Piano man
“How was your date with James huh?” Emmeline asks making him to wake up, this is what happens when he stays all night writing a fucking love song, he is now regreting his life choices too much he just wants to sleep.
“How do you know about that?”
“Oh boy, how could I not? It’s all over the internet” She shows him her phone and that’s right, it’s all the people are talking about.
“Really?” He does his best to not smile at that, he fails miserably. This is working, someone saw them and made a photo, this is good, so good.
“Then? How was it? It’s true you two are dating?”
“It was nice, Potter is... he is nice”
“You are not going to give me details?”
“Nope I am not”
“I will find out eventually”
“If you say so” He just shrugs and goes to work. Today, much to his surprise, there are some customers.
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“Boys, meeting!”
“What do you want, Dorcas?” Barty is hungover, and he is moody
“I’m happy to tell you that… we have a performance”
“What? when? why? how? Oh my fucking god this is incredible” Okay now Barty is no longer in a bad mood
“There’s this festival tomorrow and they had a problem with one of the bands, of course with this little time it was difficult for them to find a replacement, it happens that we are totally free” She explains
“Tomorrow are you crazy?” Evan asks
“I know it’s not ideal but it’s a good opportunity and we have to take all we can”
“Cas you really expect us to prepare a performance for tomorrow?” Remus looks at the girl in disbelief.
“You just use the same songs you use at the pub, I think you’ll have time for four songs”
“Four songs? That’s actually incredible” He talks for the first time
“Then are we doing it?” She looks at them expectantly
“Of fucking course” Barty affirms
“Okay why not?” Evan agrees because if Barty says so then he will too
“Im in” He says, it’s not the best but somewhere they have to start
“I think this is a very bad idea but okay” Remus being the only sensible one finally accepts it.
“I will text Marlene later to tell her about it” She smiles at the name.
“What are we playing then?” Another night without sleeping. They have to practice and coordinate everything.
Potter
I know about your concert tmrw, congrats
Regulus 🔪
Thank you. Will you come?
Potter
ofc I wouldn’t lose it for anything
Regulus 🔪
Then see you tomorrow.
Potter
See you :)
“Hey, earth to Rex?”
“Oh yea sorry, were you saying?”
“We were talking about the songs”
“Can we play piano man?” He asks, he hates that song, until now he didn’t want to perform that one but things are different. How? He is not sure but he knows he wants to sing that one.
His friends seem taken aback by this but they quickly agree.
“yea, that’s a good one”
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Time passes really fast, really really fast. They are the next ones. He tries to see the crowd, Emmeline is there with The marauders.
He is ready but he also isn’t, James is close to the stage, it’s amazing because one would have guessed in a festival like this one, they would end lost in the crowd, but one thing you have to know about Sirius is that he is trying very hard to be a supportive brother, so he was hours before to have a good place.
“Hello we are Green Lies, I’m Regulus, this is Barty, over there we have Evan and last but not least important John. And we will start now with Heathens” Seriously who decided to let Regulus do the initial presentation?
Heathens is a good song, it catches people's attention so starting with that was a good idea. James looks at him, he feels the stare of the boy, he doesn’t find it in himself to watch him, if he watches James right now he will probably do something stupid. They play some more songs and finally the last one comes, piano man.
Now John at the bar is a friend of mine
He gets me my drinks for free
And he's quick with a joke or to light up your smoke
But there's some place that he'd rather be
He says, "Bill, I believe this is killing me"
As the smile ran away from his face
"Well, I'm sure that I could be a movie star
If I could get out of this place"
The song ends, everyone clapping, Regulus says goodbye, and for the first time in his life he feels happy. He feels he is getting somewhere, yes this is not what he expected to be his life, he was supposed to study and be a lawyer, follow his father's footsteps. He wasn’t expecting to have a band but it feels so nice right now, he feels liked and supported and…
“You were amazing” Emmeline tells them excitedly. They were the last band to play so they are now in the crowd with his brother and the others planning on leaving.
“Thank you” Remus smiles at the girl
“You look incredible today” James whispers in his ear, causing a shiver to run down his spine. It’s all a lie of course, just pretending.
“Oh shut up” He steps closer and laughs a bit trying to play his part
“One day you will learn how to take a compliment” James smiles at the proximity and he seems about to say something more when his brother interrupts, how rude of him.
“Ehem, can you guys not?” Regulus rolls his eyes, this is the most he will get from James, can he let him have it?
“We were talking about going to grab ice cream” Remus says
“Ice cream? Now?”
“There’s no such a thing as an hour to eat ice cream” Sirius replies enthusiastically.
“Okay”
They ignore the fact that it is too late to eat ice cream and they sit at a table. Regulus is sitting next to James and he has Sirius in front of him, it’s not so bad actually.
“We started this song you should see it and let us know what you think about it” Remus passes Sirius a paper where it can be seen the lyrics of their new song, Nobody’s soldier. At first it was for them, but the style was also very marauder and it’s not finished so they thought to show the song and see if the other band helps them finish. Right now they have around 8 songs, they wanted at least ten to finally announce their collaboration. A part of Regulus is sad they are so close to finishing because he won't admit it but he likes this routine, hanging with The Marauders to write songs, seeing them every week. Of course they will keep seeing each other a lot but without this excuse it will be more difficult.
“I actually like it so much, we should work on it”
“Next Monday?” Potter asks
They all agree. If they work well enough, tomorrow will be the last day doing this. It’s sad but the new album will make a lot of money, at least Regulus hopes so.
“Can we now please get drunk? I need it so bad” Mckinnon says and that is a very bad idea but nobody seems to care.
“Your place is near. Can we please go there and get drunk?” The girl asks
“Yea, we deserve a bit of alcohol” Barty grins. Dorcas of course doesn’t deny a thing to Marlene, honestly people in love are so gross, and they aren’t even together.
They arrive at the apartment everyone is already a bit tipsy. Pettigrew and Evans had to go, Lily was responsible and knew better than getting drunk with these people and Pettigrew had work to do the next day so he left after making a lot of promises to his brother he is going to regret later.
Regulus has very low tolerance to alcohol and everytime is getting harder for him not to stare at James, yes he should have gotten this crush over already, but James is so beautiful, and nice, he is so kind, and has a perfect smile and… shit he should stop this.
“I’m going to the kitchen, I need water” He is lucky nobody notices him leaving. No one answers or acknowledges his comment so he just leaves.
He now has a glass of water and at least he doesn’t feel like the floor is spinning. it’s okay, he will go to his room and he will avoid all this shit, he shouldn’t have drink for starters, tomorrow he has work and he is going to regret it so much.
“Hey” Of fucking course, all the people it could have been and it’s James mother fucking Potter.
“Get lost”
“Do you really hate me?” Potter is also so drunk, more than him probably.
“No, I don’t”
“That’s a relief” He grins that stupid James Potter grin.
“Why do you care?”
“I care so much, too much. I shouldn’t care this much”
“You are not making sense”
“I know, I’m leaving before I do something I will regret, but Reg, you really look pretty today, well, today and always” And just like that James returns to the living room leaving Regulus confused. The best he can do is try to sleep and forget this.