Finals
Lily is the first to try to pull Remus out of his dorm.
Finals week, for the first time in Remus’ life, caught him off guard. Apparently, having a social life will do that to a person. Throughout his entire academic career until now, Lily had been his sole friend. And he’d liked it that way. More friends required more energy, more time. But somehow he’d ended up with a whole group of them, and was going out for drinks with James, Peter, and Sirius every weekend. And the reality of getting drinks is that it’s never just “getting drinks”. You sacrifice the day after as well, or at least a good chunk of it, to sleeping in and then a hangover. Remus doesn’t drink every weekend he goes out, but it still takes a toll on how much homework he’s able to chug through on any given weekend. And he can’t go more then a few days without seeing Lily—they have obligatory weekly binge nights that he can’t just cancel out on.
So, finals week caught him off guard. As a result, he has sequestered himself away in his dorm room to cram for the couple weeks before finals. He doesn’t answer his phone—he’s actually powered it down and left it beside his bed to avoid distractions. It’s just him, his laptop, his textbooks, and his notebooks.
For some of his classes, he doesn’t even have an outline for his finals papers.
All throughout highschool, he’d be preparing for final papers, projects, and assignments as soon as he got his hands on the syllabus. This semester, though, he’s done next to none of that, leaving him starting from scratch on all of these very large assignments.
He’s determined to not leave his dorm until it’s all done, except to go collect meals. He doesn’t eat in the caf anymore—too many distractions—so he’ll just dip down to grab a to-go box of food and bring it back to his dorm to eat while he works on his assignments. The meals tend to go cold before he finishes them. He’s even less diligent about water. He can’t tell if the headache pounding behind his eyes is from stress, dehydration, or staring at a screen for too long. Probably some combination of all of the above.
When Lily enters his room, he simply turns up the volume of his music (it’s just lofi, to help him focus, and it doesn’t do much to drown her out).
“Alright, Remus, we’re not doing this anymore, you’ve got to leave your room.”
He doesn’t dignify her words with a response.
Remus pulls out his headphones and connects them to his laptop, listening through those instead of through his computer speakers. He turns on the noise canceling, and soon Lily’s voice is drowned out by the relaxing music, only the slightest tinge of her speaking to be heard in the background.
This works for maybe a couple of sentences before Lily is stomping up behind him—he can feel the vibrations in the floor, so he’s not too surprised when his headphones are ripped off of his head, his music cutting out abruptly. He stifles a sigh, and keeps writing. Or tries to, at least. Lily is soon snatching his laptop out from underneath him, too. His hands slip over the keyboard as she does so, leaving the next paragraph looking like a slew of random numbers and letters.
“Lily!” Remus turns, snatching for his laptop, but Lily is already on the other side of the room, holding it above her head like Remus isn’t a whole foot taller then her. “Give that back.”
“Not until you take a break.”
“I don’t have time for a break, Lily. You know that.”
“You absolutely do. Plus, you’ll perform better afterwards. Remus, I’m not going to let you do a reboot of senior year.”
“I had a lot of work to do then, too, and I might not have passed my statistics class if I didn’t do exactly what I’m doing now.”
“Have you ever considered that maybe—just maybe—your bouts of poor health are connected to your bouts of severe over-exertion? “
“I’m not “over-exerted” I’m just sitting at my desk.”
“You know that’s not what I meant.”
“I know you’re blowing this out of proportion. I have a lot of catching up to do. Please, Lily, just give it back. The faster I get this done, the faster I can take a break.” His tone has turned from frustrated, to pleading. This seems to do the trick, because Lily begrudgingly passes back his laptop and headphones.
“Just promise to take care of yourself? Drink some water, eat some food, take a shower?” She says this last request with a slight downward curl to her lips, like there’s something vaguely foul about Remus. He runs his hands through his hair—which is more then a little bit greasy—and decides that this, at least, he can do. He has some water-proof earbuds, so he can at least listen to his lectures while he does so.
“Alright, fine. Now please, can I work?”
Lily shakes her head in disappointment, gives Remus a kiss on the cheek, and leaves.
Lily was apparently unsatisfied with Remus’ promise, although he did follow through and take a nice long shower. But she still decides to send in the cavalry, which of course means sending in James, who will do just about anything for Lily. Actually, Remus isn’t sure there’s anything he wouldn’t do, he’s that smitten.
