absolutely done for
Remus
“Sir, I strongly suggest you at least try the broccoli before sending your entire meal back,” Marlene insists irritably, frustration leaking dangerously into her tone. Remus looks up from his familiar spot behind the serving counter, narrowing his eyes. Standing up a little straighter, he contemplates the steadily escalating situation at hand – some frumpy, old man gesturing wildly to his untouched plate of food with outrage and Marlene on the brink of giving up trying to politely reason with him – and decides with an annoyed scowl that he’s really about disturb his own peace and go and interfere. Sighing wearily, Remus makes his way with a firm set of his shoulders over to the table that Marlene is clenching her fists behind her back at as she stands beside the irksome man droning on about customer service and Yelp reviews. He feels Marlene’s shoulders droop with something akin to relief as he silently arrives next to her, and watches as the man pauses his senseless ranting to take all 6’5 of him in, the fitted t-shirt Remus has been told before showcases off his muscles rather well, and the severely pissed off expression on his scarred face with an amusable bulge of his eyes.
“What’s going on?” Remus asks, pointedly looking to Marlene instead of the man for a response, and making sure to really express his boredom and apathy through the dull tones of his voice. Marlene shoots him a heavily strained smile that is only remaining on her face for the customer’s benefit, not that he deserves it, and gestures to the abundance of pink broccoli crowding the man’s plate.
“This gentleman wants to send back his meal because of the pink broccoli and is refusing to eat any of it when he hasn’t even tried the broccoli—” Marlene explains in a faux bright manner, abruptly cutting herself off with a deep breath when she realises how passive-aggressive she’s coming across over something as miniscule as a miserable elderly and his distaste for exotic vegetables. Remus arches a significantly unimpressed eyebrow, turning back towards the man who is looking rather unsure of himself once hearing his ridiculousness out loud.
“Sir, I assure you that the broccoli’s unusual colouring does not take away from its pleasant flavour, and you are not likely to regret trying it. We got it imported from a veritable colony deep in the South American jungles, if you must know. However, if you are still unsure of trying it, I’m confident you can quite easily enjoy the rest of your meal that remains untainted by the broccoli without sending it back and waiting longer for a new one.” If Remus had a microphone in his hand right now, he’d drop it. The man blinks a few times, a crimson flush of humiliation creeping up his neck, and looks back to his plate with a newfound consideration, lifting his fork unenthusiastically. Remus and Marlene both watch expectedly as the man carefully shovels a reluctant forkful of the pink broccoli into his mouth, chew it thoughtfully for a moment or two, and then let his face promptly transform with delight. Only just resisting the urge to roll his eyes, Remus sends the man his best fake smile reserved only for the times when he really wonders why he ever went into customer service, which is more and more often these days, hinting with a hidden nudge of his hand for Marlene to fix her exasperated frown and do the same.
“Enjoy your meal, sir, and please don’t hesitate to notify a member of staff if you find that anything else is wrong,” Remus recites just as he was trained by his father to, though because he doesn’t have a boss to reprimand him for his behaviour anymore, he discourages his last words with a deadly flash of warning crossing his face at the wrinkly prune before he walks away, taking his place behind his counter again with a heaving exhale, Marlene in tow.
“I hate people,” Marlene declares as she moves past him to make the drink of their latest order, shooting a glare over her shoulder in the direction of the foolish man they just served, who doesn’t see this as he’s earnestly tucked into his plate of pink broccoli.
“Same,” Remus agrees with a disbelieving shake of his head, fiddling with the cash register that’s been playing up more frequently lately, grimacing as he almost traps his fingers in the cash drawer. Marlene meets his gaze with a final mournful look before she starts off to hand her finished drink to someone, dutifully as ever. Just as he begins to bash the side of the till in front of him forcefully after the screen begins to flash on and off again in a way that it’s definitely not supposed to, a large cardboard box gets plonked down on the counter beside his hands, startling him into glancing up.
Pandora smiles at him, the thick locks of hair tumbling down from her precariously sitting bun swinging around her as she walks past, apparently not bothering to stay for an explanation.
“Parcel for you,” She calls out to him just before she ducks out of sight, pointing towards the box with a playful grin, knowing exactly how unhelpful she’s being. Attempting to scowl after her but failing embarrassingly due to the involuntary upwards tug of his lips betraying him, Remus blinks down at the box sitting in front of him once she’s officially disappeared into the kitchens. It really is quite big and heavy, which only increases his curiosity. It’s odd that even though it’s addressed to him as a personal parcel instead of under the shop’s name as it would be if it is ingredients, it’s been sent here instead of his home. He spends a good minute racking his brain for anything that he might have ordered over the past month that hasn’t arrived already, and genuinely can’t think of anything.
“Better not be pink broccoli,” He mutters under his breath as he tears the box open, widening his eyes when he spots what’s inside.
Stacks and stacks of shiny, new books with beautifully designed identical covers, all of them marked with the same silver initials; R.A.B. Oh, Lily’s going to be excited about this. There’s a single white, rectangular note card resting on the top with precise handwriting scrawled across it that Remus has no doubt belongs to one Regulus Arcturus Black, the unarguable epitome of all things posh and expensive. He lifts it out of the box carefully, scanning his eyes across the brief message with a chuckle to himself.
