How to love someone
It is weird waking up alone. You’d think it is something you must get used to, but when you sleep next to someone, waking up alone is a weird experience. Your brain is so used to it that you feel somebody next to you, the familiar weight sunking in the mattress and you even respect the limits you unconsciously put between the other person and yourself. Waking up alone makes you feel hollow and cold.
Barty feels so cold right now.
He’s been sleeping with Regulus ever since the tour started, they talked about it on the way to the hotel after their first show, Evan didn’t know that Sirius was Regulus’ brother, but he did. The moment Regulus talked to Sirius, Barty knew. And to be honest, he felt really stupid by no realising it earlier, they are fucking copies of each other. Well, except Regulus is hotter, but not the point. The main thing was that Regulus needed something to make him feel safe, not that he was in actual physical danger, but maybe he was in an emotional way. Barty told him he could stay with him if it helped him, so Regulus did. And so on for the last week.
Today? Today Regulus isn’t there. He shouldn’t freak out, because he may have gone back to his room and spent the night there. He calls Pandora -who is already awake, what the hell? It’s really early- so she can give him Regulus’ room number, when she does, he gets up, throws a hoodie on and marches to Regulus’ room. He knocks and waits. He knocks again, waits again. And again. And one last time. Barty frowns and sends him a text, just to check if he is alright. The text doesn’t reach him. Now he is worried and freaking out.
Next thing he does is go to Evan’s room, as he is the next logical person Regulus would be with.
He isn’t. And he just woke Evan up so now he’s grumpy and staring at him like his days are counted. When he explains that he can’t find Regulus is when he starts moving too. Evan texts Dorcas, just in case she knows, she doesn’t. Barty texts Lily, she doesn’t answer. Then Evan texts Remus, because apparently he has Remus’ phone number, he also doesn’t know, but he ends up asking Sirius and now they have a grumpy Sirius (he is not a morning person either) in the corridor.
“What do you mean you don’t know where my brother is?” Sirius asks and they are fucking scary when they are angry.
“Not your brother,” Barty replies, because that’s what Regulus always says when talking about Sirius, and Barty is nothing if not loyal to Reg.
“Fuck that,” Sirius scowls. “Have you checked his room?” Barty is mildly offended by that, does he think he is an idiot?
Look he has nothing personal against Sirius, he even thinks they are a great artist and performer. Has the voice of an angel and the talent of a God. But. But Regulus does. He won’t leave Regulus alone against them, can’t do that. Nope. Sorry.
“Of course I did,” Barty rolls his eyes. He is almost the same height as Sirius, so he looks straight into their eyes. “Not a fucking idiot,” he huffs.
“Maybe he went to grab breakfast,” Remus, who’s standing next to Sirius, says. His voice is patient and calm.
“No way,” Evan shakes his head. “Reg is not a morning person, he would rather skip breakfast than wake up early.”
Remus looks oddly soft about that, he gives Sirius a look for him just to dismiss it.
“What is going on? I just woke up and saw your text,” Lily appears next to them and lifts her phone up. “You can’t find Regulus?” She sounds concerned.
“He has to be somewhere in here,” Remus says and Evan nods agreeing with him.
“Yeah, but where?” Barty asks, not being friendly about it.
“Let me go ask Pandora if she knows,” Lily says and Barty stops her.
“Doubt she knows, she thinks he is in his room,” he pauses and then looks at Sirius. “Which he isn’t.”
“I’ll ask Marlene and Mary if they know anything,” Lily says instead, she sends the messages and soon they have Mary, Marlene and Peter in the hall.
“I’ll go ask James,” Sirius says, but instead of sending a text, he goes to his room. He walks in because he has a key (kind of weird if you ask Barty, isn’t he dating Lupin?). They wait for him and it doesn’t take long to see Sirius walking out of the room with a grimace on his face.
James follows them, shirtless which Barty can’t help to look at, so what? The man is hot and he is just a man with taste, sue him; and after James there’s Regulus. Who looks like he woke up seconds ago, but that is not what he is worried about, no. Regulus is angry . And if Barty was a believer he would start praying for the person he is angry at.
If Barty was a believer, he would start praying for Sirius.
“Found him,” Sirius says.
