This is my very late March fic, that I did actually write the beginning of in March. I'm going to expand it into a full blown fic, but it'll be a while before that's out. I hope you enjoy it.
"Give us the oxygen tanks." James' heart was in his throat as Sirius held the laser gun to Avery's head, though his own gun was steady in his hands. Come on, he thought, they'll be waking up soon. Indeed, the unconscious bodies of Avery's bodyguards were starting to twitch and moan. Sirius seemed to have noticed too, his grey eyes meeting James' with a look of panic. He shoved Avery's head sharply with his gun. "Now!"
Luckily, the Death Eater didn't seem to have noticed his awakening guards and with shaking hands he slotted the key into the lock. The clank of the safe unlocking sent a wave of relief flooding through James, keeping his gun pressed to the side of Avery's head as Sirius dashed over, roughly clipped the ten oxygen tanks onto his carrier and started running for the door.
"You won't remember this," James hissed to the Death Eater, slamming the butt of his gun into his temple and running for safety, hot on Sirius' heels.
Left, right, right again, down three sets of stairs. He could hear Sirius' breathing, coming as fast and as loud as his own, but it was quickly being drowned out by the sound of many guards waking up, shocked and furious. Two more lefts and they were at the landing chamber, Peter standing by the door, urging them to run faster, faster, as the alarms finally started, pounding through James' head. He could feel the metal vibrate from their footsteps, but the sound was lost in the screech and wail of the sirens. As they reached the entrance of their tiny spacecraft, he pushed Sirius roughly through the door, reaching out to pull Peter in behind him.
Remus was flying before the door was fully shut, and before James could blink, they were gone, thousands of miles away with the correct nudge through an expanse of dark matter. James leaned back against the walls of their ramshackle old spaceship, and laughed.
They'd been doing this for so long now, Hogwarts, the colossal spaceship high school almost everyone attended, seemed like a lifetime away. It was only the sight of a present, wrapped and tucked away in Remus' space, the corner barely visible, that made him remember that it hadn't been so long at all, still a few weeks until Sirius' twenty first birthday. The Death Eaters, who had been prevalent before James even started at Hogwarts, had only gotten worse since they'd finished, hording oxygen in huge tanks whilst the poorer citizens of the galaxy had barely enough to last them a day, living from delivery to delivery. Except sometimes they didn't live that long.
One the ship was settled, Sirius unloaded the tanks and the four of them sat around their moving map of the galaxy, pointing out their next victims, and the people who'd be getting their next deliveries. The map was their own invention, started before well before they'd known what it would do for them. Technically, it was finished, showing the whole of the Milky Way and everyone in it, but James wanted to expand, to branch out, to go to Andromeda. But Andromeda the Galaxy was far too far away for their decrepit ship. A hologram of Andromeda the woman was flashing on the windscreen.
"Boys!" she shouted, the colossal space between them making her voice broken and scratchy. "I've got a delivery for you."
James was up first, standing before the black and white 3-d image of his best friend's cousin. Andromeda wasn't technically a part of the order, but she and her husband Ted did a lot of their delivery scouting for them, and the whole system wouldn't run nearly as well without her.
"Shoot," Sirius said, taking his place beside James, the back of their hands brushing lightly.
"The Weasleys, ship's called the Burrow, tends to follow Hogwarts around. They're going to have run out of oxygen by tomorrow."
Remus nodded from the floor, manoeuvring the map around to show Hogwarts.
"Found it," he called from the floor, eyes steady on the map. "Should be there in a couple of hours."
"Excellent," Andromeda said. She moved as if to cut off, but her eyes caught Remus, and narrowed. "Go find Evans once you've done, you look awful." And then she was gone.
James swallowed hard, shutting the hologram projector off with a twist of a dial. Remus did look awful, had done for weeks, but Evans wasn't ready yet, he wasn't due more medication for another month. He was dragging it out, trying to make it last, but it wasn't working, wasn't enough. He stood on legs shaking almost imperceptibly, and made his way to the flight controller.
"Sit down," Sirius snapped, not looking up from where he appeared to be examining the floor. "I'll fly, you sleep."
Remus shook his head, continuing to move forward. "You've got night duty, you can't do both."
"Peter will take night duty."
"I was night duty last night!" Peter shouting, sounding irritated but resigned.
"I'll do night duty," James said at last. Remus glared at him.
"There's no point in you doing night duty, Sirius can't sleep without you. I'm flying, I'm not dead yet." Remus shoved Sirius out of the way with more strength than James would have guessed he hand, and sat down in front of the controller, his knuckles white. "Now direct me."
Sirius let go of the controls as the ship stopped mid-air, some eight hours later, door to door with the Burrow as the Greenwich clock hit dawn. James had napped on and off in the second controller's seat, trying to force himself to stay awake so he could sleep with Sirius in the full morning when Peter took over. Just then, Peter and Remus were both in the sleeping room, hopefully soundly asleep, but James woke at a hand on his shoulder.
"Come with me," Sirius whispered, a question and a command rolled into one. He looked exhausted, great grey circles under his mercury eyes, the rest of his face far too pale.
"Always," James whispered back, only half awake. He lifted the oxygen tanks onto his back, pulled the lever to attach to two ships together, and followed Sirius out the door.