Lily seems to be passing around her spare keycard, too, because James doesn’t knock or anything—he just lets himself in.
“And so the lone wolf abandons his pack.” He says dramatically. Remus imagines a hand flying up to cover his forehead daintily, and hears James flop back onto Remus’ bed.
“How long have you been waiting to use that one?” Remus mutters.
“Since I learned your name.”
“How’s it feel?”
“Underwhelming, considering the circumstances. We miss you, man.”
“Well I’m right here.”
“But you’re not, you don’t come drinking, you don’t eat meals with us, you don’t come to tutoring, not that you need it anymore, but still—you’re like a monk or something.”
“Until finals are over, yes.”
“Well this is a shit monetary, not gonna lie, and you should leave it once in a while.” Remus isn’t sure whether he means Remus’ dorm or the school as a whole, but either way, he gets the point.
“Not gonna happen. I’m way behind.”
“But I miss you Remus!” He whines, and suddenly he’s behind Remus, arms wrapped around Remus’ shoulders, clinging to him like a small child. This manages to squeeze a laugh out of Remus, although there’s a tinge of annoyance to it.
“Seriously, I’m trying to work.”
“You can work after you take a break. Just one hour, that’s all I’m asking.”
“One hour with you never means “one hour””
“How very dare you! You can set an alarm even, as soon as it goes off, you can leave. I won’t stop you.”
“I’m really sorry, but I can’t. I’ve got a lot to catch up on. I promise I’ll make it up to you once I’m done.”
“Pffft.”
“Seriously. As soon as finals are done we can get absolutely plastered.”
James releases his grip and steps back. He seems to consider this for a moment. “I’ll consider this offer.”
“Thank you.”
“Just take care of yourself.”
“Will do.” Remus delivers a quick two fingered salute, more to his computer (which he hasn’t looked away from) then to James.
“I mean it.” James instills, the door opening as he starts to head out.
“So do I!” Remus calls back, and the door shuts, leaving Remus once again, blissfully, alone.
A knock at the door draws a groan out of Remus.
“For Gods sake King, get a lanyard like everyone else, I’m bu—oh. Peter.” It’s not Kingsley, like he thought, who has a bad habit of keeping his keycard in his back pocket and getting locked out. “I thought my key-card was making the rounds.”
“It is.” Peter says, brandishing said keycard. “Just felt like a violation to use it.”
“Wow, common sense. I didn’t know any of you three had that.”
“Oh hardy har. Can I come in?”
“You’re not gonna convince me.”
“Nor will I try. I just need a break from the disaster duo and the only way they’ll spare me is if they think I’m nagging you.”
“Do those two not have their own finals?”
“Oh, they do, but as stupid as they are, they’re just as smart. They don’t have to try to do well, seems like.”
“Jealous.”
“I know the feeling. So… an I come in?”
“Sure, if you aren’t distracting.” Remus opens the door wider, beckoning Peter in.
“I’m almost failing like three classes, so I’ll have plenty to keep my busy.”
Remus north out a laugh. “Felt.”
“I doubt that.”
“Well I at least know how it feels to be up to my neck in work.”
“I’ll give you that much.”
“You can use the bed, or the floor if you’d prefer.” Remus says, waving vaguely towards the room to indicate that Peter has free reign.
“The bed works.” Peter says, and begins pulling books and notebooks from his bag, as well as a whole six pack of sports drinks and a plethora of snacks. “Want some?” He asks, holding up a protein bar and a sports drink.
Remus’ stomach growls, answering his question before he can say “sure.”. Remus inhales the protein bar before he even sits back down, sipping on the drink while he gets back to work. Peter opens up his laptop and begins clacking away, not talking, just like he’d promised. Remus finds he doesn’t mind the company. Having someone around, workin game as him, is a nice feeling.
And so that’s how they spend their evening. They work in silence, other then Peters occasional offer for Remus to have more snacks and drinks. Peter leaves when Kingsley returns, leaving behind what remains of the snacks and drinks for Remus.
“Dude!” Someone shouts, slamming the door to Remus’ dorm open. Mary. Remus turns, about to tell her off for barging in, but King beats her to it.
