(you drive me) crazy

Marlene was facing a very big problem in her life lately. It has been consuming a lot of her time to understand how this problem started, or why is it taking so much of her time just to think about it. She gets tired easily when her brain puts her through such rough thinking. The worst part is that she doesn’t have anyone to talk to about it.

Her best friend, Lily, is currently very busy working on a paper for school, she’s in a deep focused mindset to finish it as fast as possible and all spare time she has, she spends hanging around with Mary. Maybe Lily suffers from the same problems that Marlene does. But she won’t comment on it. Sirius, that is, her friend and (ex-boyfriend?) former kisser friend, they used to kiss around on parties insanely. That, until Sirius finally gathered his guts back inside his body and confessed his very real and intense romantic feelings for Remus Lupin. Besides all of them she could always talk to James, he was a vivid loving presence in everyone’s life, it was impossible to not love or fall into James, but Marlene never could see him as more than a very close friend, once she entertained the thought of dating James, they would be a nice couple maybe, she could see it. But then her stomach twisted, and she could never see herself with James in a realistic scenario, when she pictured herself being a mom she was always on her own, she couldn’t grasp the thought of really being with James. For her, it was a unique James Potter condition, and shouldn’t be applied to all men, maybe there was a man out there that she could enjoy the company and have feelings for him. Well, that was one part of the problem, but for some reason Marlene decided to trust James with the problem.

The moment she got off work, she would call James and talk to him, or should she go to his place? He shared a flat with Peter, maybe he would eavesdrop on them, right? She should ask him for a cup of coffee, but a very platonic cup of coffee, maybe from a place that was not very date like, a place where those businessmen sat with their recently released MacBooks and spoke on the phone like their lives depended on it. That was a good idea, but Pandora worked on coffee shops, Marlene couldn’t quite remember which one, but she couldn’t risk it, right? Better to deal with it on her own, then. Just sitting on her chair and contemplate the layers of her difficulties, eventually she would come to a good conclusion, wouldn’t she? Well, a girl can dream.

When the clock on her desk showed it was 09:48 she knew her problem was about to arrive, she always came to the office at those hours. Marlene worked at a fashion magazine, but she wrote more articles on music then on clothes, it was a recent column that the editor was trying to implement, and it did work quite well, so what Marlene did was work pieces on the newest bands, tell her experience for some good shows on town. Her problem (as she, lovingly, liked to call her), was the magazine’s designer. She was in charge of all the visuals and aesthetic of the magazine, which pictures were the best, how to put the title and how to organize the text, it all went through her. 

Dorcas Meadowes was right there at 09:49 precisely, and Marlene discretely raised her eyes from her notebook to look at her. She walked, saying hello and good morning! Like she was paid just to be nice and she was acing at it. Marlene low-key hated Dorcas, it was impossible to be the most beautiful woman on earth and just be that nice, besides she was killer at her job, the magazine won several prizes for design all because of her, it was deeply unfair in Marlene’s opinion. 

“Good morning, Ms. McKinnon” Dorcas said as she passed Marlene’s desk. She was the only person in the office that Dorcas called using the last name, even their boss she used the first name and that made Marlene’s blood boil “Did the UK Charts sent you the week list yet?”

“Not yet, I called them at 8, they said they’ll send it by the end of the day” Marlene informed, she didn’t get why Dorcas was always so invested on her pieces, it wasn’t her job to snoop around on what they were writing, she only needed a general idea to organize the pages, but there was a presentation for that. Marlene always got confused why she was constantly being interrogated, she felt so seen. “Had a good weekend?”

“Blasting one” she smiled and Marlene felt a wave of heat pass on her entire body “Talk to you later, have a good day McKinnon”

“Oh, you too Meadowes” recently, Marlene felt like she was on the stage to treat Dorcas the same way she treated her, just to see if she could take any reaction out of her, to set her off maybe or to annoy her. But all Dorcas did was giggle at her and leave. 

She really needed to talk about it with someone before she burst into the air and became just a million particles of frustration on the world. What Marlene liked to do on those moments was to write on her journal how she felt. The problem, exactly the entire point of her inner monologues, seemed to be that she doesn’t know how she feels about it. She doesn’t even have to feel anything, right? Marlene doesn’t have friends in common with Dorcas, so they never see each other outside of work, they don’t work close together, so there is no reason for Marlene to just be so annoyed or thrilled when she sees Dorcas walking into the office. 

Against her own better judgment, Marlene went to Sirius Black, of all the people she could talk to, she chose him and as soon as she arrived at his flat she wanted to leave.

“Marls, do you want wine?” Remus asked, and she nodded, throwing herself on the couch “Sirius went on a rescue mission”

“Did something happen?” she asked, taking the glass from Remus and politely thanking him, she needed alcohol and wine. More wine than alcohol.

“Oh just something with his little brother, did you get to meet Regulus by any chance?”

“Only saw him on Sirius’ birthday last year, why is he a pain in the ass?”

