Sirius
Sirius Black had 7 secrets in his life, secrets he had never shared and intended to go to his grave without ever sharing. When he was 9 he purposefully botched an audition because he hadn’t slept in a week and a half and just needed a break. He actually thinks James is correct about his theory of how they should’ve dropped track 6 for their first album, his first tattoo he got was for his brother, Sirius didn’t plan on going to the Potters that night he ran from Wembley he had planned on… well, not going there but his feet brought him there instead. He doesn’t have a single tattoo on his body that isn’t dedicated to a person, Regulus’s new phone number and address (that one is specifically for their mother), and he has been in love with his basset since he was 12 years old.
Sirius had been on the road exactly 8 days now and was starting to feel the full effect of being trapped in close quarters with Remus Lupin. To say Sirius was handling having his best friend 3 feet away from him at all times well, was an understatement. Despite being ridiculously in love with his best friend like the cliche plot point of a rom-com from the early 90s/2000’s Sirius couldn’t be more excited to be on tour. Sirius found that when he was on stage, willingly, doing the things he wanted to do, dressing how he wanted to dress, saying what he wanted to say, he never wanted to leave the stage. The stage was where he felt the most safe, the most at home, it took him a while to get to that point but once he did he never looked back. James always said he was meant for the stage, that his mother saw that and tried to sabotage it for him, Sirius doesn’t think his mother ever cared about someone other than herself for long enough to have attempted sabotage of her children, she hated him and his brother and he is positive she never loved them, but he doesn’t think he ever warranted enough care from her to have her try and take him down.
This tour wasn’t exactly planned, The Marauders had an album coming out but it wasn’t for another 3 months and if Sirius was being completely honest it was truly just a coincidence. The band that did have an album that was recently just released however was Regulus’s band, and Sirius knew this. He saw the announcement on twitter, and assumed a tour would follow soon after, so he told James, Remus, Peter, and Marlene he missed touring and exactly 3 days after he finalized the dates for his tour, Regulus announced his. The following weeks involved pestering his brother to tour with him until he finally said yes (after some minor scheduling conflicts were resolved). To Sirius this tour wasn’t even a tour, it was an open invitation to get his brother back.
There’s a phenomenon that happens to surviving victims of mass tragedies like plane crashes or buildings collapsing, Sirius is sure there’s a long, pompous medical name for it, but it is known to most as “survivors guilt”, this psychological torment happens when you are one of the only surviving members of said tragedy, and you start feeling guilty that you lived, and the others didn’t. Sirius never quite understood how to put into words that he was experiencing survivor's guilt, and had been since he was 17 years old; that he got out but his baby brother didn’t.
Sirius never liked the word “survivors guilt”, specifically, he didn’t like the word “survivor” Sirius thought the word didn’t do it justice. Survivor meant, living, alive, feeling. He didn't feel alive, he doesn’t remember when exactly he stopped feeling like he was living, he just remembers waking up one morning and he simply just didn’t feel.
This was why this tour was so important to him, he needed to feel alive again he needed to not be the only surviving member, Regulus was surviving now too. But despite all of this, despite Regulus getting out, despite his brother being safe, despite there now being two surviving members of their plane crash they called a childhood instead of one, Sirius began feeling a different type of Survivor’s guilt, you see, for both of the Black brothers parts of themselves died in that house. The hardest part for Sirius, was that himself, and his brother didn’t die the same. And Sirius knew he would never be able to help fix that because their trauma was different, it was similar, in many ways, some ways identical, but it was different nonetheless. Sirius’s working theory was that even though they had different experiences it might help if they kept each other around.
Today was technically the first time Sirius was seeing his brother perform since he fled from Wembley at 17. He had seen videos of Reg performing but he always felt strange about attending in person, he almost went one time, was standing in line to get in and everything but he chickened out at the last minute, he was too afraid he wouldn’t want him there. He was excited to go, Regulus had even told him he was excited for him to attend, Sirius was the most excited because his band was coming with him.
James had been in a funk since last night and Sirius couldn’t figure out why, he assumed it had something to do with the concert. Just under 5 years ago James locked himself away for 2 weeks, he wouldn’t let anyone see him, not himself, not Remus, not Peter, not Marlene, not Lily, not even his mother. The first few days you could hear him crying and hyperventilating sometimes even screaming, then suddenly he was just silent. The only indication anyone had that he was still alive was the occasional two minute a day time period where James would come out of his room to get food. After the two weeks from hell James emerged from his room smiling and laughing, he slapped a huge stack of sheet music on the table and loudly said “I wrote an album, let's record it” and they did. James recorded the entire album by himself, only getting help from Remus, Peter, and Marlene for instruments, this album which would be known publicly to everyone as “Leo” was surprised dropped it 5 months later with no warning other than a post 12 hours before it was released.
