every page that i wrote (you were on it)

James sat leaning back on the couch with his knees bouncing while he waited for the rest of the Marauders to get to the Hallow. He'd declined Remus' usual offering to drive him there partially because he wanted to get there extra early and partially because he was still mad at the boy for his reaction to his song yesterday. He wasn't sure why it bothered him so much to be rejected, having an outgoing personality like his resulted in tons of rejection, but it did.

Peter entered first with several clipboard to-do lists that he began posting up around the place. One by the door, one in the studio, one in the office, one in the lounge; everywhere James looked was another reminder that he was slacking behind.

"Oh, good, you're here. Have any new songs going?"

"Yeah, have a few ideas." James lied. His acoustic guitar rested against his chest like a shield. The Hallow lounge had always been his sanctuary, the first place he noticed when they bought the property, it was his. A place where music came to life for him, this is where he'd written most of the songs on their album. But this morning, the air felt different. Heavy.

The door opened again with Remus and Sirius walking in slowly, taking their time. Well they aren't being crunched with needing twelve songs in 25 days. James thought bitterly. Taking a seat next to him, Remus spun his drumsticks between his fingers, he was talking about something James couldn't bring himself to listen to. Sirius leaned back against the old couch parallel to James, his bass propped beside him, eyebrows furrowed as he flipped through the dissolved stack of lyrics he'd thrown onto the coffee table.

“This one’s, uh… dark,” Peter said, breaking the silence. He spoke louder than necessary with the headset over his ears that angered James slightly with the fact that he most definitely did not need to be using a headset.

James looked up, his fingers halting on the guitar strings. “Dark?”  

“Yeah, you know.” Peter shrugged. “Like, this whole part, 'Cause I don't know what I want. Until I fuck it up' It’s not… us. Where’s the fun? The energy?”  

Sirius returned the pile of lyrics to the table, his lips pursed. “Sorry mate, but Peter is right. These songs don’t sound like us. I mean, they’re well-written, but they’re so… heavy. People come to us for happy, upbeat music, James. Not this.”  

"Maybe... maybe you just aren't hearing it the way it's written." James tried helplessly.

"Okay, play it for us and let's see," Remus said. He was always the peacemaker despite very clearly not being on James' side. James sighed readjusted his guitar and begun playing.

I hate your mom
I hate it when she opens her mouth
It's amazing to me
How much you can say
When you don't know what you're talking about

No one said anything after he finished playing. Their opinions hadn't changed, it was still very much 'too sad.' James’s jaw tightened. “This is how I’ve been feeling lately,” he said, his voice quiet but firm. “It’s not about making people happy all the time. It’s about being honest.”  

“Okay, but we’re a band,” Peter said, trying to sound reasonable while flipping through his clipboard making random notes that James knew were unimportant. “You can’t just write whatever you want and expect it to work for all of us. This feels... selfish.”  

The word hit James like a slap. “Selfish?” he repeated, his voice rising. “You think it’s selfish to write about how I feel?”  

Remus raised his hands, trying to diffuse the tension. “No one’s saying your feelings don’t matter, man. It’s just... this doesn’t sound like the band. It sounds like something else entirely. Something... sad.”  

James stood abruptly, the coffee he’d made hours ago tipping over. His guitar let out a sharp twang as he grabbed it. “Forget it,” he muttered, slinging the strap over his shoulder.  

“James-” Sirius started, but he was already heading for the door.  

“I need some air, and I hope you put together what the song was about,” he called over his shoulder, slamming the door shut behind him.

-

The midmorning muggy air crawled under his skin as James walked, his footsteps echoing on the wet pavement. Without thinking, he ended up at the coffee shop a few blocks away.

The place was warm and quiet, the smell of coffee and baked goods wrapping around him like a blanket. James ordered a simple latte and kept his head down. They called out his name and James took a sip of a burning hot black coffee. But James knew he couldn't handle telling them it was wrong so he sank into a corner seat by the window, setting his guitar down carefully beside him.  

Rain streaked the glass, turning the neon signs outside into smudges of color. He stared at his reflection, pale and unhappy in the window, and then down at his notebook. The pages were filled with his messy handwriting, scratched-out lines, half-finished verses, and a copy of the new song that had sparked the argument before remorsefully remembering he'd left all of his failed songs sitting In the lounge.  

“Maybe they’re right,” he muttered under his breath, gripping his pen tightly.  

A chair scraping against the floor startled him out of his feverish scribbling of new lyrics. He looked up to see a tall boy with light eyes in a green sweater with dark tousled hair that fell perfectly into his eyes. Large black headphones slung from his neck. In one hand, he carried a coffee cup and in the other, a battered notebook with the edges frayed from use. James almost envied his ability to write that much.

“Sorry,” the boy said with an slight apologetic shrug as he sat down across from him before slipping his headphones over his ears. “Place is packed.”  

James nodded mutely and turned back to his notebook. He was halfway through rewriting a line that was most certainly still going to be too sad. Lily's suggestion of trying his old songs again crossed his mind and he pulled out his phone, opened his music library, and tapped play on the top song under the band's name.

However, despite the seconds increasing and his phone saying the song was playing, James couldn't hear it. He pulled off his headphones in case it was playing out of his phone's speaker instead, but he still couldn't hear it. He had a confused expression on his face as he concentrated on the sound going through his headphones.

You got that James Dean daydream look in your eye
And I got that red lip classic thing that you like
And when we go crashing down, we come back every time
'Cause we never go out of style, we never go out of style

“Didn’t realize this place had a DJ,” the boy teased, holding up his phone to show James the Bluetooth connection between James' phone and his headphones, which blended into his hair in a weirdly infatuating way.