“Hey!” He shouts, startled, leaping from his desk. “Maybe knock?” He blinks, then; “How’d you even get in here?”
“None of your business.”
“Well it’s my room, so yeah, it is—could you leave?”
“I’ve gotta talk to Remus.”
“Then talk elsewhere?”
“King, please.” Remus pleads. “Just leave it. I’ll make it up to you later, promise.” Remus doesn’t want him to say something that will piss Mary off. He’s never seen her mad, and he’d like to keep it that way.
“Fine.” Kind stands, storming out. Only when the door slams behind him does Remus address Mary.
“I’d really appreciate if you guys would stop barging in here. It’s not just my room. And if it was, you could still knock.”
“Lily is worried about you.” She says, not acknowledging Remus’ world.
“Surprise surprise.”
“So I’d really appreciate if you would stop worrying my girlfriend.”
“There’s no helping it. I’ve got work to do. I’ll talk to her after I’m done with finals.”
“Look, dude, I’m not trying to get you out of your nest, if Lily can’t do that then I don’t think I can, short of picking you up by the scruff and dragging you out of here. But just give her a call. Reply to her texts. Give her anything to make her think that you’re actually alive.”
Remus picks up his phone then, twenty-seven texts from Lily gracing his home screen, as well as five phone calls. “Fine.” He says, shooting off a quick text;
Remus: Sorry, been busy—still alive, will talk soon
“There. Happy?”
“More so. Thank you.” Mary says. “Don’t let that be the only one, though, or I will actually drag you out of this room.” And Remus believes her wholeheartedly.
“I’ll try.”
She shoots him a glare.
“Yeah, I’ll text her more.” He corrects. She nods, and leaves his room.
He hears Sirius long before he actually enters the room. Maybe even before he enters Remus’ building, he can’t be sure. All he knows is that there is music blasting—Queen, Remus can tell, so at least he has some taste—and it’s steadily growing closer to Remus’ dorm. Remus can think of only one person who would have the audacity to play music at that volume so close to finals.
The noise cancelling feature on his headphones isn’t up to the task of blocking out Sirius, and where it was mostly muffling the mans entrance a few moments ago, it is now doing next to nothing to block out the music. He turns on his own music instead of the Lo-fi he’d previously been listening too, hoping that something with more bass might be better, but alas, it doesn’t change much, even with the volume cranked all the way up. Sirius must be using some top notch speaker to achieve this kind of volume.
The music becomes abruptly and exponentially louder, and Remus knows without turning his head that Sirius is now in his room, lacking the kind of common sense and polite tendencies that led to Peter knocking. The music in Remus’ own headphones has become more of a nuisance then anything else, the two songs competing for attention. He can feel a headache forming. He turns off his own music, but leaves his headphones on, hoping that he can ignore Sirius long enough that he’ll get bored and leave of his own accord.
Sirius plucks the headphones off of Remus’ ears, removing the last line of protection between him and the music, which is so loud that Remus could swear it’s shaking the walls. Sirius is singing along, too, as if there isn’t enough going on right now.
“So you think it’s the easy way out” He scream sings. “Think you’re gonna slash your wrists—this time” Why he picked this particular song, Remus doesn’t know. “Baby when you do it all you do is get on my tits!”
Remus just shakes his head slightly, still writing on his laptop, although he’s not writing anything of meaning anymore. He can’t think. All he can do is write down the lyrics Sirius is singing and hope that Sirius isn’t reading over his shoulder. His train of thought has gone out the window, replaced with Freddie Mercury.
“Don’t do that.” Sirius sings, Remus writes “Try try try Baby!”
The music goes on forever. So. Much. Music. Remus’ only consolation—and it’s not much of one—is that the music isn’t bad. It’s lots of Queen. Some Bowie, some T-rex. There’s some music that sounds suspiciously like Sirius’ own. Only he would actually listen to his own music. But Remus can’t deny any longer that he’s a good musician. His songs are good. Obnoxiously loud right now, but good.
Sirius sings along to every song, not trying to sound good. He might actually be trying to sound bad.
Then, hours later—and Remus means hours—Sirius’ speaker dies.
Remus breaths a sigh of relief.
And then, of course, Sirius is ringing James.
“Still at it?” James says by way of greeting.