It is not a secret that James and Regulus have something going on, had been for a while but not really. Barty thinks that Regulus' little obsession with James was mutual, because the way James sees him… it has to mean something.
“What the fuck?” Regulus asks, but the tone in his voice makes everybody look at Sirius with worry, Barty doesn’t. He looks at him in wonder, amazed by the power he has that makes everyone shiver in worry.
“What?” Sirius asks back, not worried about himself.
“Why on earth would you do that?” Regulus snaps.
“Do what? Go to my best friend’s room?” Sirius snaps back.
Barty has been asked if Reg is Sirius’ brother, Marlene was the first one to ask him, of course he denied it and poor Marlene was left confused. But now? Now there’s no way anyone has doubt that they are brothers, because the way they are fighting right now, that’s sibling behaviour.
“Why were you even looking for me ?”
“Fuck off, I was looking for James , you little shit,” Sirius is angry now, matching (literally matching, it is with the same intensity) Regulus’ energy. “Barty was the one looking for you, the rest got worried,” they explain and Regulus turns to look at Barty, but as soon as he sees Barty he understands why he was looking for him.
Regulus then turns to look at James, with such fierceness it would make even Barty take a step back. James remains in place and waits for whatever Regulus has to say.
“This right here,” he points to Sirius and honestly, Barty wants to laugh because he refers to them as ‘this’. “Is why we can’t do it, James,” he says and walks over to Barty. James looks visibly hurt, like it pains him. “Lets go,” Reg tells him and Barty follows him.
He always follows.
When he first met Reg he hated him, he was so posh and he just hated it. He wore (still does) fancy clothes and fancy jewellery. What he hated the most was the way he always talked about his brother, he wouldn’t shut up about it. Barty doesn’t have any siblings, at least not that he knows of. His mother remarried when he was ten, it was his stepfather who decided to send him away and mind you, he never resented his mother for that, he adores the woman, but his parental figures? Fuck. Them.
Eventually, he got to know Regulus and he is still posh but with time, he talked less about his big brother and later on, he stopped talking about him at all. Nowadays, he never even mentions his name.
And Barty followed him, he was there through all of it. He was there when he cut ties with his family, and as soon as he was of age and received his inheritance, Barty found all of that weird, he doesn’t care how old fashioned his family is. He followed when they moved in together along with Evan. He followed when he turned fifteen and his brother stopped being his brother. He followed him all the way back to London. He followed Regulus through his breakup.
And Regulus also follows him.
When he finally faced his stepfather, Regulus was with him, literally. He was there at his old house when he got into a fight with him. He followed him when his biological father died and they attended his funeral. He followed Barty as soon as he told him his ex boyfriend wasn’t right for him. He followed him through his dream of being in a band.
That’s what they do, they follow each other.
There is a bond they haven’t found in any other, they love each other even though they have only said it one time in their lives. Regulus trusts Barty enough to bring him comfort, to touch him even when he hates being touched. It is one of the reasons why he knows Reg loves him. He doesn’t abuse that, he knows Regulus lets him, but he prefers to make him feel comfortable.
But.
Maybe Barty loves Regulus a little bit more than he should. Well, uh, not maybe. Barty knows he loves him more than he should. He’s known it for a long time, even before James appeared in their lives. Don’t get him wrong, that doesn’t mean he will sit and wait because he has no active intentions of telling Regulus or making a move on him. He knows better than that, his friendship with Regulus is more valuable.
But sometimes, he can help to try to make a move, like yesterday, he couldn’t help it, Regulus looked good, so freaking good. He almost pities himself, but he was blessed by the look of Regulus wearing eyeliner. Fuck his life. He tried his best to behave himself, but as soon as Regulus started playing his solo in ‘If you were there, beware’ he couldn’t help it, he tried to distract himself with the audience but Regulus was there, playing his bass and wearing eyeliner. He just had to get close to him and Regulus let him. Sometimes, Regulus lets Barty just do things with him, things that he wouldn’t normally allow anyone else.
When they get into the plane to go to their next stop, Regulus sits with him instead of alone as he has been doing. They talk for a while but Regulus falls asleep fifteen minutes after they are in the air, settling his head down on his shoulder. Barty allows it, because why wouldn’t he? He feels the looks of the others, especially from James, Sirius and even Evan. He doesn’t care, he enjoys the moment.
