wealthy maaaaaaaan... I wouldn't have to work at all, I'd fool arouuuund and have a baalll...." James laughed as Sirius bounded over and grabbed his hands, spinning out into the hallway, rushing off to return to sandwich making, singing as he went, "Money, money, money, must be funny... In the rich man's world, money, money, money... always sunny... in the rich man's world.. aahaa ahahaaaa... All the things I could dooo if I had a little moneyyyyyy.. it's a rich man's world, it's a rich man's world...."

James raised an eyebrow as Remus crawled out of bed slowly, his body stiff and sore. "You okay?"

"Yeah, full moon stuff," Remus said.

James glanced over his shoulder. "Look, I'm headed to training - it sounds like Sirius is in a good mood," he said lowly, "I'll catch up with you lot before moonrise." He waved and ducked out. "Congrats, Padfoot," James said as he headed toward the fireplace.

"I'm a working lad, Prongsy!"

"Where is your interview at, anyway, mate?" James asked.

"The degnoming place, I'll be a degnomer!"

"Fantastic!"

"I thought so. I'll blast those little fudgers --"

James chortled as Sirius waved his peanut butter covered knife about, miming an unguard move against the gnomes.

"...A man like that is hard to find but I can't get him off my miiiind, ain't it sad... and if he happens to be free, I bet he wouldn't fancy me... That's too baddddd... So I must leave, I'll have tooo gooo to Las Vegas or Monacaoooo and win a fortune in a gaaame, and then my life will never bee theee saaame.... Money, money, moneyyyy... must be funny, living in a rich man's world..."

Remus plodded alongside Sirius toward the campsite in the woods behind the Dumbledore property in Godric's Hollow as he sang loud enough that the birds in the trees were taking off into the air at the sound of their approach.

Remus couldn't help but smile. Sirius's mood had vastly improved since they'd talked, despite having a considerably scaled back wedding ceremony. The interview with the de-gnoming company was really a plus, too. Remus thought that would help all the way around because Sirius would have something that would keep him busy, and the way he was talking about the process of degnoming in general seemed to be something of a hidden interest in him - if that was even possible, Remus couldn't imagine someone being just interested in degnoming, but there you had it. Now that Sirius was being less of a brat about everything, too, it made it easier for Remus to concentrate on the pending moon. Remus was leaning on Sirius as they walked, the woods getting thicker and deeper as they moved further and further along. The old campsite was ahead of them, and Sirius was excited about that, too. A full moon night might be something of a terror to Remus, but to Sirius it was a welcomed ritual.

When they got to the campsite area, Sirius set Remus down on a log to rest, and set about getting a fire built, and then he sat down on the dirt in front of Remus and pulled out the peanut butter sandwiches he'd made. He waved one at Remus. "Mmm, peanut butter, Rey."

"Gods, just the smell of it is making me nauseous. You can keep that," Remus replied, shaking his head.

Sirius sighed and put the sandwiches away, and leaned back so that his back was against Remus's legs, using his head as a pillow to rest his head on, and he stared up at the sunlight coming through the branches high above, a gentle breeze moving them about, black-green gashes against the soft blue of the sky as they moved.

They sat and talked nonsense through the afternoon, watching the sun move across the sky and dipping below the hills far across the valley below their camping area. James showed up just before the sunset, as the stars were starting to pick out of the black sky, and Remus was laying in pain by then, Sirius running a cool cloth he'd produced from his wand across Remus's feverish forehead, sweeping it over the curls at his forehead. James dropped his rucksack beside Sirius's, tucked behind a tree trunk in the shadow. "How's our patient?" James asked, stepping over the log to the circle about the fire they always sat in.

"He's getting moony," Sirius answered. Remus was shivering, and he waved his wand to add another log onto the fire. "Gods, I wish we had some of that bloody wolfsbane."

"I do, too," said Remus weakly.

James sighed and sat down.

Remus looked up at James. "How was training?"

"Good," James answered. He hesitated. "Well. Mostly."

"Mostly?"

James nodded. "See, Moody's been doing these drills at the Center... It's just to test our response times and such, making sure we all know where we're going if we're evacuated or how to react if there's an infiltration. Things like that. So last week, there was a drill where we all went outdoors and the new director of the program, this bloke named Underhill -"

"Frodo," murmured Remus. They both looked at him in confusion. "Baggins," he explained. "Lord of the Rings... Underhill was his alias."

James laughed, "Oh yeah! I forgot about that."

Sirius raised his eyebrow. "You lot speaking code?"

"It's a muggle book," said James.

"History, rather," Remus said weakly.

"Is it?" James asked.

"N-not that Muggles realize it."

James smiled, "Silly muggles."

Sirius shrugged, clearly not interested in the rest of the story, and he said, "Well go on then, what about these drills and that Underhill bloke?"

James said, "Well, last week, Underhill cut me off going into the Center and I didn't know who he was, so there I am like an idiot telling him to go to the back of the line to go in, and he was a bit offended, I think, because he's been treating me rather poorly since then."

"Fuck him," Sirius said, annoyed.

James said, "Well, I was in the center today, of course, and Underhill comes in to observe, which he does now and then, Frank said, and we were working on the exercises that Moody has us do, and then I hear my name being called and I go over... Gideon Prewett's there with Underhill, and Underhill informs him that he wants ME to be his intern in the director's office, which usually's something that upper trainees do. Like Frank, for example. Someone who's been at it longer than a week, at least..."

"Well good on you! You're clearly ADVANCED."

"Or else he wants to keep an eye on James," murmured Remus. "Does he know anything about the Order? I don't reckon I've heard Underhill's name before...?"

"I think he's the one that Dumbledore's sent me to keep MY eye on, so it's both convenient and a little unnerving," James said. "I'm wondering if he knows more than he's letting on and that he knows who I am and why I'm there."

"Surely he can't. You'd been accepted to the program before he was at the Center, weren't you? Dumbledore didn't make it obvious he was sending you in," Sirius said, "Right?"

James shrugged. "Just seems odd. I haven't gotten to a point that I should be singled out as 'advanced' or anything like that. There's no reason for this. Especially since he's been so rude to me the few times I've talked to him since the incident during Moody's drills. Dunno."

"You should mention it to Dumbledore," said Remus.

"Yeah," James agreed reluctantly. "Probably. Maybe I will. Tomorrow. Merlin knows I don't have time tonight." He waved his palm at the sky, where the sun was only just peeking up over the horizon, the moon's light about to be all that was left in the sky.

Sirius got up and doused out the fire with his wand, and stamped out the ashes on the ground. "Guess we'd better get changed."