You asked for them.
(Please do not begin to sell them until the 6th of October when other bookshops and libraries are permitted to stock them.)
— R.A.B
Remus did indeed ask for them, though he was expecting Regulus to forget about his request amongst all of his important things to do with the important businessmen he seems like he deals with on a daily basis, in fact Remus himself forgot about it amongst all of the unimportant things, such as old people and their broccoli, that he has to deal with on a daily basis too. Apparently, Regulus remembered, though.
“What’s this?” A voice he recognises as Fabian asks from behind him, and Remus turns around to find, sure enough, a friendly mess of windswept ginger hair and the haphazardly tied apron Fabian is tugging on as he arrives just on time for his afternoon shift. Remus runs a hand through his own hair absently at the rather entertaining tragedy of Fabian’s, and smiles at him in greeting before following his eyes to where they’re peering inside the box inquisitively.
“Remember how those celebrities visited the shop last week?” Remus raises his eyebrows at him, handing the small piece of card he was toying with over to him as a form of explanation. Fabian’s eyes run over it a few times before they meet Remus’ again, an expression of good-natured disbelief encompassing his face.
“I still can’t believe I missed that,” Fabian sighs self-deprecatingly, shaking his head before giving the note back to Remus on his way to serve a customer, and Remus flips it over to ensure there's no writing on the back that he’s missed—there isn’t, Regulus is far more dignified than that—before calling over Marlene the moment he notices that she’s free, making a mental note to show Dorcas and Pandora later as they’re both holed up in the kitchen right now, huffing a laugh as she immediately bounds over to him.
“Look at this,” He says, shoving the box towards her, watching her eyes bulge as she takes in what he’s showing her, Regulus’ message included.
“Regulus sent this? Woah, that was nice of him. Quite a change of character, I must admit,” She mutters as she focuses on gently picking up one of the copies and turning it over in her hands with awe, “Lily will be excited,” Remus snaps his fingers, pointing at her.
“That’s what I thought, it’s a shame Mary isn’t here or she could’ve taken one home for her,” He says, brows furrowing as he tries to think of a solution to this. Marlene looks up from where she was concentratedly flicking through the crisp pages, and shrugs, passing the book to Remus for him to take a look of his own.
“She’ll be here tomorrow,” She reasons, and Remus nods in return, tracing his eyes over the opening few sentences on the first page. Regulus is a damn good author, he’ll give him that. He turns the page backwards, wondering if Regulus wrote a dedication and if so who it would be to, blinking with surprise to see that he actually has. ‘For the brightest star in the sky.’, it reads, and with Remus’ limited astronomy knowledge he’s gained over the years of owning a shop named ‘Solar System’, Remus realises with an involuntary noise of shock that Regulus is talking about Sirius; the brightest star in the sky. Marlene sees what he’s looking at and hums knowingly, nodding her head in regrettable agreement.
“Yeah, I saw that too. Didn’t age well,” She remarks solemnly, and they both think back to the rage-fueled arguing the brothers insisted on doing just a few feet away from where they’re standing right now. Remus exhales tiredly at the mere memory of the purely unimaginable amount of drama and chaos that took place that day, and Marlene regards him curiously, a peculiar glint in her eye. “How is Sirius doing these days?” Ah. Remus should have seen that coming. He sees the suggestive smirks and waggling eyebrows his coworkers insist on sending him at every mention of the man’s name, and decidedly ignores them. Nobody’s directly asked him about Sirius since he, James and Regulus left the shop last week, though, in fear that he might fire them under claims of lack of professional behaviour, but it was bound to happen eventually. He’s not surprised Marlene is the brave one that dares to propose such a conversation with him, either. He sniffs, looking pointedly away from her with indifference.
“I’m sure you would know, since you had a whole conversation with him on the group chat just earlier on,” He says airily, and Marlene scoffs loudly in response.
“Come on Remus, the first man you’ve snogged since Gideon is a world famous popstar that makes you smile at your phone when you think nobody else is looking and you don’t want to talk about it?” She insists with folded arms and accusatory raised eyebrows, whilst Remus tries not to flinch at the abrupt mention of Gideon, especially in this context. Marlene notices his pained expression and softens a bit, looking considerably more apologetic than she did a moment ago. Remus runs a hand over his face, sighing at how pathetic he can be sometimes; he and Gideon broke up over two years ago and yet here he is still feeling like he’s been stabbed every time someone mentions his name. Dropping his hand back to his side, Remus fixes Marlene with a weary glance.
“Fine, we’ve been texting. A lot. I don’t know if it’s going anywhere, so I’m not getting my hopes up, but it’s feeling good right now. That’s all you’re getting,” He tells her in a flat tone, as if he was forced—which he was—and to her credit, Marlene doesn’t jump and down in excitement like she’s been known to do in the past, but instead nods along calmly, a wide smile stretching across her face. She eyes him amusedly for a few seconds, and Remus strongly considers running away until she leans back against the cupboard behind her, smirking, and he decides he wants to hear what she’s going to say next, even though he knows he’ll regret that in a few minutes.