“Honestly, no” Remus giggled “But Sirius wants to baby him every step of the way, he recently graduated and got a job in the city, so he wants to help Regulus move to London, but Regulus despises asking for help”

“And the fucker can’t just leave him to do things on his own, right?” Remus nodded, and she laughed “God, I remember when he and James were moving out from that godforsaken flat, and he couldn’t let James leave until he saw every step of his new place”

“Can you believe that he slept there for a whole week? He wanted to make sure that there wasn’t any ghosts there because James scares easily and Peter doesn’t like Ghostbusters, so he wouldn’t know what to do”

“Of course he said it” she fell back on the couch “Remus, I missed hanging out with you”

“Missed you too, Marls” he said “I was going to suggest to wait for Sirius, but you and I should go ahead and get some drinks”

“That’s why you’re my new favourite” she smiled brightly “Let me get my purse and we can go”

Before leaving, Remus left a sweet note on the table telling Sirius he would be out with Marlene, and they would come back soon and Marlene sign on the note with “stole your man, sucker! kisses (on Remus mouth), love Marls”. Remus laughed at her note, and so they went on their way.

The place was a different bar than Marlene usually went with everyone, it was louder and a bit darker than what she was planning for the day, she wanted to have a conversation with Remus, but that would have to wait. He took them to a club, with lots of colourful lights and very little bright illumination, Marlene could barely see anything (she didn’t go out much these days) and it took a lot on her sight to buy drinks for her and Remus. She found a table for them and tried to enjoy herself a little, take her mind out of her everyday problems, she thought it was quite irresponsible to go to a club and drink on a monday night. She hadn’t done it since college when she drank her ass off with Sirius, Remus, Lily and James right before a big test, so it was a bit like going back to college days for a little while.

A few drinks later, Marlene realizes that she was on a gay bar. It took her quite some time to notice actually, if she hadn’t been so busy drinking and laughing at Remus, maybe she would’ve noticed the gigantic pride flag inside the place. She always thought of herself as a big ally, she was the first of the girls to encourage Sirius to go after Remus and confessed, she also had deep talks with James about being queer, and he confessed to her that he is, in fact, bisexual, also she was the first person he was telling it about. But Marlene had never entertained the thought of herself being queer. She took a few minutes to stare at the flag, as if it was a divine being with all the answers for the questions of the universe, specially an answer to her problems that seemed to be consuming all her thoughts and as if the universe wanted Marlene Mckinnon to jump from a cliff she saw her.

The first thought that Marlene had was that she was basically hallucinating, her mind playing tricks on her, but she knew she would recognize that perfectly braided hair anywhere she went, she always looked like a mermaid goddess, her dark skin glowing in the purple lights of the club, and she looked even prettier now, than she looked in the morning at the office. Marlene had plenty of conscience that she was staring, borderline drooling on the mere sight of Dorcas Meadowes dancing with a couple of friends. And it was all fun and games until one of her (girl) friends pulled her by the waist and kissed her right on the lips, all Marlene could do was to slowly lift her hand until her fingers touched her own lips and the thought of how would it feel to kiss her? came into her mind in the most natural way possible, like she thought about it every single day.

“Okay there, Marls?” Remus asked, and he had an evil grin on his face and Marlene wanted to kick him and punch that smug smile out of his face, she completely forgot that Remus was right next to her while she observed Dorcas with a tremendous amount of devotion shining in her hazel eyes “Thought you said you were straight, who’s she?”

“First of all Lupin you saw absolutely nothing, this” she pointed for the entire place “Never happened and this thing you think you saw never happened either. Actually I should be going home right now, OH MY GOD REMUS”

“What???”

“She’s coming here, and we will do something, and you will play along” she violently pushed Remus to her side while Dorcas walked up to them and eyed Marlene attentively, she didn’t seem to have any particular thought about it, she just spotted Marlene and never looked at anything else until she was right in front of them and had the guts to smile “Hey there Meadowes” Remus turned his head so hard to stare at Marlene like she belonged in a mental health institution that he almost broke his neck.

“Fancy seeing you here, Mckinnon” she almost made Marlene curse in all languages she knew (there weren’t many), but Marlene would make sure to learn all the languages in the world just so she could curse Dorcas “This your friend?”

“Actually-”

“My boyfriend!” she sprung out without even thinking before speaking, and she heard Sirius’ laugh right behind her, at that point she didn’t know if he was really there, or she was just listening to the voice of madness inside her own head “This is Remus Lupin”

“Boyfriend?” Dorcas asked, on the verge of laughing, and that was setting Marlene off for some reason.

“U-um, I’m Remus” he offered his hand for Dorcas, and she shook it lightly “You work with Marls?”

“Yeah, I’m the head designer of the magazine she works for” Dorcas looked curiously back at Marlene, that was doing her best not to burst into the air “She never mentioned she had a boyfriend”

“You also didn’t mention you had a girlfriend” Marlene says quite bitter under her breath, in hopes that no one would hear, but the look on Dorcas’ face told her otherwise “W-well, Remus and I are late, but I will see you tomorrow at ten”

“Don’t forget to check the clock before I come in” Dorcas said and left them.

“Jesus fucking Christ, Marlene what was that?”

“That, my friend Remus, is my problem”