Thursday
Remus couldn’t even believe his eyes when he stepped into the PT office Thursday morning. Pomfrey had worked up her curls and put on some lipstick, making her look like some hot mother. Remus wasn’t even into women, but she looked fantastic.
“What are we looking so nice for?” he asked, hanging his coat on the hanger. Technically this was her office, but Remus had taken a lot of liberties in his time interning here.
“Can’t a woman just want to freshen up sometimes?” she shrugged in a white satin shirt.
“Not to hockey practice.”
She gave him a pointed look, but a smile still grazed her lips. “If you must know, I have a date right after work.”
Remus’ brows flew up. “We’re making up with the husband?” he asked. After his first couple of weeks here, Pomfrey had gotten rather comfortable with him, and complained to him about the pains of married life. He’d found it interesting to say the least, but not the least bit helpful. It started with her giving him some dating advice, but she’d only succeeded in scaring him away from marriage permanently.
“No, we’re divorcing, I’m going out with someone else.” She said it was the simplest thing in the world. The marriage between her and her future ex-husband should be displayed as evidence that God made mistakes.
He cleared his throat. “Well you look fabulous.” he smiled. It was the truth, she did have a special glow to her that Remus was nearly positive came from a good primer. He’d been friends with Lily for long enough, he should know.
It was fifteen minutes before their most usual visitor came in through the door.
“Mr Rosier, how lovely for you to be only ten minutes late.” she said chirpy. Remus saw the motion of his swallow. No one did passive aggressive like Mrs Pomfrey, and that meant something coming from him. His best friend was Sirius Black, after all.
“Sorry, I missed my bus.” he scratched his neck.
Pomfrey barely looked up from whatever she was writing. “Funny that the bus is always early when you have an appointment.”
Evan nodded even though she wasn’t looking at him.
The first person Remus had gotten to know from the team except for Sirius and James was Evan. He reminded him very much of James, the kind and loyal heart of his. Really, it didn’t take much to know him. Just like James, he was such a painfully open book, and such a sweet guy that people couldn’t help but like him.
“Well, how are we feeling today?” Pomfrey asked, clicking her pen closed. Evan was already seated on the table, shoes kicked off beneath him. This was routine for them, every single thursday. Evan would come in, get checked out, then get back to training.
“Very good,” he said. Remus even believed him. He was very good at doing what he was supposed to, keeping the ankles warm whenever he used them, and cold when they were painful or swollen. After a rest day, the inflammation had usually decreased.
Pomfrey took her little dentist style chair and rolled it over to the table. “I’m not liking this firmness I’m feeling here, Evan.” she said as her fingers felt along the joints. Evan grimaced slightly at the sensation, but that was normal. Tendonitis could sometimes feel like a bruise.
Evan didn’t respond, just sat there, waiting for her to get finished. She’d usually finish off with an anti-inflammatory cream that did a lot of pain reduction.
However, it did not seem like Pomfrey was messing around. “If we can’t get this swelling down, I don’t want you playing against Ravenclaw.” she said, and Evan’s face practically dropped.
“No, not the Ravenlcaw match, it’s too important, you can’t..”, but he was swiftly interrupted by her hand waving in front of her.
“I don’t want that either, Evan, so I suggest that we work really hard together to make this work, ok?”
Evan swallowed thickly, but nodded. Sometimes, Pomfrey could feel like this heartless cold monster, and in some ways she was. No one did tough love like she did, which made her perfect for a hockey team. Of course, it made her perfect for only a hockey team, but perfect nonetheless.
“I’m assigning Remus to you, and the two of you will work closely together to solve this issue, I will unfortunately be too busy stopping those other children from killing each other to do it myself.”
Remus’ head snapped to her in surprise. He would have asked about it, but there was something about being a team with her. You didn’t question the boss in front of other people, you saved that for later.
Evan looked over at Remus with a somewhat forced smile. He probably understood that this was not the position either of them had wanted, but it was what they were handed.
“That means that what Rdmus says, goes, and you will follow it like it was the commandments from the lord himself.”
“Of course.” Evan said, but Remus didn’t believe that for a second. Sure, Evna might be the easiest one to work with on the team, but he was still a hockey player at the end of the day.
After Evan left, Pomfrey looked over at Remus like she was expecting lashback at the decision.
“You’re locking me to Evan?” he asked, dissatisfaction lathering his voice.
She shook her head lightly. “You’re not locked to anyone, I’ll still need assistance, you’re getting a special opportunity.”