“Leo” went on to become one of the bands best selling and well received albums they had ever made, the issue was James swore to never touch it again afterwards, they didn’t do a tour, they didn’t do press, in fact when listing albums James would usually not even include Leo, he refused to sing it live, or let Sirius sing a song from it for him. They boys never pressured him about it, the album was heavy, it was painful, whatever had happened (Sirius assumed a break up but he didn’t know of anyone James had been seeing at the time) Leo was James’s way of coping with it. Before every tour the band would very hesitantly ask James if he wanted to sing something from it, it was always a no; Until 8 days ago. James said he would sing “High” the first night of the tour and never again. For some reason after singing the song it was like a switch that went off in James head and he was very.. Sullen? Sirius had been able to read James’s emotions like a book since they were 12, but when it came to Leo and that time in James’s life he didn’t know anything, it was as if James’s book suddenly switched into a foreign language and then switched back with no explanation or hope for one.
Sirius knew James didn’t want to go to the show tonight, in fact he told him point blank “Sirius please, I really don't want to go to the show tonight”. But with the help of Peter and Marlene they convinced James to go, much to Sirius’s annoyance however Remus was actually on James’s side instead of helping the rest of the band with their mission to force James to come. Because of this Sirius was mad at Remus, and he intended on staying mad at Remus for at least another 28 minutes for dramatic effect.
“Is everyone ready to go?” Marlene asked, walking out of the hotel bathroom fastening the back of her earring on.
“I’ve been ready”
“I guess,” James Mumbled.
“Yup, just finished” Remus announced walking out of the second bedroom.
If Sirius wasn’t mad at Remus before, he definitely is now, if this was a cartoon smoke would be coming out of his ears. Remus stood before them, curly brown hair soft and curls defined obviously having had washed it earlier in the day. His standard day to day knitted sweater was swapped out for a black t-shirt that was at least a size smaller than Sirius could handle, his normal converse were swapped with a pair of black docs that made him even taller, and Sirius was absolutely positive he stole the shoes from him. He had on that godforsaken star necklace he had gifted Remus for his 15th birthday that matched a moon necklace he purchased for himself; Sirius never took his off but that didn’t stop his breath from catching in his throat every time he saw Remus wear his. He was so angry at Remus he could scream, he had the audacity to look like that and make Sirius witness it, it wasn’t fair. Some days he was almost convinced Remus knew how he felt about him, other days Remus would tell him about the people he's hooked up with on the road and Sirius doesn’t think he would ever be that cruel.
Despite there still being 17 minutes left of anger Sirius was holding against Remus, the two boys, James, Peter, and Marlene all climbed into a black rental van and set off to “The Space” which James couldn’t help himself from making fun of the venue's name on the drive over, at least he was laughing now. The Venue was small but didn’t have the claustrophobic nature of small standing room only venues just quite yet, as the doors hadn’t opened for general admission. There was a drum kit and a guitar propped up on the stage decorated with the opening bands emblems, “Longskew” as they called themselves was a two man band fronted by their old friends from school Alice and Frank; they thought it would be innovative to mash their last names together for their band name, the name is technically outdated though as Alice and Frank tied the knot two summers back, but everyone came to the general consensus that “Longbottom” was not a particularly punk rock band name. Sirius saw his brother walk by in the wings a few times before the doors opened, he was almost going to call out to him but it seemed inappropriately timed. Suddenly the lights dimmed and openers started playing before he knew it the lights had dimmed again the stage hands were setting up for Regulus.
Sirius knew he was at his most comfortable and confident on the stage, for some reason he never thought the same would be for his brother, but here he was on the stage and Sirius genuinely had never seen him like that, goofing off and carefree with his friends, he was acting like a kid up there, and Sirius was loving every second of it. He knew his brother was talented; they had performed together for years but seeing him do what he wanted to do made him all the more stunning to hear and see. His stage presence was huge and he kept drawing the crowd in. He watched as he bounced between Barty then Dorcas then Evan finally heading over towards Pandora laughing and dancing with her. He looked Happy, Sirius’s baby brother looked happy.
Suddenly Regulus popped up to the microphone from his previous position by the basset. “Hey Las Vegas! We got one more song for you tonight, this is an unreleased one from a few years back. I've never sang it live before but I felt like tonight was a good time to change that. Next up Here's ‘Midnight Rain”.