“I can’t believe you broke your own ‘no affection in the workplace rules’,” She complains, waggling her eyebrows suggestively, and Remus groans, shaking his head. He spends exactly a second more being dramatic and contemplating why on earth he agreed to talk about this in the first place before straightening up and pointing towards her slightly aggressively.
“First, it’s during work hours and you know that damn well, and secondly, we were closed,” He counters sharply with the air of a lawyer stating his case in the high court of law, though Marlene just laughs in his face, throwing her head back and cackling loudly, also drawing the attention of a few waiting customers in the process. They exchange an ‘oops’ look and immediately both part in different directions to apologise profusely for the extensive wait their miffed afternoon crowd has had to face due to their all-important gossiping session.
The day goes on, as monotonous as ever, though that’s not necessarily a bad thing as even though he enjoys complaining about them and their various antics often, his friends ensure not an hour goes by in which he isn’t faced by a bout of hysterical laughter, which he’s ever grateful for. He just finished his last laughing attack of the day, actually, as he locks up the shop accompanied by Dorcas who was apparently fully convinced that the front door was already locked by him and leaned against it, only to fully fall backwards onto the hard concrete outside, and has only just gotten back up from rolling around on the ground with laughter. Swiping tears from his eyes, Remus takes a few deep breaths, willing himself to not be influenced from where he can still hear Dorcas giggling to herself somewhere else in the shop as he locks the windows in the breakroom. After laughing about Dorcas’ fall some more – Remus’ brain can be very easily persuaded if by the right person – they say their goodbyes, knowing they’ll see each other tomorrow anyway, and walk down opposite streets on the way back to their homes.
Shivering lightly at the crisp chill in the nighttime September air, Remus tugs his jacket around him tighter, wondering when the acceptable time to start wearing a scarf is, and watching regretfully as his breath comes out in foggy bursts in front of him. The sight triggers something in his brain, and his fingers begin to twitch restlessly for the feeling of a cigarette between them; pulling a packet and a lighter out of his jacket pocket, Remus gives into the craving. Exchanging his smokes packet and lighter for his phone, he absently scrolls through the several group chat texts he missed whilst he was working, also noting who was texting whilst they should have been working, and feels his heart skip a beat as he reads the few he missed privately sent from Sirius hours ago, too. Catching himself smiling self-consciously after Marlene called him out on it earlier, he shakes his head and types out his rather late replies, about to click his phone off when he notices James has texted him privately as well, for the first time ever, and has very politely asked him what his workout routine is but ‘it’s okay if you want to gatekeep, I’ll understand because I would too if I had your big biceps haha’. Huffing out a laugh at the compliment, Remus considers not telling James his routine as punishment for all that he’s done to Sirius, or better yet, teach him a routine that will cause him nothing but physical strain and pain, but thinks better of it because what happened between Sirius and James is frankly none of his business, and he shouldn’t let it affect his friendship with either of them, if he can help it. Pausing on the pavement to concentrate as he writes out the daily routine he’s adapted to perfection over the years as clearly as possible so James doesn’t accidentally go and injure himself at the fault of Remus’ questionable texting skills, Remus realises after he’s successfully sent the message that he has one more he probably needs to write out.
Hesitating slightly, he creates a private conversation with Regulus’ number and considers what he’s supposed to say for a minute before settling for a simple ‘Thanks for the books’. Regulus seems like the kind of man who appreciates brevity. By the time he’s convinced himself to press send, he’s already arrived at his house and quickly remembers to stamp out his cigarette before he lets himself inside; if he smokes indoors, his mum will have his head for it. As she’s told him. Several times.
Stepping into the comforting warmth of his home, Remus locks the door behind him and shrugs his jacket off, hanging it up on the tall row of pegs lining the wall beside him.
“Hello?” He calls out to receive a reciprocated gesture from his mum somewhere upstairs, and smiles to himself. It always feels like a small miracle when she replies after the one time Remus called out for his parents and neither of them answered, and when he went to investigate he found out that was because they couldn’t; one too hysterical, one no longer breathing. No. Remus doesn’t want to think about that. Not today, when he’s been doing so well. Slightly shaken from his close encounter of spiralling into the dangerous depths of despair, Remus makes his way upstairs, ducking his head around his mother’s bedroom door to find her sorting out various piles of colourful knitting wool, forcing himself to smile again when she looks up.
“Hey, cariad, how was your day?” She greets him warmly, pushing her hair out of her face and putting her hands on her hips as she straightens up to talk to him; sorting wool is hard work, apparently. He steps into the room, leaning against the door as he recounts the fresh events of Dorcas managing to fall through that door for her, grinning as his mother’s laughter rings out around the room in response. It’s only fairly recently that he’s been able to hear that sound, and he’s never going to take it for granted ever again. He mentions Regulus’ books in passing, and a knowing smile slides across his mum’s delicate features, exactly the type of one he wanted to escape from receiving at work, now only to be faced with it in his own home. Ridiculous.
