Studio
“Stop worrying mom, I have everything I need and I’m only going to be gone for two days anyways.” Remus repeats for what feels like the hundredth time that day. His mom, Hope, had been nervously hovering near him all day, constantly asking him if he had packed enough pairs of socks or forgot his toothpaste. Each time he reassured her and showed her the items she was worried about.
“I know, I know, but I can’t help but worry about my precious baby boy.” Hope says sadly.
“Mom I haven’t been your baby boy since I went into middle school.”
Hope sighs “No, you’ll always be my baby boy, no matter how tall and gangly you may be.”
Remus laughs before leaning down to give her a kiss on the cheek. “I’ve got to leave now or I’ll miss my flight.” He says as he pulls away and grabs his small suitcase and places his messenger bag on his shoulder.
His mom gives him a teary goodbye as he walks out of their house and walks into the Uber waiting for him. He refuses to look back because he’s he knows he won’t be able to leave if he does.
~
The flight was terrible, and Remus had already grabbed all of his stuff from carry on as soon as they landed on the tarmac. Luckily, he didn’t have to go to baggage claim because all of his bags were small enough to make it into carry on.
He rushed through the airport quickly, wanting to get out of there as fast as possible and make it to his hotel. He pushed the exit door open and stepped out into the warm sunlight of Los Angeles, he basked in the warmth for a moment, he hadn’t been in such warm weather in a while, the east coast was never this warm so late in autumn. He was quickly taken out of his basking when he felt people brushing past him and heard the loud honking coming from the airport pickup lane.
He rushes away from the entrance and takes out his phone to request an Uber hoping that he’ll make it to the studio in time. Remus hears someone shout his name and his neck snaps up from his phone and he looks around trying to find them, maybe it’s just someone that recognizes him from a video of his or whatever. He starts to look back down at his phone when he hears his name again, this time he walks towards the sound of the voice and winds up in front of a black car that looks like it costs more than his house. The window to passengers seat is rolled down so Remus can see the driver, a man with striking blue hair in a black suit and looks to be about Remus’s age.
“Are you the person that was yelling my name?” Remus questions, if he’s wrong and was just hearing things he thinks he may die of embarrassment.
“Yes, yes that was me and please get in, we need to leave now or we’ll be late.” The man rushes out of the car while still talking and takes Remus’s things and places them in the trunk, then rushes back to Remus and opens the backseat door for him. Remus is still standing on the side walk next to the car slightly stunned that they are having him take a fancy car with a chauffeur to the studio. It’s probably just to make Remus feel impressed by them and want to work with them or something like that he tells himself. He gives the man, whose name he has not yet learned but will eventually, a small smile and steps into the car.
The inside of the car is all leather and somehow feels expensive. Remus didn’t notice when the driver got in the car since he was still shocked by everything happening. Even if they don’t want to work with him in the future at least he’ll have a good story to tell. The car drives out of the pickup lane and onto the highway in a complete silence that Remus does not enjoy. He likes the quiet and he has for as long as he can remember, but not quietness like this, this feels tense and uncomfortable.
So Remus does what he does worst. Make small talk.
“So I didn’t catch your name before.” He asks casually, leaning forward in his seat a bit.
“It’s Benjy, Benjy Fenwick.”
“That’s a good name, Benjy, is it short for Benjamin?” Remus feels like he is dying on the inside the more he speaks but it’s better than the silence.
“It is.” Benjy replies.
“It’s much better than Remus, always been given weird looks when I tell people my name. When I was 21 I was trying to buy a pack of beers but the guy at the register thought that my id was fake because of the name.” He rambles. Why would he tell that story to an almost complete stranger, he’s going to think he’s insane and drop him on the side of the road.
The car goes silent after that, and Remus just gives up on having a conversation with him.
“Can you turn on the radio?” Remus asks. If he wont talk to Remus then at least Remus can have something to distract himself from the quiet.
Benjy nods and flips on the radio and no, oh no. The song playing is happiness from Sirius’s second album, Dog Star, and it’s one that Remus knows for a fact is about him. He considers asking Benjy to turn it off but he doesn’t want to make this car ride even more awkward, so instead he suffers through it.
“But now my eyes leak acid rain on the pillow where you used to lay your head” Sirius’s voice fills the car and Remus attempts to keep himself together, not wanting to cry right before going into the meeting.
The song finishes without any tears so Remus considers it a win. The car stops in front of a large ornate building and Benjy gets out of the car and opens Remus’s door for him. He steps out onto the sidewalk and stares upwards at the building until he hears Benjy drop his bags at his feet.
