Angeleno Moon (Harry)
The stars were everywhere, painting the sky with perfect tiny jewels. It had been so long since Harry laid back and looked up say the stars that it - it made him feel like he was eleven again; naive, happy.
Harry rubbed his fingers on the blanket beneath him, feeling the soft texture under him, and he softly told Steve where different constellations were. Steve was beside Harry, close enough that if Harry swung his arm toward him rather than the sky, they'd be touching.
They were much closer together than Siri and Billy were the last time Harry looked at them. He lifted his head then, checking, and saw that they were still at the bottom of the hill they were on, creating their own separate shadows.
Siri's shoulders were rigid, Billy's just as much so. Harry imagined that the silent tension between them must be choking them both. It had seemed like a good idea… Harry and Steve both bringing them out separately to get them to talk… but maybe Harry shouldn't have gotten involved.
Hop told him not to. Hop said it was Siri's first fight with her boyfriend and not Harry's business. But Siri was Harry's business, so Harry got involved.
And suddenly he felt just as much like a meddling idiot as Snape used to call him.
"We should get them," Harry said, speaking quietly still so his voice didn't carry. He didn't want to make it worse, Harry just wanted the pain to end - Siri's pain that made Harry feel as wretched as she did.
"I can't take any more of Billy's crap," Steve groaned. He threw his head back and stared up at the sky. "They love each other, they just have to admit it to each other."
Harry couldn't argue with that. Harry didn't understand why Siri thought she didn't love Billy to begin with, Harry thought it was obvious. People didn't hurt as much as she did when they didn't love someone. If Siri didn't care, it wouldn't have hurt her.
So he stayed put, made himself follow their plan through to the end and hoped it wasn't going to make anything harder on his sister.
The planets winking at him from the black sky weren't helping his confidence in the plan though.
"Mars is bright," Harry murmured, laying back down on the blanket Steve brought. Steve also brought a box with snacks and drinks, which was thoughtful really.
"Yeah?" Steve laid back too, so close that Harry could smell his… soap? His cologne? Harry could smell whatever it was that Steve used that made him smell good. "What's that mean?"
"Mars alone can mean war, confrontation, chaos," Harry said, reciting things he had once spent a month learning about. Harry and Theo had checked out every book on the planets that they could, Theo swore they could plan their entire lives by the stars and Harry was skeptical, but curious.
Harry pointed over some, to the planet that was giving him a bad feeling about Siri and Billy.
"See that?" he asked Steve. "That's Uranus. It's in retrograde now, that means that there's going to be upheaval and unexpected events."
"So there's going to be a war?" Steve asked, Harry could hear that his brow was furrowed, even if he wouldn't look over to see it. "Yeah, that would be an unexpected event."
Harry bit his cheek at the oversimplification of one of the least black and white practices there were. Even centaurs wouldn't swear by the planets, but they did trust them.
"When they're in the sky together, it means there's going to be explosive changes," Harry explained. "They - er… they were visible when - when Siri and I were eleven."
Siri had laughed, called Harry a fraudulent seer. That was the summer they were taken by the wizards in white coats. Harry never mentioned that he had been right, but he was sure Siri remembered the conversation as clearly as he did.
"Oh." The single word fell from Steve's mouth and then he went quiet, as silent as Harry was. It wasn't uncomfortable silence between them, not as tense as the silence between Siri and Billy clearly was.
Steve started tapping his fingers after a few minutes while Harry found comfort in watching his favorite constellation. Harry would never know if Siri was named for the star, Sirius, but he thought she probably had been. Harry was common, Siri was the brightest star in the sky.
Harry loved seeing that, seeing evidence that his parents also might have thought that Siri would rise above all her problems. How could a fight with her boyfriend stop her? Siri was a star.
"I've been thinking…" Steve's voice caught Harry off-guard, interrupting Harry's own inner thoughts. He sounded nervous, unsure. Harry turned his head, saw that Steve had been staring at him for probably some time.
It seemed like Harry's face, as calm as he was sure it looked, killed whatever Steve wanted to say. He shook his head, mumbled "nevermind" and Harry… Harry pretended to not be disappointed by that.
It was just… it was that Harry and Steve did a lot together, they spent a lot of time together. Steve helped Harry study pre-algebra for his exam at the end of the school year, Harry went to the pool and sort of watched Steve when he was working.
Which sounded creepy even in Harry's mind when he thought about it. It wasn't, Steve asked Harry to go with him most of his shifts. Steve was even putting in a good word for Harry to get him a part-time job in the concession stand so they could spend more time together.
And… and Jonathan kind of made it sound like that wasn't just a friendly thing that friends did. So when Steve shook his head, Harry was maybe a little disappointed.
He shouldn't have been, it wasn't as if Harry was going to - to say something, to ask anything. There was sometimes a thing between him and Steve, a magnet sort of. Harry would find him in a crowd, see that Steve was already looking at him. They were drawn together, a little less so since Steve's parents visited, but it was getting back to normal recently.
Plotting how to get Siri and Billy to talk to each other, patch up their horrible fight, had been the most they had talked and Siri and Billy were together so they were going to have to talk about something else.
Harry didn't push though, he never did. He shifted over while he held his breath, just enough to accidentally brush his arm on Steve's. There was the familiar thrill, the rush of excitement and fear, and then Steve was talking.