Pretty much, Barty is fucked.
-
As soon as they land, James is answering a phone call. Remus guesses he is talking with Effie, something happened between Regulus and James that they can’t understand yet. The facts are that they spent the night together but as soon as Sirius entered that room, something shifted for Regulus. He knows Sirius is feeling kind of guilty about James being down, but they also feel mad about his brother’s reaction.
This time they go straight into the venue to soundcheck. Everything is weird now, Regulus hasn’t left Barty’s side and James is just sorrowful. Everyone is confused and doesn’t know how to act around the brothers, James or even Barty.
This is the first show since the beginning of the tour that they don’t watch The Sekans soundcheck, they go backstage and talk with Emmeline for a while. Lily is there with them, as she always is when James is feeling sad. After Emmeline leaves, they start discussing tonight's setlist, which songs they want to sing and everything they want for the show.
Something that is characteristic of a show from The Marauders is that they each have a segment where they sing a song that is distinctive to each of the members. They decided to do this so they could show their fans the talent they have individually and how that can come together as a group and also, because usually, the songs they choose to sing are personal to them. Sometimes they change the songs they choose as a surprise, sometimes they leave it as part of the setlist.
Right now, in this show, Remus has chosen a special song because his mother and sisters are going to be in the audience, but he hasn’t told anyone given the circumstances. He loves his family endlessly, they are his everything, but even everything has holes in it. They are not the perfect dream family, they struggled financially for most of his life, practically stopped struggling once he started getting checks because of the band (one of the many reasons he is grateful to be in it). Hope’s never been one to travel a lot, so she hasn’t been to that many shows as he wishes she has, his sisters however, there was a time they travelled with them for almost a month. He is happy when they are near, but right now? It’s a mess in the process.
“Your family is here, why didn’t you tell us?” James asks. They are at soundcheck and he just told the guys what song he’s chosen for his set tonight.
“It’s not a big deal,” wrong thing to say, he knows, but he doesn’t feel like making a big deal.
“Fuck that, we love Hope and your sisters,” James says.
“Maybe you love Amelia a little too much, Prongs,” Peter says and Sirius laughs. Remus and James grimace.
“Oi, could you let it go? Please, it was one time,” James begs. “And no more than kissing,” James swears to Remus.
“Believe me, Prongs, I know.”
Remus does know. James was asking for forgiveness for a week while Amelia was explaining the situation over and over, he wasn’t even mad, but it was weird as hell to even picture his little sister with his best mate. Either way, Remus knows that James has a lot of respect towards their friendship and his whole family, including -obviously- Amelia. Besides, it was something meaningless, they were drunk and found the opportunity, it’d be absurd to be mad at James for the choices his (adult) sister makes, if it had been Sabina maybe then he would be mad, because James is quite older for her.
“How did you know my family was here?” Remus asks James, he blushes.
“Well, uh, Amelia called me telling me they were arriving before the show starts,” he explains and Remus can see Sirius and Peter laughing in James’ back. So it wasn’t Effie who he was talking to earlier.
“You text with my sister?”
“Yes?”
“Is it a question?”
“No? I mean, no. Well, yes. Yes I text with Amelia but not because of any reasons you may think, we’re just friends.”
“Just friends, he says,” Peter bullies him.
“Good friends, Prongs?” Sirius teases, James blushes, even though they are in fact just friends. Remus knows that because he knows James is gone for Regulus. However, Remus isn’t sure James knows how far gone he is now.
“Piss off,” Remus tells them and they burst into laughter. “It’s okay, Prongs,” he tells James, patting his shoulder and making the others continue with the soundcheck.
There is a tension between all of the bands right now, especially between The Sekans and The Marauders, now that it is an established thing that Regulus and Sirius are brothers, and also that James and Regulus were a (very brief) thing. Well, let's just say that Evan and Barty are very protective over Regulus, but The Marauders are very protective over Sirius as well. It has put James in a spot where he is visibly stressed all the time, which led to Lily spending more time with him (she can’t help it, really, if she sees James sad, it is like a magnet to her) and that’s made Regulus jealous, because apparently now he knows that they were dating. He hasn’t explicitly said it, but by the way Regulus keeps glancing at them, Remus knows he has figured it out.