Remus almost laughed at that. “An opportunity?”He couldn’t see how this was anything short of a punishment. Remus was on the hockey team to learn how to treat injuries, and icing down some ankles did not cut it, not if he wanted to actually pass his finals. Maybe it was for bringing up her husband unprompted.
“You do realise how complicated this case is? His entire career rides on his ankles, quite literally, and I am trusting you to not fuck this up. Consider him your very first patient.”
As the words sunk in, Remus slowly realised what this meant. This meant that Evans' chances of being able to continue playing hockey rode on his decisions being right. He wasn’t even a practising PT yet, and she was giving him the power of a man’s life. Remus was sure he would be able to put a few ice packs and to a couple of stretches without making things worse, but Evan needed his ankles to be better.
“I can’t do that.” he tried, but when Pomfrey had made up her mind, there was little to be done.
“I’ll expect a report of his progress every morning on my desk.”
He couldn’t even imagine the amount of work that he had to do. Of course, he knew the fundamentals of tendonitis, but if he was going to do this, he would need to know everything there was to know about it, every treatment, every symptom, every cause. He was already drowning in work from his classes, and now he had to teach himself everything about ankles.
Knowing better than to argue any further, he nodded.
She gave him a pointed look through her glasses. “He’s your responsibility, Remus, don’t let him down.”
Much in contrast to what one might think, their favourite student bar at Gryffindor College was at its peak during Thursdays. This was when they discounted the big jugs of beers, making them only twenty dollars compared to the usual thirty.
“Will you just pick out a jacket?” Sirius complained, looking off after James inside the closet.
“I’m not looking for my jacket.”
“Then what the fuck are you doing in the closet?” he asked, and Remus couldn’t help but snort, shameful as that was. What was he, twelve?
“I’m looking for the bottle.” he said, and Sirius immediately got a vicious glint in his eyes.
“The bottle?”
The lack of an answer was as much as they needed. Ever since they had first discovered alcohol in high school, they had developed techniques. Small enough and flat bottles, soft plastic ones, boxes of gum… They knew how to bring alcohol wherever, but ever since they got old enough for everything under 20%, James hadn’t really used their tricks. It usually wasn’t all that necessary for him, seeing as he was such a horrible lightweight that he only needed beer to get going.
Still, there were always a few times where he would just decide to bring a couple of shots of 40% they had Frank get them. James was fun when tipsy, but when he had some forty he was hard to keep up with. It was like a reverse adderall for him.
“I see we're bringing out Jamie.” Sirius joked, making Remus laugh. Sometimes, they would nick drunk James (or just James with the zoomies) as Jamie. He wasn’t really all that different, but it could be tiring. The first half of high school before he got serious with hockey had been dominated by Jamie, and even Sirius had trouble keeping up with him.
“It’s a Thursday, after all.” his muffled sound came from out of the closet.
At very select times, Remus felt regret over not agreeing to move in with James and Sirius. Of course, he would have saved so much money, seeing as it was the Potters that cashed out, but at the time, it had felt wrong to have someone else pay for him. Then, he’d remembered how rich they were, and regretted his life decisions. Also, they had a walk in closet which Remus and Sirius was now standing on the outside of while James rummaged through.
“Ah, there.” he eventually said, emerging from the door, looking like he’d been leaning down for just a bit too long. His hair was just a little extra tall, and his face was just noticeably flushed red. In his hand, a smaller hard plastic bottle laid flat and curved, like a smaller version of a pocket lark.
Sirius reached out for it, and James dutifully handed it over. “What are we drinking?” he asked.
James shrugged. “You choose.”
Remus grimaced at the smile on Sirius’ face. Bad news.
“Yeah, we’re getting visited by Jamie tonight.”
They did indeed get visited by Jamie that night.
At first, it started off rather slow. James was smart enough not to start with whatever Sirius poured him in the lark, but he did eventually get to it. Remus wasn’t there, but he could smell it from him after emerging from the bathroom.
“Remus, you need to drink some more.” James complained, and Remus laughed.
No sober person would ever mistake Remus for being one of them at this point of the night, but James had come far enough that he didn’t really recognize that.
“I’m alright, james.” he said, patting his shoulder. Hia sweater was discarded somewhere, leaving him in only a t- shirt. Remus made a mental note to try and find it so James wouldn’t freeze to death on the way home.
“Where’s Sirius?” he asked.