“How’s Sirius?” She asks him with a mocking bat of her eyelashes, and Remus lets his head fall backwards in embarrassment, looking through the ceiling and at the sky in the hopes that someone will come down and smite him before he has to bear another version of this stupid conversation. His mum chuckles at his reaction, and promises she won’t make fun of him if he talks about Sirius, which wasn’t even previously a concern of his, but now certainly is.
“Sirius is fine,” He tells her, probably slightly too defensively but oh well. She smirks, nonetheless, tilting her head.
“Lovely boy, isn’t he? Odd name, though, but I’m sure we can overlook that,” Remus groans to no one in particular. We? Really?
“You can’t judge his name when you named your only child Remus,” He tells her frustratedly with a good-natured roll of his eyes.
“Wolf John Wolf,” She cackles to herself, finding her and Remus’ father’s choice of name, out of all the names in the world, that has cursed him relentlessly for the entirety of his life just hilarious.
Remus leaves her to giggle away to herself alone after that, retreating back into the bedroom he’s spent the better part of a decade in; hiding away from everything lingering ominously outside of his door, waiting patiently for him to leave his safe haven so they can resume haunting him again. Flopping backwards onto his bed with a sigh, he thinks it’s slightly pathetic that he’s twenty-three and still lives with his mother, and he doesn’t know whether this is just his own insecurities disguising themselves as bitter assumptions of what other people probably think of him, but Remus urgently feels the need to remind himself that he’s not trapped here. That he’s not confined to the room he outgrew years ago with walls that seem to shrink on themselves the more he looks at them and a bed that his feet hang over the edge of. He lived on his own, briefly, in a little flat no more than ten minutes away from here, nothing is when you live in a town as small as his, for two wonderful, independent years between nineteen and twenty-one until his father died and he and his mum both found they desperately needed someone to cling to during the gruelling aftermath of their grief. And Remus still finds himself having those occasional bad days that sometimes get bad, giving him a rather valid reason to carry on living with another human being until he’s steady enough to live on his own. Every single time he thinks he might be ready he ends up inconsolable on the bathroom floor again, only coaxed back from tumbling through the dark pits of his mind by the soothing, maternal voice nobody else in this world can provide him with. Remus’ chest instinctively tightens at the sore memories, and so he forces them away with a shiver of his body and an overly-aggressive internal command for his brain to stop. It’s not like his mum doesn’t need looking after sometimes too. Though Remus doesn’t particularly want to think about that, either.
Looking for literally any distraction, he reaches for his phone figuring it’s a fairly safe bet with the obscene amount of texting that goes on inside that bloody group chat. More often than not, it’s Sirius that’s having a conversation with someone or other, and more often than not Remus can’t help the little burst of affection that explodes in his chest at reading through his witty humour so he can’t really complain all that much. Regulus has texted him back a standard ‘you’re welcome’ in the time since he last checked his phone which Remus makes the executive decision to not respond to, guessing that in association to his predictable appreciation of brevity, Regulus also doesn’t tolerate meaningless small talk. If he does, then he can start it with Remus himself; Remus isn’t about to lose one of his three new celebrity friends over something as stupid as misreading texting tones. Remus, as predictable as ever, smiles as he opens Sirius’ latest bout of texts, feeling rather stupid as his fingers immediately dart out to write enthusiastic responses to each individual message. Though, Sirius usually does the same for him so is it really all that bad? Remus doesn’t have time to come to a conclusion to this ongoing predicament in his head as a message appears in front of him that makes him lose his train of thought completely.
(19:17) Sirius: if you don’t want to i’ll understand but would you want to call instead of texting?
Without even thinking about it, Remus’ hands type out a ‘yes’, before he catches himself and decides he needs to play this cool if he wants to keep someone with as exciting of a life as Sirius’ vaguely interested in his own rather mundane one.
(19:17) Remus: missing my voice?
(19:18) what if i am?
Remus’ breath hitches. He takes all of one minute to compose himself, to stand up, to click his door shut, to take a drawn out deep breath and settle back down into his bed before gathering enough courage and wits about him to just click the call button mocking him at the top of his screen instead of replying to Sirius by texting again. He thinks this gesture gets across rather well what his answer is, anyway.
“Hello?” A smooth, spritely voice says that Remus has put so much effort into remembering correctly over the past week only for his brain’s frankly poor imitation to come nowhere close to the real thing that Remus could cry. Fortunately, he hasn’t quite reached that level of pathetic yet. Yet. Remus shudders and he’d like to think it’s because the thought of him stooping down so low to cry at the beauty of someone else’s voice is certifiably horrifying, but realistically it might have something to do with the sound of his name coming from Sirius’ lips in confusion when he’s caught in such a daze he forgets to answer him. Forcing himself to blink and get a fucking grip, Remus clears his throat sheepishly.
“Hello,” He replies, sounding unexpectedly strangled, and refusing to apologise for his silence because that means addressing it. Remus hears a sharp exhale release on the other end of the line, and promptly flutters his eyes shut, very unsure that he’s going to be able to handle this phone call at all anymore.
“Hi,” Sirius says, and Remus can tell that he’s grinning.
“You–um–you okay?” Remus fumbles, searching for something to say that isn’t ‘hello’ or ‘hi’ again, refusing to get trapped in that cycle.
“Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?” Sirius’ voice says slowly, suspicion lacing the words together, and Remus can practically hear his defensive walls beginning to rise. Shit. Remus screws his eyes shut, cursing his awkwardness.
“I was just trying to think of something to say, sorry,” He admits guiltily, deciding honesty is the best policy in this case.
“Ah, right,” Sirius breathes, relief flooding his tone that Remus doesn’t entirely understand but knows far better than to question. It’s silent for a moment, and Remus considers hanging up because clearly he’s ruined it for the both of them, but then he hears Sirius speak again and it’s so refreshing after going without the sweet melody for an entire week that he rethinks his decision, postponing it for now. “Did you watch the Great British Bake Off last night?” Remus can’t help but chuckle at how Bake Off has somehow become their default safe topic, shaking his head at the ridiculousness.
“Yeah, yes I did. What do you think about the bloke who won Star Baker?” He asks, trying to think back to the episode he impulsively decided to watch on catch-up at two in the morning in an attempt of lulling himself into sleep through the rough tones of Paul Hollywood’s critics. It worked, actually, but it means his memories are all fuzzy and tainted by exhaustion.
“Fit as fuck, didn’t deserve Star Baker with that horror of a cake, though, in my opinion,” Sirius declares in such a shameless way that Remus can’t help but laugh and nod his head in agreement at before he remembers that Sirius can’t actually see him.
“He is fit, yeah, but I thought the cake was alright, why didn’t you?” Sirius makes a small scoff of outrage and this is all the warning Remus gets that he’s going to launch into a long-winded and strangely passionate tangent on why he’s right and Remus is wrong, or in other words why coconut and cinnamon don’t ever belong in the same cake together, and that it is a borderline hate crime to do so. Remus grins as he listens intensely to every word, inputting his own opinion that he knows will set Sirius off again every so often to make sure that he won’t stop anytime soon. The conversation ebbs and flows from there, dissipating into comfortable, warm silence momentarily until either of them can think of something entertaining to say, that person who does more often than not being Sirius, unsurprisingly. And Remus is perfectly happy to just go along with practically anything the man says, which could be something concerning in the future, but he’s not too worried, not when Sirius can make him laugh so hysterically it caused his mum to peek her head around the door to make sure he’s alright and not going spontaneously insane. It’s as their structured debate on whether cows or chickens are more useful to the planet lapses and lulls into a thoughtful pause that Remus (cows) spends thinking of how insane his life has become recently and always back to those especially amazingly chaotic couple days, and Sirius (chickens) must be doing the same because of what he brings up next.
“You never told me your shop is called Solar System,” Sirius points out suddenly, and Remus turns to his phone from where he’s staring contently at the ceiling as he’s since put Sirius’ voice on speaker, finding that his arm can grow tired rather quickly of holding a phone to his ear over a long period of time. He hums lazily, smiling.
“Ironic isn’t it?”
“Odds are pretty slim that two men named after stars turned up on the doorstep of it, I think,” Sirius remarks, then adds by way of explanation, “Me and James weren’t even thinking when we barged into your shop, so when we got to take a proper look at it when we left we were pretty shocked,” Remus tilts his head, he hadn’t really known this, although it seems pretty obvious now Sirius has said it.
“Shocked in a good way, I hope?” He teases, knowing damn well that he, Pandora and Lily didn’t spend hours redesigning the front of a rundown, outdated shop for nothing.
“Definitely,” Sirius replies fondly, and Remus hums approvingly, before feeling his stomach rumble quite viciously and pausing.
“Fuck, I’m hungry,” He mutters, unsure to why his body didn’t decide to alert him of this sooner because now he’s feeling like he could eat through one of those ten-course dinners he sees rich people indulge in the movies. He lolls his head to the side to peer at the timestamp marked at the top of his phone, frowning in confusion when he reads 21:03. Has it really been that long? Yes, he supposes, it has. “I should cook dinner,” He says thoughtfully to himself more than to Sirius, already considering what he could make.
“Are you going, then?” Sirius asks, and Remus tries not to wince at the badly-disguised note of disappointment in his voice.
“Yeah, I guess I am,” He answers honestly, even though his natural calling is to lie and just stay here on the phone for the rest of the night like he’s ended up doing most days with Sirius except with texting instead of calling. Feeling like he owes him a little bit more of an explanation, he adds, “I need to get up early tomorrow to go to the gym with Dorcas, anyway,” Sirius makes a noise of understanding.
“Ah, so you aren’t just naturally blessed with the figure of a God?” Sirius taunts good-naturedly, causing Remus to blink, then blink again as a blush furiously spreads across his features. In that moment, he’s eternally grateful that they’re not on Facetime right now, despite how desperate he is to know what Sirius looks like, what he’s doing, what he’s wearing.
“How did you put it the other day? You thought I was going to fight you with all of my big muscles?” Remus can’t help chuckling at the pure memory of how flustered Sirius got as he admitted to his silly assumption that night, and how Sirius groans loudly through the phone right now, apparently still humiliated at the reminder of it.