If you ask Remus, there is a hell of a drama going on in this tour, that’s also the reason he didn’t say anything about his family coming. It is dramatic enough.
Pandora leads his family backstage as soon as they arrive at the venue, Amelia and Donna are smiling while Sabina is just deadstaring everyone and is wearing headphones, oddly -now that he thinks about it- Regulus reminds him a bit of his little sister. You can hear her music, even though the crowd is arriving and filling the venue too. Hope is walking a few steps behind his sisters, but she is smiling as well.
Hope is the first one to see Remus, no matter that they are still far from each other. However, the first person who Amelia sees is James, Sirius and Peter laugh about it of course, but James greets her without shame or hesitation, they hug and exchange a few words and then Amelia she greets him. Donna waits to greet him first and then the rest of his friends, she has decency towards him.
“Hey,” Remus gestures to his little sister, Sabina looks at him as she’s been looking at everyone but eventually she smiles while taking off her headphones. “How is my favourite sister?”
“Thought Amelia was your favourite,” she dares him. Remus huffs.
“It’s actually Donna,” he shrugs and rolls his eyes. He doesn’t have a favourite, well he does, but it depends on the day and if some of them piss him off, Amelia frequently is, but ask him to choose one? No, never. He’d rather die.
“Liar,” she says, rolling her eyes as well and then hugs him, squeezes him hard and he knows what it means, yeah, he missed her too.
The relationship he has with each of his sisters are all different, in his eyes, they all are his little sisters, some more little than the other, but still. There is something about being the firstborn that makes you feel like you are in charge of them, their wellbeing. It is actually a pretty insane thing, but he doesn’t mind. It took him a while to understand it isn’t his responsibility and learned to establish limits with them. It was healthier for all of them.
“Hello, my big boy,” his mother opens his arms and even though he is definitely taller, his mum is the one who hugs him by the shoulders, making him duck to let her hug him.
“Hi, mum,” he whispers.
“How are you, my love?”
“I’m fine,” he shrugs as he pulls away from the hug. His relationship with his mother is complex, he loves her and forever will be thankful for everything she’s ever done for her family, but he never understood her and neither did she.
There is love and will always be. There is no understanding and will never be.
“Excellent, love. Where is Sirius?”
Ah, yes. Hope loves Sirius, she finds them endearing. Remus suspects that if he wasn’t in love with them, Hope would’ve wanted to adopt Sirius into their family just like Effie did.
“Oh, here I am, Hope!” Sirius says behind him and if they don’t run to her it is because they are already close.
“How are you?”
“I’ve been better, but happy because you are here, Hope,” their eyes sparkled, he is shy with Hope but still has his spark of charming people around him, her included.
Hope continues to say hi to everyone and he can tell she’s happy. He is as happy as he can be about them being here, but he is more concerned about how his partner is. As much as Sirius is trying to act cool, Remus knows them. They are still worrying about the whole thing back in Stockholm, Regulus ending things with James because of Sirius. It doesn’t make sense to him, giving up someone you want for a problem you had with someone close to them, it is absurd. But he gets it, he thinks. Whatever Sirius and Regulus fought about years ago is big enough for them to still be unable to talk or sometimes even look at the other.
Either way, he talks with his sisters or his sisters talk and he tries to be active in any of the conversations only to fail successfully, because he loves to hear them talk. They bring a piece of home to him when they come. His family feels fuller and more complete now that they are here. The girls are here as well, Marlene is talking with Donna about something he can’t quite understand, but Marlene looks really passionate about it. Amelia is talking with James and Peter, they are laughing and by the way James blushes, he knows Peter is teasing him. Sabina is talking with Lily and Mary, he guesses that was meant to happen, Sabina has a soft spot for Lily. His mother as well as him are just happy to listen to all of them catching up and laughing.
Sirius is next to Remus, under his arm resting his head on his chest, he is overthinking, another day he would be teaming up with Peter to tease James and Amelia. But today they are feeling down and Remus wants to do something about it, he would easily go to Regulus’ room and get violent if he has to, he likes Regulus, but he loves his brother. He doesn’t do it because he knows Sirius and what they need is to be coddled. So he does exactly that.