Remus looked around. He hadn’t seen him since leaving him at the bar maybe fifteen minutes ago. Hopefully he didn’t go off doing something stupid, but there was nothing to be done when Remus didn’t even see him. He was fine when he left him, and couldn’t have possibly had enough time to get wasted.
“Whattup, jamieboy?”
Remus was brought back to his surroundings by a familiar voice.
“Evvy.” James gleed, letting go of Remus to latch himself onto the newly arrived Evan. At least it looked like a mutual latching, Evan clearly wobbly on his feet.
“You have no idea, Connor was trying to smash that senior again…” Evan began, and Remus immediately lost interest. In a far off piece in his mind, he didn’t want to see Evan right now. He was far too stressed about his assignment. Also. he didn’t really trust his mouth not to slip up about his injury. He didn’t know how much they knew, even with James being the alternate captain on the team. Remus didn’t even think Frank knew about which players had injuries. Only Coach Evans, Pomfrey and Remus did.
He managed to sneak off without James making a big scene out of it, too distracted by Evan. They were some sort of soulmates when drunk. James’ love language, without a doubt, was physical touch, and he could get impossible when he was drunk. Good thing was that Evan was very much similar in wanting physical contact, so it was easy leaving the two of them to whatever kind of homoerotic hockey-bro thing that was going on there.
Pressing his way through the crowd of people, he passed a few of the players on the team, but they were either busy chatting up some girl that was way too pretty for them, or standing in a small circle with each other.
It was only when he got past the dance floor that he saw someone he wanted to talk to.
“Thank god.” he muttered, slumping down in the booth next to Lily. Mary was on the other side.
“Rough night?” Lily asked.
Remus just nodded his head up and down, closing his eyes at the wonderful quiet of the corner of the bar.
“Well, I think it’s about to get rougher.” Mary chuckled, poking at the ice in her drink with her straw.
He raised his head up, raising an eyebrow. Whatever this was, he didn’t want to hear it, which of course meant that he definitely needed to.
Lily pointed behind her. “Sirius.” she simply said, and Remus’ eyes followed her finger and landed on the bathroom door.
“Noooo.” he complained, burying his head in Lily’s shoulder. Instead of laughing like Maery did, she patted him sympathetically. He had been so foolish to think fifteen minutes wasn’t enough time for Sirius to fuck up.
“You’ve gotta tell him that he can’t keep doing this.” she said.
Remus knew he needed to take this conversation with him a long time ago, but he didn’t have it in him. It was as complicated as something could get.
“Can’t you?” he groaned, but this time Lily did laugh.
“He won’t listen to me, you know that.” she said. Remus did know that, but it would have been nice to pretend otherwise.
“Atta boy.” Mary encouraged as he dragged himself up from the booth.
The music quieted down the further he got from the bar-area, but there were a lot of people hanging around and chatting.
He pushed open the door, and was met with the familiar smell of tequila and vomit from the bathroom. In the furthest stall, the door was open, and he saw a pair of dirty white sneakers sticking out. Moving closer, he was met with the sight of Sirius propped up against the wall, phone in hand.
“Sirius,” he said, and the boy's eyes jumped up.
At first, he seemed surprised, but then he seemed utterly shameful.
“Remus…” he began, but trailed off.
Remus moved in and crouched in front of the stall opening. There was no way he was ever sitting down on that floor.
For a few seconds they only looked at each other, Remus disappointed and Sirius remorseful. Remus wasn’t exactly sure what he was supposed to say to this.
“I’m sorry.” Sirius began, but Remus cut him off.
“This happens every time.”
Sirius nodded heavily with his eyes on the floor, but made no attempt to speak. That meant Remus had to take the lead. “Why do you keep doing this?”
Sirius' face practically shattered at the question, drunk and miserable. Remus’ stomach twisted in anger and pity. “Every time we’re out, I have to look out for you when you get drunk.” he couldn’t stop his brows from knitting together in some sort of desperation, but he managed to keep his voice steady.
“I hate seeing you like this, but I can’t very well leave you to it, can I?”
Sirius’ voice quivered as he whispered a barely audible sorry. He still didn’t look up at Remus.
“Why do we keep ending up here?” he asked, but didn’t try to fill the silence that ensued, forcing Sirius to answer.
“I don’t know, Remus.”
It looked like tears welled up in his eyes at this, making Remus’ chest ache.
The door clattered as it was pushed open, and a guy stumbled into one of the stalls, zipping down his pants.
“We’ll talk about this tomorrow.” he said, reaching out a hand to Sirius. They stumbled out of the bathroom, and Remus’ cloudy brain completely forgot about the usually restrained James before taking off towards their apartment.
