Fresh Out The Slammer
Remus had been expecting a package, so when he opened the door to be met, not by Hardeep their usual delivery driver, but by perhaps the most attractive man he’d ever seen, he was a bit thrown. He looked down at the man’s hands but he wasn’t carrying anything. He looked oddly familiar.
“Can I help you?" Remus asked.
“Does Regulus Black still live here?” The man looked nervous, his hands were fidgeting distractingly.
Remus narrowed his eyes, “Who wants to know?”
“Oh, uh, Sirius. His brother.”
Remus could have kicked himself. That's why the man looked so familiar. Ok, his hair was longer and he was almost a decade older than he was in any of the pictures Reg had shown him, but yes, that was unmistakably Reg’s older brother.
Reg’s older brother who’d run off to France in the middle of the night when he was eighteen and never looked back. Reg’s older brother who’d blocked him on every social media, number, and email address possible. Reg’s older brother whom he still had nightmares about, and a crippling fear of abandonment.
Remus scowled at him, “Oh. You’re Sirius?” He tried not to sneer but wasn’t entirely successful.
“Yes, is he—”
“I’ll tell him you came by. If he calls you, will it go through or do you still have him blocked?” Sirius’ mouth opened and shut like a fish out of water. “Probably best to make sure he can get hold of you if you want to talk to him so badly.”
“I don’t know what he’s told you but—” Sirius was flustered. He was expecting his little brother, not this six-foot-four, hipster wet dream. He hadn’t been prepared for this.
“I’ll tell him you stopped by.” He said again, icily, before shutting the door in Sirius’ face.
As he leant against the closed door, listening to Sirius’ footsteps recede, Remus could feel his heart racing. He slid down the door to sit on the floor and pulled out his phone.
When he’d met Reg, when they were both sixteen, Reg had been a shell of a person. Abused by his parents, and abandoned by his brother. The inpatient programme they’d both attended had been fairly shit, not appropriate for Regulus who had lost so much and Remus who’d had so much taken away from him. But they’d come away from it, safe in the knowledge that they had each other. They stayed in touch via email at first, mostly sending messages when they were at school and they wouldn’t be tracked by the Blacks. Then when they turned eighteen, Regulus threatened to out them to the media and cut them off. The run-up to Reg’s birthday had been so hard, but Remus had never been prouder than when Reg turned up at the door of the tiny flat they’d decided to rent, with at least ten bags attached to his person and two suitcases and told Remus that he’d done it.
They’d lived in four different flats since then. Once a boyfriend of Remus’ had lived with them for six months, but it hadn’t worked out, and then it was him and Reg against the world once again.
Remus had been writing since he was a kid, and it wasn’t a surprise to anyone (not that there were many people in his life to be surprised) when he was offered a publishing deal the month before his twentieth birthday.
He somehow managed to get a first-class degree in creative writing, hold down two jobs and have three books published in the following eighteen months. Then came the inevitable burnout. He got the last book in the series out but everyone (including Remus) agreed that it was shit. But he hadn’t been sued for breach of contract, so there was a small silver lining.
Almost five years later he was really tempted to just rewrite it. Put out a statement about mental health and just be honest about it. But that was a lot to share with the world. Maybe one day he’d do it.
He debated calling Reg before ultimately firing off a text.