Remus keeps them close to him all the time, always touching him, holding his hands or only his pinky, hugging him, giving them little kisses. Whatever they need, Remus will do it.
“Are you okay, love?” he asks anyway. Sirius nods against his chest. “If you are not, just tell me and we’ll solve it, okay?”
“Thank you, Moony,” they say. “It helps that your family is here, helps me keep myself distracted,” he sighs and Remus holds him with both his arms now, plants a kiss on their forehead and Sirius closes his eyes to the touch.
“I love you,” Remus whispers.
“I love you too.”
They don’t really get a lot of time with Remus’ family but they promise to have breakfast with them as they will stay for another day in Copenhagen before they have to go to Oslo. His sisters are excited, even Sabina who is good at hiding her emotions. They say goodbye so his family can go to their seats which according to Pandora are front row because that’s what Amelia asked for. On their way out, they run into The Sekans who are getting ready to be on stage in a few minutes.
“Who are they?” Donna asks no one in particular, her voice attracts the attention of the guys.
“They are the first opening band,” Marlene explains. “They won a competition and now are touring with us.”
“Are they good?” she asks interested.
“I’ll have you know, we are pretty good,” Barty answers, even though she didn’t ask him.
“Are you now?” she asks and oh no. No. Remus won’t allow it. His little sister is trying to flirt with Barty and he seems to flirt back because he smirks.
“Barty,” Remus bursts out, standing next to Donna. “Meet Donna,” Barty smiles more and looks at her more interested. “My sister,” Barty’s smile doesn’t go away but it falters.
“Didn’t know you had sisters,” Evan says now, joining the conversation.
“Yeah, I have three,” he informs them, because now Regulus is also interested in the topic of his family. “Donna here,” he points with his head to his sister. Then turns and sees that Sabina is not far away so he gestures to her to come and she does. “This is Sabina, the little one,” he says and she instantly rolls her eyes. “And…,” he looks for Amelia but can’t find her. “Where is Amelia?” he asks Sabina.
She shrugs and says, “I don’t know, last time I saw her she was chatting with James.”
At that Regulus huffs and leaves to continue getting ready for their show. Barty seems troubled about going after him or staying, he follows Regulus.
“I like him,” Donna and Sabina say at the same time. They look at each other.
“I like Barty,” Donna specifies.
“Well, I like Regulus,” Sabina says and it was to be expected, at least to Remus. He guesses it is something about both of them being the younger sibling. He doesn’t really know if that is a factor, but he can feel they will get along.
Remus would never ever choose one of his sisters over the other, but he does have a different relationship with Sabina, she is the little one whether she likes it or not. Remus was there the day she was born, he remembers how tiny and fragile she was wrapped around his mother arms, he wanted to hold her too but he was holding Amelia with his right hand and Donna with his left one, who were trying to see their new sister and so was Remus, but he tried to keep distance of his sisters with the new one because Sabina was just tiny and fragile. He couldn’t afford breaking her. With time, he realised she was not fragile, not at all. She was fearless and bold, never afraid of saying what she thinks or doing what she wants. They got into a lot of fights, used to bicker a lot, but he was also the one she ran to when she fought with Amelia or Donna, she looked for him when her first tooth fell out, she told him about her first boyfriend before anyone else and she asked him for a hug when she went through her first heartbreak.
She was also the one who did the scars that are on his face.
And yet, Remus still sees her as a tiny person to be protected. He can’t help it, right now he knows how to control the urge to lock her in the basement to prevent her ever getting hurt like when she had her heart broken, because she is strong and smart and he is proud of his little sister.
That’s why the situation with Regulus is bizarre to him, because he likes him as a person, loves Sirius like he’s never loved anyone before, understands Sirius’ frustration and sadness when his little brother is near but also gets why they push each other away.
Having a sibling is one of the best and worst gifts life can give you. There is no love compared to it, but they are granted the ability to piss you off like no other.