Proving his point, Sirius grumbles a muffled, “Don’t remind me,” Remus abides, gracefully moving on to what he thinks is a safer subject. Spoiler alert; it isn’t.
“James texted and asked for my workout routine today, actually,” He mentions casually, half expecting Sirius to bark out a laugh and make some sarcastic comment at James’ expense and frowns when Sirius doesn’t say anything at all, and he picks up on the abruptly tense atmosphere setting heavily between them with equally heavy confusion. After a moment of thinking, Remus remembers and feels like the greatest idiot in all the universe—not feels, is. He pinches the bridge of his nose in frustration, probably a little too hard but he truly deserves it; Sirius and James aren’t even speaking right now because James went off with his little brother behind his back and only just decided to tell him last week after seven whole years of having relations with one another. No, scratch that, James didn’t even decide to tell him, Sirius had to find out all on his own because he was too scared of what he would say . And Remus has only gone and mentioned the coward in a positive way, jesus christ this is bad. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have mentioned him, I don’t know why I did,” He quite poorly attempts at apologising, grimacing at his ceiling as he waits in painstaking silence for Sirius to say something, if anything at all. After a minute Sirius clears his throat, the noise crackling through the phone, and Remus exhales a quiet sigh of relief even though he’s not completely out of the woods yet.
“No, no it’s okay, none of this is your fault, Remus, and you have the right to be friends with him if you want, obviously. I’m–I’m not going to stop that, it’s just—” Sirius cuts himself off with a frustrated noise, like he’s searching for the right words but they just won’t come, and in the meantime Remus listens very, very carefully, cautious to not allow his breath to hitch or anything too stupid like that that could put Sirius off. Sirius, oblivious to Remus’ efforts, carries on, having found at least some words even if not all of them are the right ones to perfectly articulate how he’s feeling; realistically, Sirius doesn’t think such a thing even exists. “I can’t think about him without first imagining the same James I’ve always known, since I was eleven years old, and then I have to take a second to remember that James isn’t actually that person that I thought I knew, and he never really was, or hasn’t been for a long time, at least. It’s like he’s this whole new person that I feel like I know nothing about, which is fucking unfair because he knows absolutely everything about me, down to what pair of socks I usually wear on a Saturday night out. And I didn’t even know his boyfriend’s, practically his husband by the way they act, name. It just—it’s confusing, you know? It hurts, the confusion. And I can’t even bring myself to talk about it to him yet, or talk to him at all, which is something I never thought would happen. Yeah, it’s just—it’s confusing, yeah.” Sirius takes a deep breath that Remus can quite clearly hear through the phone but is decidedly pretending not to as he chooses his next words carefully, very aware that it sounds like he’s the only one Sirius has dared talk about this to, and that means what he says next may be crucial to whatever mindset his brain is going to decide to take on the tricky situation after this conversation has ended. More than a little pressure, and even though Remus has a long track record of never doing well under the thing, he tries his absolute best not to cock this up, for everyone’s benefit. He opens his mouth to speak but gets interrupted by a very obviously faux, devastatingly awkward laugh through the phone, and he promptly shuts his mouth again, frowning at what Sirius says next in a strange, unfamiliar voice, “Guess you better get going, I don’t want to keep you,” Oh, Remus thinks he understands what’s happening here. And just immediately no, fuck that.
“Sirius you are not about to push me away just because you felt a little bit vulnerable for a second,” A sharp, crackly breath. “Whatever you’re feeling about James and Regulus is valid, even if you can’t put it exactly into words because not all emotions are meant to be labelled. There isn’t a way you’re ‘supposed’ to be feeling, and coincidentally there isn’t a few simple words of advice I can give to you to make it all make sense or feel better because to do that you need to feel this first, whatever it is. You need to let yourself mourn the loss of the James you thought you knew so you can begin to accept and get to know the new one, if that’s something you want. Either way you need to stop avoiding getting over the old James or you never will, which leaves no space for the new, current James in your life, which might be why you can’t bring yourself to speak to him yet, also perfectly valid by the way. He betrayed you and you don’t know who he is anymore, so get to know him. Again, only if that’s something you want. But from the way I’m looking at it, it’s either that or forget about him,” Perhaps Remus’ tone and approach is a bit harsh as he swears he just heard sniffling over the other end of the line. If he’s accidentally made Sirius cry he doesn’t think he’ll ever forgive himself—ever.
Sirius is perfectly silent for a long while, bar the occasional, slightly concerning sniffle, and Remus waits patiently, tracing the patterned indents of his ceiling with his eyes just for something to do, feeling unusually certain that Sirius won’t tell him to fuck off when he can eventually bring himself to speak again; Remus might really be turning into a certified optimist. Now, that’s a terrifying thought. Sirius clears his throat again, this time a lot more aggressively and with some difficulty that tells Remus that he quite possibly was crying quietly after all. Oh dear.
“I–thank you. Thank you. Seriously, why are you better than the therapist I pay?” Sirius’ voice is torn and hoarse, yet the more he speaks the more steady it gets, and he’s laughing a lot less awkwardly by the end of it. Remus smiles softly.