James
James was out of it somewhere. He remembered talking to Evan, but he’d gone off somewhere, and James couldn’t find him again. At one point, he stumbled upon Johnny, but he only seemed delighted at his state of mind, treating him to a beer. It didn’t really taste all that much, which was not nearly a good sign. There was a cold gust of wind, and James realised he was outside.
There was a glow from street lights, and a red hue from the sign of the Leaky. There were a few people out there, but James couldn’t recognize any of them well. His brain couldn’t quite place anyone. He was sure he had seen one of the girls before, but she could very well be a stranger.
Another gust of wind reminded him of the temperature. He couldn’t really feel it, but he knew it was very cold, judging by the tingling on his skin.
He tried patting around his pants, but couldn’t find his phone anywhere.
“Fuck..” he muttered, and stumbled towards the door of the Leaky. On the first set on stairs, his toe acute, making him trip over, falling straight to his hands and knees. At least he could be thankful for the numbness, because he knew very well that his shins had hit the hard concrete edge. He rolled over to his back side, laying down with his head on the top step. It did not feel uncomfortable, but James couldn’t bring himself to care.
He didn’t think that he had thrown up, but Sirius would always tell him that he never really drank enough for that.
“James?” a voice said, and he lifted his head to see who was talking to him. A figure moved towards him, but it took his eyes a few seconds to focus in on it.
The only thing his mind could recognize from this distance was the black and textured hair.
“Sirius?” he asked, making him snort.
“Close.” he said without the usual French r that Sirius couldn’t for the life of him conceal when drunk. Maybe he hadn’t drank that much.
The person stepped closer, crouching over him on the stairs, and James realised that there was something different about the face. The jaw and top of his lips were just slightly different enough that he was able to distinguish who it was, even in his drunken state.
“Reggie?” he asked in disbelief.
“Better.” he smiled.
James squinted up at him, like he wasn’t completely sure that his eyes weren't playing a trick on him. “What are you doing here?” he asked only to realise that might have been a rude question. “No, of course, it’s a Thursday, everyone is here. I didn’t think that you wouldn’t want to have any fun, you’re lots of fun, I just…..” but fortunately enough, Regulus cut off his rambling before he could dig his grave any further.
“James…, James.” he held a hand up. “You called me, remember?”
James grimaced at that. He could not remember calling him, and that could not mean anything good. Who knows the things he might have been spitting out.
His voice was a bit panicked and rushed when he talked again. “Shit, what did I say?”
Regulus huffed at that. “Not completely sure.”
James slumped his head back down on the step, probably a bit too hard. He could see his vision shake and a grimace on Regulus’ face as he did it. “Why did you come here then?”
“Because you called me drunk enough not to form proper sentences, of course I’m here.”
“Ah.”
James kept looking up at him. The red light from the sign made the ends of this hair a dark pink-red colour. He thought it looked cool, like it was a shot from a movie.
Then despite himself, he started to chuckle. In complete honesty, it was closer to a giggle, but he could live in denial about that.
Regulus rolled his eyes and grabbed James’ shoulders. At first James was confused at the gesture, but the hands pulled at him, forcing him to sit upright. Immediately, he was hit by a wave of nausea, and felt thankful for the two hands keeping him from tipping over. He hung his head down, and squeezed his eyes shut, but that only made the spinning of his head worse, so he opened his eyes again.
“You think you can make it to the car?” Regulus asked.
James instinctively nodded, even though he wasn’t entirely too sure about that. “Ok, I’m going to pull you up, and you’re going to hold on to me very tightly.” he instructed, and James' hands flew up to Regulus’ wrists. He redirected one of the hands to his shoulder, and slid his other hand around him. The second they started getting up, James almost buckled over at the new wave of nausea that hit him. Regulus stood patiently and held him up as James caught his bearings as much as he was able to.
Eventually, Regulus was able to drag James over to somewhere, but he wasn’t sure exactly where. His eyes were plastered to his feet as he forced them not to falter beneath him.
“This is nice.” James joked, making regulus snort ever so lightly.
He saw a shiny black surface in front of him, and heard a car door opening. He then felt the sensation of falling as he was dropped into a seat. A few more moments after, another car door opened, and Regulus was in the car with him.
“Where do you live?” he asked, and James’ eyebrows immediately flew up.
“My phone…” he mumbled.
“What?”
“I can’t get in without my phone.” At least he was sober enough to remember the lock mechanism on their door.