Remus grabs his bags and walks into the building and straight towards the receptionist’s desk. He stands there awkwardly waiting for the girl behind the desk to look up from her magazine and sign him in. He waits for around a minute until he clears his throat to catch her attention. She looks up at him with an unimpressed expression. “Hello and welcome to eclipse records, how can I help you today.” She says with an impressively dry voice.
“Hello I’m Remus Lupin-“ He gets cut off mid way through his sentence by her.
“Yeah I know who you are, take this id and go down that hall and into the first room on your left.” She passes him an id badge with his name and a photo of him. He just stands there shocked, he’d expected her to turn him away not immediately recognize him and give him directions.
He clips the badge onto the waist band of his pants and walks down the hall and into the room he was supposed to go to. When he pushes open the door he is met with the sight of a conference room with the woman he recognizes as Dorcas Meadows, what looks like a lawyer, and some random other woman.
“Oh Remus I’m so glad you made it!” Dorcas says happily. “Please take a seat, we have a lot to discuss.” Dorcas points to the chair directly across from hers. He takes his seat and waits for someone to say something. “Remus, I’m just going to start this by saying your music is amazing, especially your lyrics.”
“Thank you,” He says so quietly he’s not entirely sure she heard him.
“And we have been looking for someone with your type of songwriting skills and voice for a while. I have shown the higher ups hear your videos and they all agree in wanting to sign you.” Dorcas continues.
Remus’s jaw drops, just falls open in complete and utter shock. He didn’t think getting signed could happen so fast but apparently it can.
Dorcas slides a stack of papers across the table, “This is your contract, I’d recommend getting a lawyer to look at it to make sure you get what you want.” Remus picks up the first paper in the stack and skims it. It says they want three albums, each with touring of some kind, whether headlining or opening. He ends up skimming the other pages too.
He puts all the papers back on the table besides one around fifteen minutes later. “I’m good with everything in here besides one thing. I want to be out as gay, I will not stay in the closet and fake date women and change pronouns in my songs, I will also not denounce being gay because my songs so far are clearly about other men.” He says.
Dorcas frowns “Was there something in the contract that said otherwise?”
Remus shakes his head “No, but I want to cover all of my bases and not get screwed over by something I missed. I think this page is the one that my conditions can be added to.” He hands the paper he has been holding over to Dorcas.
“I’ll have my secretary make a new copy with your conditions. In the meantime you can go into the recording booth down the hall with one of producer’s, Marlene, who’s style I thinks matches with yours very well, and get to know her and play round together with different sounds and vocals to see if you like working with her.” Dorcas says while standing up and collecting all of the papers.
“Ok, I’m good with that. It has been wonderful meeting you.” Remus shakes Dorcas’s hand and starts heading down the hall until he sees the door marked as recording booth. He walks inside and sees a woman with choppy platinum blonde hair sitting at the desk with all of the audio controls.
“Hello, are you Marlene?” Remus asks. The woman practically jumps out of her chair cursing.
“Jesus, give me some warning next time.” She says as she walks over to where Remus is standing by the door. “I am Marlene, are you Remus?”
Remus nods as an answer and she smiles “Amazing, so I was thinking maybe we could record some vocals for Now That We Don’t Talk and then play around with instruments, how does that sound.” She walks back over to her desk and Remus follows.
“Ok, that’s good with me.”
~
Two hours later they had a demo for the song and Remus was in shock. It sounded amazing and exactly as he had imagined it when writing it. Also he and Marlene clicked so well together that Remus knows there is no way he is recording the rest of this album with anyone else but her.
Dorcas buzzed them a few minutes ago telling him to come back to the conference room from before so he can sign the contract. Remus said goodbye to Marlene and gave her his number so they can coordinate a time to meet up and record again.
When he walked in the room this time there were only two people. One of them is Dorcas and the other he recognizes from before. She has long white-blonde hair and striking blue eyes. She is wearing a floor length baby blue dress.
“Remus, I didn’t get the chance to introduce the two of you before, this is Pandora Rosier and she is your publicist.” Dorcas introduces.
Pandora puts her hand out and Remus shakes it. “It’s wonderful to meet you Remus, we are going to be seeing each other a lot so I do hope we get along.” Pandora says sweetly.
“I hope so too.”
Dorcas slid the new contract across the table with a pen and he skimmed it again, happy to find his conditions added in. He picked up the pen and looked at the dotted line. As soon as he signed it he wouldn’t be able to go back to having a normal life, and strangely enough bough for the first time the thought didn’t cause him any fear, only excitement. And as he puts the pen to the paper he forgets all about Sirius and everything that happened with him and only thinks about his future.