“I’ve probably attended more therapy sessions than your therapist has ever given. You learn a few things,” He points out amusedly, not lying even a little bit. Sirius laughs wetly again, sniffling a little bit still though in a way that sounds like he’s trying his absolute best to be okay again, which defeats the point of Remus’ little speech about how he needs to feel his hurt before he can do that but he’s not about to bring that up and ruin this, no matter how selfish that makes him. He knows Sirius heard him, though, as in properly listened, and that he’ll probably, hopefully, maybe take his advice some time after they’ve hung up the phone. Remus’ stomach rumbles suggestively again, as if to punctuate his thoughts. Either Sirius heard it from where his phone is resting on the pillow next to his head, or he’s a mind reader, and Remus doesn’t know which he finds more disturbing.
“You do need to eat so I will actually let you get going – not pushing you away this time, I promise,” Sirius says with a smile in his voice, considerably less shaky than he was sounding a few moments ago. Remus is about to thank and bid him farewell when Sirius, who never fails to surprise him, adds on something cheekily that definitely is not the exception of that, “one day you will Facetime me as you cook, though,” Remus pauses, running the words through his head a few times, making sure his ears made no mistake when filtering them through into his brain. Because Sirius wasn’t asking him, he was ordering. And fuck. Remus is done for. His brain having gone a little bit too fuzzy to function sufficiently, Remus distantly hears himself stutter quite disastrously, which is a sure enough give away of what Sirius just did to him. One big, internal, self-pitying sigh for himself later, Remus has just about gathered the little sense he can muster through his haze of thoughts to clear his throat uncomfortably, and hopefully put an end to the pathetic, mindless stuttering.
“Right–I–you–I–um—” Remus squeezes his eyes shut with pure mortification. Uncomfortable throat clearing did not work. Remus hears badly but desperately contained laughter escape Sirius’ mouth quietly, which does not help him because now he’s fixating on Sirius’ mouth making noises and wow he cannot do this anymore. He has to go. Right fucking now. “I-I’m going to go now, goodbye–goodbye Sirius,” He punches the words out of his mouth with great difficulty, attempting to control his breathing from going too shallow without his permission because his phone is right next to his head, and yes he could move it but that would mean feeling the vibration of Sirius’ sultry laugh, because that man absolutely knows what’s going on, against his hand and just the mere thought of that is doing catastrophic things to his self-restraint.
“Goodbye Remus,” Sirius drawls in a rough, gravelly voice that he definitely just put on on purpose, drawing out his name for a second longer than necessary before he hangs up so Remus doesn’t have to. And fuck. Remus is done for.
* * *
Sirius
Sirius doesn’t know what just happened. Well, objectively he does, he’s not an idiot. But he needs a bit, or a lot, of time to truly process it because whatever the fuck that phone call was was possibly the thing he needed the most; every part of it in every way possible. Except the last part. Sirius definitely didn’t need to know what Remus sounds like when he’s… getting in the mood. It’s just purely unhelpful to him because it’s now going to be all he bloody thinks about for the rest of his days until he can hear it in real life, and be there next time for what Remus has to do to return back to forming normal, coherent sentences. Fuck, that’s certainly an image. Jesus christ, he’s so close to just booking a night train ticket to Godric’s Hollow. What’s stopping him? His work, mostly. Though at the earliest opportunity that he can get away with taking another little holiday at, you best know Sirius will be sprinting all the way to Remus’ front door with no stops to slow down. His work, Sirius reminds himself sternly, he needs to focus on his work.
Sirius stares at the several guitars strewn on the floor around him. Stares at the pages of lyrics, some scrawled over receipts, some balled up, some uncrumpled from where he’s balled them up and then desperately recovered them when he’s struck with an epiphany. Stares at his laptop open on his favourite music-making app with the project he’s spent the past week working on because it’s his default way of dealing with his emotions. Take your emotions and write, is what his mother used to tell him when he was drained and out of ideas but his family needed money. He stares at his phone unlocked in his hand and opens onto his music producer’s contact number. Sirius stares at his work, and makes a decision.
“Sirius, hi? It’s late, is everything okay?” A voice that’s always been kind to him, no matter what, asks from where it’s pressed against his ear.
“Alice, what if I told you I want to release a song right fucking now?” A heaving sigh. Sirius grins.
“Then I’d tell you that I’ll try and wake up Frank and that you should down at least four energy drinks because we’re about to pull an all-nighter,” Alice tells him, sounding exhausted yet razor-sharp, fond yet determined as ever.
“I love you forever, both of you,” He gushes excitedly, unable to help himself.
“You better. Now go warm up those vocals, and be at our house in fifteen,” Sirius mutters his thanks, then hangs up the phone with a smirk crawling across his lips. His work, almost done.