"I like you," Steve whispered.
Harry's heart thudded, one out of place thud at the words he wasn't sure if he was meant to hear. But… but Harry liked him too. Of course. Of course he liked Steve, Steve was brilliant.
If Siri was Sirius, Steve was Canopus.
"I like you," Harry whispered back, sure it was his turn to say something. That was true and Harry would tell anyone who asked him that. And, for a moment, it seemed like the right thing to have said. There was a warmth between them, maybe the warmth that lit in Harry's stomach the second Steve said he liked him. It was comfortable, it made Harry content.
Then Harry, unthinkingly, shifted his arm more and the back of his fingers brushed Steve's. Steve flexed his fingers, Harry could feel the muscles and tendons stretching, and he made a movement like he was going to take Harry's hand in his.
He didn't, he pulled his arm away and sat up, making Harry sit up as well. Instead of looking at Steve and trying to decipher what just went wrong, Harry looked down the hill again and saw that it was he and Siri that were identical magnets, pushing and pulling.
Steve had pulled away, Billy had his arm around Siri.
"It worked," Steve said, his voice coming out a little shaky. Harry nodded, it looked like they were talking even if he couldn't hear them.
"Yeah," Harry said, a hollow pit swallowing the warmth that had been in his stomach before. "It worked."
Because Siri was the brightest star in the sky and Harry was Harry.
When they walked back to Steve's car, the silence between them felt more strained. Harry carried the blanket and he squeezed it to his chest even when they both got in their seats and Steve turned the car over.
There was something there, something unspoken and nearly tangible between Harry and Steve, if there wasn't then Harry wouldn't feel any sort of absence.
They had been out in an old mining field, that was what Steve described the area as, and they left Billy's car there for him and Siri while Steve made the drive back to town. Harry stared out the window, he tried to watch the sky even as it blurred out of focus.
Then Uranus seemed to wink at Harry and there was an itch under his skin, the feeling that something was going to happen.
What it was? Harry didn't know. It didn't have to be him that it happened to, he didn't want Uranus to taunt him on behalf of anyone in his life.
Harry turned to Steve when they neared Hop's house. Harry opened his mouth, wanted to ask him to be careful the next few days. It would have sounded crazy probably, a mad ramble of nonsense that Steve might have laughed at, so Harry instead clamped his mouth shut.
Nothing bad would happen to Steve, Harry wouldn't let it.
"I don't trust the planets," Harry blurted out when the car was pulled in the driveway and Steve cut the engine off so they wouldn't wake up Hop or El. Steve looked at Harry, cocked his head to the side some.
"Yeah, they're tricky bastards," Steve said, his lips twitching into a tiny grin. The grin faded when Harry didn't return it, didn't think it was funny at all.
"Hey, nobody's going to - to take you or your sisters," Steve said, lowering his voice and becoming more earnest - almost as if he were taking Harry seriously. "We'll all be careful until, uh, until the planets move or whatever, okay? There won't be any explosive changes, I promise."
Steve couldn't promise that, but Harry liked that he tried. Harry liked that he didn't mock him, didn't call Harry a fraud or an idiot.
Harry liked Steve.
"Thanks," Harry said. He unbuckled his seatbelt, hesitated when he didn't really want the night to end yet. "Er… wanna come inside? El's on a Hostess kick? So we've got Twinkies?"
Harry thought they were gross, but Steve probably wouldn't. Steve liked sweet foods with a bunch of sugar, he never acted like it made his teeth ache in his skull.
"Twinkies?" The strange air between them dissipated as Steve grinned again, the grin that made his eyes twinkle even in the dark. "Hell yeah, I've been telling you that El has the best taste in food."
Harry didn't laugh, he kind of huffed. He opened his door and began giving Steve the same speech he had in home economics when Steve told everyone that jello should be served at every meal.
"If you cut your sugar consumption in half, only fifty percent, you would add roughly four months to your life every year that you followed it," Harry said, comfortable with the facts that he had learned. "Your risk for cardiovascular disease would drop, your insulin levels would balance out, and your—"
"Your risk of cavities would drop as well. Cavities are more than just dental pain, they can influence an immune system, leading to increased risk of infections, particularly in the chest."
That… Harry didn't know that. And neither did Steve.
There was someone on Harry's porch, a shadow at first. It should have startled Harry, had him shoving Steve away and checking on El and Hop's safety.
It didn't though, because there was something about the voice, about the thick accent and the smoothness of it that had Harry stepping forward, even though Steve had grabbed his elbow to try and jerk him to a halt.
Harry's heart began to race when the shadow shifted, moved until it was a person standing beneath the porch light that kicked on. He, it was a he, must have been standing still for some time to end up in darkness with an automatic light.
There was no reason for it, no reason that Harry's breath got caught in his throat and everything inside of him leaped when the boy - nearly a man, roughly Harry's age - looked at him.
Except when Harry met his eyes, warm brown eyes that searched Harry's face with as much desperation as Harry searched his, there came a rush of memories. All of the best memories, the ones that Harry clung to during the worst times of his life, the memories of happiness and peace and love… they broke free of the box where Harry stored them in his mind and Harry was flying through them.
"Theo?"