He heard a sigh from his left. “Is Sirius home then?”, and that made James snort.
“Who knows?” he said. There was maybe a fifty percent chance that he was at someone else's place. James wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to know.
“Where did you put your phone then?” Regulus asked, but James drew up his shoulders. He didn’t even remember using it at all.
“We’ll look for it tomorrow, let’s just get you to bed.” he said, and James didn’t argue. He wasn’t sure how he was going to solve the issue of getting through the door, but James was willing to let him figure that one out.
He started to slowly drive, but James felt sicker and sicker for every turn that the car took.
“Don’t throw up in my car.” Regulus said, and James winced at the mention of throwing up, He did not need to think about that. Most of the car ride consisted of James very concentratedly trying not to be sick as Regulus carefully drove.
When the car stopped, James had never felt more grateful in his life. He lifted his head again, but instead of being met by the grey concrete building he and Sirius lived in, he was met with the sight of a white one. At least he recognized this white building.
“Hey, this is your flat.” he mumbled the second Regulus’ opened his car door.
“Did you want to sleep on the streets?” he asked, making James try and give a scowl in return, but he wasn’t completely sure that his eyebrows followed his lead though.
This time, it was a little easier to walk, but he didn’t trust himself enough to let go of Regulus. That seemed like a sure way to end up against a wall.
Fortunately, Regulus also had an elevator that took them up to tha boring white and grey hallway he lived in.
Regulus opened the door, and a wave of warmth flooded over James’ entire body. For a good couple of seconds, it felt amazingly good, but then it started to feel a little too hot for him.
“Get to the sink.” Regulus instructed, and James did. He knew very well that he had to get some water in him, no matter how much he didn’t want it. He turned on the faucet and started the slow process of swallowing it down, miraculously avoiding throwing it back up.
“Why did you turn the temperature up so much?” he complained, but Regulus fixed him with a look.
“It’s not hot here.” he said, but James pulled off the counter, starting to pull his shirt over his head. He noted that it was damp, and smelled of alcohol.
“James..” Regulus began, trying to pull his shirt back on, but James swatted his hands away.
“It’s disgusting, I don't wanna wear it.” he complained, pulling it completely off, letting it hang from his left wrist.
“Jesus..” Regulus mumbled before pulling the shirt off his hand. “Let’s just get you to bed.” he mumbled, leading James towards the living room. Instead of plopping him down on his couch, he turned him left, towards a door.
“I get a bed?” he asked hopefully, but received no answer.
The door opened, and James was met with a room that he vaguely recognized. In the very middle was a large bed that James felt a magnetic force pull him towards. He dutifully followed, and let himself fall on top of it. Immediately, he was hit with the faintest smell of peach.
“Reggie, it smells like you.” he said into the covers.
“Shocker.” he responded, pulling James' feet up into the bed. “Are you gonna sleep on top of the duvet?”
“Mhm.”
“That’ll get cold.”
“You can have them.”
“I’m sleeping on the couch.”
That made James groan. Oftentimes when he was drunk, he’d sleep in Sirius’ room, just because he felt such an intense need to hold someone.
“Noo, I don’t wanna sleep alone.” he complained, grabbing ahold of Regulus’ arm.
“Why?”
“I wanna cuddle someone.”
That made Regulus laugh. “I’m still sleeping on the couch, James.”
“You can go after I fall asleep.”
“No.”
James sighed and slumped his hand back down on the covers. “Ok.” he said, but made sure to send him a pair of sad eyes.
“Don’t try to guilt trip me, James, it’s not going to work.”
“Not even a little?” he helplessly tried, and Regulus sent him a flat look.
“I can make you pancakes tomorrow.” he offered, but Regulus didn’t relent.
“You can do that as a thanks anyway,”
Cold. What a cold hearted monster Regulus was being to a poor drunken man.
“Please?” he asked, making Regulus huff out a laughter.
“I’m tempted just to make you shut up.” he joked, and James knew that he meant it as a joke in the very far back of his brain. “Yes, do that.” he said, reaching back up for him. With a yelp, Regulus fell down horizontally over him.
“That wasn’t what I meant, James.” he said, getting up on his hands and knees to crawl off of him.
“Then why did you say it.” he complained.
“Sorry that I forgot drunk people don’t get sarcasm.”
James frowned, flopping unhappily back down on the bed. “You’re being so mean to me.”
“I can live with that.” he said, getting up. “Good night James.”
James shot him an annoyed look. “Have a good, cold and lonely night.”