caveat
The date on the newspaper clipping had long passed since he had received it. Truth be told, he had hardly thought about it until he remembered it one evening on the floor of the journalist's ‘quarters’.
The front page story for the following day would be eerily similar to the one he had tucked under a stack of books in his living room. Two casualties, one badly injured, except the fire had occurred in an old tavern themed establishment on the main street. The Foxtrot Inn.
It was a big hit some years ago. Historical moment, whatever, Remus couldn't be arsed. The one detail that concerned Remus, however, was that the name of the journalist who penned the story was not explicitly stated, rather it was put in as their initials.
R.A.B.
Remus had sat with the paper, scoffing to himself about how dramatically the story had been written, the prose far too eloquent to describe “atrocities of negligence". Only after going over the title for the fourth time did he realise that second, and even more eerie similarity to the letter.
“Regulus…” he murmured.
Remus decided that the best course of action was to confront Fleamont on this discovery and when he had he was only met with startling confusion.
“Lupin, I'm not sure I'm aware of what you're referring to. There is no R.A.B in this building.” he had said, a cigar tucked in the corner of his mouth and a look of concern plastered on his face.
“Lupin, I'm not sure you're aware of what you're referring to.”
It was a grand waste of time. Fleamont had remained adamant that there was no one under any aliases with the initials R.A.B. and Remus had grown impatient. If anything, he was more convinced that it was a stupid prank that James had pulled on him out of boredom. Using the name of some random sod.
On that day, Remus had left work early (because admitting aloud that he had been dismissed early for his erratic behaviour in Potter's office would be far too bruising) and to fill out what would be a rather dull day ahead, he decided that he'd be visiting an Indian restaurant for lunch.
Working on the journalists’ floor was incredibly unexciting and lacked all the joy that came with story telling, in fact, Remus found it so incredibly boring that it became hard to not oversell certain stories because of how fucking dull they were. Yesterday's story, for instance, was so dull that he decided he simply wouldn't write it, he'd leave it up to someone else.
Fortunately, his job-turned-chore had its advantages. Such as Remus having earned twice than what he used to earn when he was writing fictional stories to fill the blank spaces, now allowing him the (for lack of a better word) luxury of takeout.
This luxury involved sitting in the corner of a dingy Indian restaurant, newspaper tucked under his arm and digging in his pocket for a half empty box of cigarettes. He used the burning candle on his table to light it.
Behind him, someone snapped their fingers, “Oi, what are you doing smokin’ in my shop?”
Remus rolled his eyes, laying the newspaper flat on the table and scanning the front page story over again.
A hand on his shoulder startled him, God, people have a horrible habit of doing that.
The cigarette was snatched out of his fingers and the man who spoke earlier took the seat on the opposite end of the table. The chair creaked noisily as the man reclined.
“Seriously?” he took a drag of Remus's cigarette and grimaced. “Menthols. What the fuck, at least have some respect for my shop and smoke something real.”
Remus let his eyes rake over the man. Reddish blonde hair that hung like dry straw around his face, dusted by light freckles on his cheeks and nose. Pale as shit with the brightest blue eyes that Remus had ever seen contrasted by dark circles that made his face look hollowed out. He looked like rigor mortis.
“You're not Indian.” he didn't even sound Indian. Maybe some sort of European.
“You're no London chap, either.”
“Welsh.”
“Eh, Italy.”
The man smirked, then the oddest thing happened. The blonde’s left eye twitched and his tongue darted out, licking the corner of his mouth. Remus fought back his visceral disgust.
“Aw, did I scare you, tesoro?” his voice dripped like hot cooking oil down Remus’s throat. It made him physically ill.
“Butter chicken.”
The corpse man raised his brows at him.
“To go.”
The blonde sighed, sitting back and stomping out the cigarette under his shoe, “You're not fun at all.”
He got up, slapping the table, “I will go now.”
It took over an hour for Remus to get his food. The man who looked dead took his time putting it together, he had almost left if it weren't for the blonde's warning glares every time he shifted in his seat. Remus decided he'd rather get up and walk the length of the shop feigning boredom and turning his nose up at every spot of mould as if he didn't live in worse conditions. It was better than watching that corpse scrape away at pots and curse wildly every time he spilt something. Remus could've sworn he threw out his order more than twice before he decided he'd put a pot on the stove.
He questioned if starvation was a better way to die than food poisoning, but another hard glare kept him glued to his spot.
“Food is food. And I want money.” the man grumbled in his thick Italian accent and Remus couldn't find it within himself to argue.
After it seemed like forever, the blonde, dead and Italian man called Remus over, a large toothy grin plastered to his face. Remus stood by the counter, awkwardly holding the small box with his food in one hand. He didn't bother checking as he rummaged through his pittance, throwing whatever he could on the counter. The dead man gave him a playful yet piteous look. They held eye contact and the man did his weird eye-tongue flick thing again. Remus curled his lip in distaste this time.
“Oh, don't be like that now.” he purred, “Besides, I have something for you.”
Remus frowned, watching the corpse pull a crisp envelope out of his back pocket. His eyes followed the man's thin, bony fingers sliding the envelope across the counter. It was thicker than the last time.
“You'll be charged extra for this, loverboy…”
Remus’s stomach dropped, the purple embossing almost triggered his vertigo. So the story that morning and another envelope from his secret admirer? He looked back up at the man whose eye twitched and tongue licked again. He didn't bother showing his disgust the third time he caught it.
“Who the fuck…” but he trailed off, hardly able to form the right words and the blonde seemed to misinterpret the question. Remus wouldn't put it past his brain to be as decayed as the rest of him looked.
“They call me B.J.” he said with a grin, folding his arms on the counter and leaning against them.
♰
Remus left the Indian restaurant with his head ducked against the biting wind. It had picked up during his time in the shop and mentally, he cursed himself for picking today of all days to be upset over a newspaper article. He also found it exceedingly strange how the envelope had remained intact in B.J.’s filthy pocket.
He tried not to think of how many diseases were festering on the smooth ivory.
Rather than walking all the way to his flat, Remus had made the executive decision to wait out the gale winds in the safety of the public library.
He greeted the woman at the check out desk, cowering away from her sharp gaze. Her square spectacles that reflected the lights from the ceiling did nothing to shelter him from her.
It was probably because he had failed to return the Russian literature anthology he'd been obsessing over. Or the obvious smell of butter chicken that seemed to cling to him. He shifted the box further into his coat. He didn't want to go back outside so soon.
Remus wandered through the aisles, trying his best to appear aimless and as inconspicuous as possible despite not having anything serious to hide. The weight of the envelope and the box of butter chicken in his coat felt illegal enough, considering it seemed the only person who really knew about either was an Italian man that looked like he was about to drop dead. Whose name was, curiously, B.J.
He found a spot, somewhere in the furthest alcove of study desks and he sat, not without carefully setting the box of butter chicken on the table.
He opened it, not caring about the careful embossing this time. Inside was a neatly folded copy of the unfinished draft of his last fictional story. He turned it over, finding a small note typed out in the same font the newspaper used. Remus felt feverish as he read:
‘Remus, this is only the beginning. S.’