“Hey, I’m the last line of defense for a reason. Gots to see it through.”
“I’m not gonna lie, I don’t know if you can win this one my guy.”
“Never. Now, hand over the brain cell for a second, I need backup.”
“What if I’m using it?”
“When do you ever? Hand it over.”
“Fine.”
There’s a pause, then;
“Any ideas yet?” James asks.
“Nada.”
“Oh well. At least we tried.”
“And I’m gonna keep trying until he’s out of his dorm.”
“Let me know when you give up.”
“Bitch?” Sirius exclaims, sounding mortally wounded.
“You hear me.”
“Fuck that, fuck you, and your cow. I’m winning. Next time you see me, I’ll have Wolfy in tow.”
Bloody fucking likely, Remus thinks.
“I’ll believe it when I see it.” James says, and then they’re hanging up.
Next it’s a movie. A marvel movie, Remus thinks, epic music and fights blasting through Remus’ dorm. There’s some pounding on the door, on the walls from the neighbors, trying to shut Sirius up. But he ignores them, just as Remus ignores him, and they eventually give up.
Following that, Sirius breaks out his guitar. He’s been in Remus’ dorm for hours by this point, and Remus has started adjusting to his presence, tuning him out becoming easier and easier with each passing minute. Sirius alters between his own songs and classic rock, singing along the whole way. After maybe ten songs, Sirius stops abruptly and waltzes over to Remus’ desk, plucking his laptop charger out of the wall and commandeering it. Remus, hell bent on pretending Sirius doesn’t exist, refuses to try and retrieve it. He doesn’t doubt that Sirius will stick around until and beyond his laptop dies, but this is a battle of wills that Remus refuses to lose.
Sirius goes right back to his guitar after that.
After another hour, Remus’ laptop dies. It’s an old model, and he has about a million tabs open, so he’s not surprised it died on him so quickly. Sirius is still strumming along on his guitar. How he hasn’t lost his voice by now is a mystery. Remus grabs one of his textbooks and begins reading. He’s really mastered the art of tuning Sirius out, but now, and his studying is able to proceed unhindered for another little while.
Sirius orders food right to Remus’ dorm—a right feast of Chinese takeaway. He plops a few containers before Remus, who is too hungry to refuse it. He’s too stubborn to thank him, though, and digs in wordlessly. For a moment there is silence, while Sirius’ mouth is occupied by Chinese food. Once done, he turns to another movie, this one he seems to know by heart, reciting every line with fervor. Labyrinth, starring David Bowie, Remus knows as soon as it starts. A comfort movie of his, and one that he struggles to tune out. It’s too good. It honestly pisses Remus off, how similar his and Sirius’ tastes seem to be.
Sirius wasn’t lying about being stubborn. He sticks around until the sun sets and King comes back, who Sirius promptly kicks back out. At least he, unlike Mary, is a little apologetic about the whole situation. King doesn’t storm out the way he did with Mary, even though he’s still clearly not pleased to be kicked out of his own room.
Sirius orders them more food, Mexican this time. And then, once dinner is done, Sirius switches tactics. He takes to pestering Remus more intensely.
He walks up right behind Remus, holding his phone speaker right up to Remus’ ear, singing along in his other ear. His song choice has drastically changed, and he’s now plastic Hamilton.
Remus survives the first three songs, still reading. Story of Tonight has him grinding his teeth, but he keeps going, telling himself that Sirius will lose steam eventually.
By Helpless, Remus is livid. He’s not processing any of the words he’s trying to read. He keeps turning pages, but it’s only to keep up an illusion at this point.
It’s Guns and Ships that finally does Remus in. Sirius prattles off the whole rap right in his ear, and by the end, Remus is just so done with it all that he jumps to his feet so abruptly that Sirius falls right on his ass. Still singing, though, because why the hell wouldn’t he be?
“Fine!” Remus explodes. He can’t remember the last time he had this little control over his own temper. It’s not a good feeling. “You win! If it’ll shut you up, I’ll go. I’m fucking done!”
And Sirius has the audacity to grin and keep singing, pulling himself to his feet.
Holding his phone above his head, he marches out of the dorm like he’s leading a charge.
And, just like Sirius said, when they meet up with James, Sirius has Remus in tow.