When it’s turn to sing his chosen song on this part of the tour, he changes places with Sirius leaving them to the drums and Remus grabbing his own bass that Letty (a crew member) was kind to give him. The fans go crazy because it is not every night that they do these kinds of changes. Peter goes next to the keyboard that is usually in charge of Sirius and James goes to Pete’s place.
Remus gets close to what would be James’ microphone stand, they each have their own microphones with them.
“Well, this next song is a personal song to me for many reasons,” he says close to his mic, placing it in the stand. Sirius is keeping the beat of the previous song. “Today, my family is here,” he explains and the fans scream as if it were their families. “Actually, all of my family is here,” he says and sees Sirius through his shoulder who is on his left, James who is adjusting the strips of his guitar and then Peter who is placing himself in front of the keyboard. Then to the fans, they scream. “This next song is called SCAR,” he announces and the lights turn black and then a dim orange lights up the stage, and flashes of white lights follow the sound of the keyboard Peter is doing, then Sirius is playing his drums, and Remus closes for two seconds his eyes feeling the emotions running through his body, just to open them before he starts to sing. “Got me wishin' God would show me the way, show me Heaven maybe just for a day. I'm feeling something that I don't understand. Can you help me be a better man?” He sings, he has never been used to singing, but when he writes part of a song or all of it, he feels comfortable. Being in the middle of the stage, taking the lead vocals is always intimidating, but the fans help him feel confident enough to keep going.
“Mother, mother, can you show me the way?” Sirius sings getting close to his mic and closing their eyes, still playing the drums. Remus has always loved when they do it, it drives Remus mad how well they do it and also how effortlessly it comes to him. “Can you light a tunnel to light of day? I'm sick of dealing with the problems at hand,” Remus wishes he could look at Sirius, he knows how personal the song is for them too. “Can you help me be a better man?”
This song was written by Remus and Sirius, it was one of the first Remus’s ever written, he was talking to Sirius one night about wanting to be more part of the band but he didn’t feel as if he was gifted as Sirius and James were, they were natural on this, while him and Peter were not. He doesn’t mind that much, but at the time, he just wanted to feel a part of the band and contribute to something. And then the song was born, he is really proud of it.
“There's no need to run and hide,” Remus sings the chorus.
“When the world leaves a scar,” meanwhile James harmonises in the back.
“There's no need to say goodbye, it's a painful thing to try, grit your teeth another timе,” Remus knows he doesn’t have the voice James has, but he knows how to handle it to make it sound great, because he knows that it does sound great. “When the world leaves a scar on you.”
“Sister, sister, don't you fade away,” Remus continues singing, looking for his sisters in the crowd. When he finds them he smiles and sings directly to them. “Sister, sister, love you all the way,” Donna is the first to notice he is looking at them and tells Sabina and Amelia to look at him. His mother was already looking at him, as if he was the whole show, like there was no one else on the stage with him.
“I'm feeling hopeful that you'll show a man,” James sings, Amelia is the first to look at him. “How to love someone as true as you can, yeah.”
“Brother, brother, we don’t speak nowadays,” Sirius sings, closing his eyes as if it pains him and it probably does. Regulus is just backstage, listening to the words his brother wrote a while ago, it most likely is the first time Regulus is listening to this song, because they haven’t played it live before this night. “You're a blueprint for a future that's paved,” Remus looks at the side of the stage and there he is. Regulus is staring at Sirius, staring at the pain of his brother, staring at his own pain reflected on Sirius. “My wishful thinking might not go as we planned,” Sirius opens their eyes and turns to see the side where Regulus is watching, as if he already knew he was there, like a force telling him to turn to see their little brother. “But I'll help you be a better man.”
By the time the second chorus ends, Regulus is no longer there.
“Break down the door, there's something more,” Remus sings, putting all his emotions in the song, in his voice. “Don't be afraid that in the end you'll have nothing,” his voice is strong. It took him a while to be able to control it, but now that he does, he feels like magic could run through his veins. “Break down the door, break down the door, ooh,” he sings and takes off the microphone of the stand to do the high note.
“Mother, mother,” Peter sings.
“Sister, sister,” Remus sings.
“Brother, brother,” Sirius sings, with his voice almost failing.
“When the world leaves a scar on you,” Remus finishes the song, the crowd goes wild, lights go off. He returns to his drums and so the next song begins.