Sirius sits in his Uber, thumbing the corner of his large backpack full of everything he knows he’ll need, including three cans of energy drinks because he’s already downed one per Alice’s request, and whilst he would normally drive himself, even he’s aware of how stupid it would be to ride his motorbike in the dead of night around central Gryffindor. And he doesn’t dare use up any of the remaining battery percentage his phone is only barely clawing onto until he’s at Alice and Frank’s house that conveniently doubles as a makeshift recording studio in the case of musical emergencies such as this one. And it is an emergency because Sirius made a decision he can’t come back from even if he wanted to; a musical decision. The lack of distractions with a devastatingly silent Uber driver, car windows blackened by the dark night and a strict mobile phone ban gives Sirius time to think about what he’s doing. Though doing that too hard will send him into a mini existential crisis that will most likely end with him demanding for this car to turn around, and nobody wants that—well, he does on some level but not more than he wants to do this. To finish his work. Instead he runs his mind over what caused his phone to have little to no percentage in the first place; his and Remus’ phone call. He doesn’t focus on the end of it because that’s probably not the best idea whilst sitting in a stranger’s car with at least a few minutes left to go of his journey, no, he focuses on the middle when Remus shared some frankly life changing advice that caused Sirius to promptly, quite embarrassingly, burst into tears. But come on ‘you don’t know who James is anymore, so get to know him’, how could Sirius not weep silently? Remus literally mentioned how Regulus sent him a load of books in their conversation earlier and Sirius didn’t react, not even a little bit, and considering his brother is at just as much fault for Sirius’ despair as his best friend, Sirius isn’t sure why hearing about James brought such visceral surges of emotions inside of him, and out. Maybe it’s because he and James have always been one of the same, so how come James is apparently completely fine by the sounds of it and Sirius is still suffering? It’s strange and distressing and unfair. Whilst he and Regulus have always been balancing in this odd love-hate limbo so this is practically nothing new for them; their brotherly bond has suffered much worse at both each other’s and their family’s hand meaning Sirius isn’t particularly all that bothered about what this could mean for them. Perhaps he should be, but he knows that this entire thing, the prospect of forgiveness and the possibility of continued friendship with both James and Regulus, relies entirely on him and what he wants to do. He also knows that in the darker depths of his twisted heart he’d forgive Regulus for just about anything, he’s forgiven Regulus for just about everything once already in his life, and he’d gladly do it again because he’s still always going to be his older brother, no matter what. James, however, as much as he views him as a second brother, which feels fucking weird to think about as this means James and Regulus’ relationship is borderline incestual in Sirius’ eyes, Sirius doesn’t think he has it in him to move past a betrayal that cut him this deep so soon, despite how much such a large part of him wants to. He needs to, as Remus quite dramatically put it, mourn the loss of the James he thought he knew before he can get to know the new, or just the real one, otherwise there’ll be no space in Sirius’ life for him as it’ll be taken up by the aching childhood memories Sirius can’t help but cling to in desperation to go back to before any of this happened. Before every single memory with his brothers is tinged with pain and the pointless wondering of whether they were thinking about each other as they looked Sirius in the eye and told him there was no one else whenever he’d ask. His therapist says this whole situation hasn’t helped Sirius’ trust issues at all. Sirius agrees completely.
With his forehead pressed against the cool glass of the car window, Sirius decides that he’ll eventually get to know James again, though it hurts now in the most complicated way to think of doing so anytime soon, and he might talk to Regulus considerably sooner as a long time ago he accepted that they have far too many walls standing between them to ever get to know one another properly. Though Sirius thinks that as long as he has the power to, he might as well knock down the most recently built one and if all goes well keep on going until he reaches the most thick, deep-rooted sore subjects for them that if they’re closer together, they may be able to talk about and actually hear one another. No, that’s pushing it. Lovely thought, though.
Flickering, golden beams highlight the familiar road signs Sirius recognises from the handful of times he’s visited Alice and Frank’s before, and he watches approvingly as the driver pulls them beside the stretch of pavement bordering the small bungalow with careful precision. They mutter awkward thanks and goodbyes that Sirius very much internally cringes at, and wonders how on earth his brother who has the social skills of a clam managed to survive taking a taxi journey alone so long the other day, and almost laughs out loud at the thought. Sirius swings his backpack over his shoulder and makes his way to the house’s front door with a set of his shoulders and a deep breath. He knocks once, twice. His heart forgets to beat for a moment when the door sweeps open and Alice Longbottom is leaning against it, clad in heart-patterned pyjamas and a wide, daring smirk, her husband lingering in the background wearing a matching one, though not matching pyjamas.
“So, what have you got for us, kid?” She asks with an arch of her eyebrow, and Sirius’ eyes twinkle.
* * *
Alice peers at him from over her laptop, her dark hair tied in a haphazard, messy bun and a very nearly empty energy drink can in her hand.
“Friday at eight okay?”
Sirius grins, albeit a little nervously. “Perfect,”
Frank nods and pushes his thick-rimmed glasses further up his nose that according to Alice only ever come out at night.
“Alright,” Frank mumbles, hunched over his own computer displaying lots of important tabs and emails and digital documents, from what Sirius can see in his spot slumped down in his designated purple beanbag, fidgeting restlessly with his hoodie sleeve. Frank leans back and with a final, punctuating click on his keyboard he turns to Sirius with a proud smile that makes his insides go all funny. “It’s set. Well done, kid,”
Sirius feels oddly like crying or laughing hysterically. His first love song. Fuck, Sirius is done for.