"Oh, crap! I didn't mean to, sorry mate." James' stomach flipped, fumbling to pause the song and trying to disconnect the devices. The other boy looked up slowly, a mildly amused smirk appearing on his face.

"Listening to your own music, why am I not even surprised?" He chuckled to himself and James stopped for a moment. The difference between the previous straight-faced dark mysterious poet and the grinning boy sitting across from him were drastic. He almost recognized him, but he couldn't quite put his finger on why.

"I'm James," he stuck a hand out after placing his phone down deliberately on top of his journal.

The other boy finally removed his headphones and did a similar movement, covering his notebook up the same way with the black headphones. "Potter, you're in a band."

"You know who I am?"

"Well, if I hadn't before you just played your song through my headphones. That your new method for gaining publicity, accidentally connecting one of your hit songs to me? The million streams not enough?"

James blinked, feeling his cheeks heat. "You know how many streams my song has? Sorry, you don't strike me as a boyband listener."

"I'm not," the boy said quickly. "but I don't live under a rock and living near a famous musician will naturally make me hear a thing or two. So yes, I am familiar with the Marauders."

Although he wasn't saying anything rude or actually making fun of James in any way, he couldn't help but catch the slight mocking tone behind his words that James tried to decipher. He was bitter about something, or he just didn't like the band. Maybe he just didn't like James. That's not supposed to matter, a random stranger hating him, that's a part of being in the public media, but for some reason it mattered severely to him.

The boy tilted his head, studying James after seeing his energy decrease. “So, what’s a rockstar doing brooding in a corner with coffee and a notebook?”  

James hesitated, gripping his pen tighter. “Just... trying to write.”  

“Let me guess.” The boy gestured to his own notebook that was still being concealed though James could still pinpoint the fancy cursive writing he'd never been able to. He then realized he'd still never gotten his name, he was blocking that answer the same way he blocked his work.“Writer’s block?”  

“Something like that.”

The boy held up his hands. “Same boat. I’m Regulus, by the way. Poet with no poetry right now.”  

James managed a small smile. “James... But you knew that.”  

“Guilty,” Regulus said, tapping his pen on the edge of his notebook with an unreadable expression. “So, what’s the problem? Too many ideas? Not enough?”  

James hesitated again, his stomach knotting. He wanted to explain, to tell Regulus about the band, the pressure, the songs that felt like pieces of his soul nobody wanted. But the words stuck in his throat. Regulus seemed to notice. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table and spoke lightly. “You don’t have to tell me, you know... It’s not like I’ve got all the answers anyway.”  

James looked at him, startled. He'd never been the best at reading people, but he could read Regulus just fine. He noted how he was clearly stepping out of his comfort zone with a lot of the things he was saying and he was very much placing something under his words that James couldn't reach.

Regulus shrugged. “Sometimes it’s enough just to sit with the mess for a while. You don’t have to solve it all at once.”  

James stared at him for a long moment, then nodded, his throat tight. But he figured if Regulus could drop this much to a stranger, he could too. “It's more like I have all the wrong ideas. Bandmates don't like what I'm writing even though it's just-” once he begun to explain his feelings, his words sped up and he had everything he needed to say about to spill out of his mouth. He cut himself off before he could do too much damage. He was famous, after all. Everything he said would get out into the public eye.

“You don't have to shut yourself off every time you start to find the words, if you can find what to say, that's already a good start.” Regulus said with a smile, already turning back to his notebook when James stood and begun to pack up his things. James muttered a quick, "thanks," and hurried out into the accumulating rainstorm and returned to the studio.

-

Before entering the place, James quickly dialed Lily's number. However, he didn't get an answer. Of course, he knew she was also in a band and was likely in the midst of a rehearsal, but he needed to get his words out to someone and that most definitely couldn't be one of the people inside the Hallow.

But Lily was not in the middle of rehearsal. Well, she was supposed to be. But instead she found herself being dragged out into the rain by her pianist, Mary. Her almost girlfriend. Almost being the key word. They both wanted it, then only one, then none. Now neither one knows if either of them do.

"For the last time, you can date whoever you want. If you want to take home the first girl that so much as looks at you after one of our concerts, by all means." Mary yelled over the rain. Lily couldn't even put together how this argument came to be. Less than twenty minutes ago they were rehearsing the next part of their upcoming release.

Mary had written the song. Lily hadn't heard all of it yet but when she did, she immediately remembered months ago when Lily had said those exact words to her. The night they basically became a couple then went back to square one. After finishing the stanza, Lily took a breath and casually placed her microphone back into the stand and walked out of the recording booth.

Marlene looked to Mary in confusion, but she didn't return the look. Instead, she unplugged the keyboard and ran after her.

"Lily-"

"Are you serious? Did you think I wouldn't remember saying that to you? Word for word? You thought you could just pretend that you suddenly have those feelings now?" Lily cut her off instantly. She continued to walk with her arms crossed and a glare into Mary, towards the back of the flat, towards the exit.

"I'm sorry I copied you but I don't know why this is such a big deal! I did feel this way, a lot of people feel this way! I thought that's what we want in a song, the relatable stuff." Her tone was defensive though she couldn't even look Lily in the eye.

“So, what?” Lily snapped, her voice trembling. “You thought it’d be fun to turn my feelings into a song without even asking me?”  

Mary frowned, gaining some of her confidence in her statement. “I didn’t turn anything into a song, Lily. I just wrote what I felt. Those words, what you said that night, they stuck with me. They were real.”  

“They were mine!” Lily shot back, her voice rising as angry tears started to pool in her eyes. “You had no right to just-just broadcast them like that! And for what? So the whole world can hear how pathetic I sounded, crying over something that wasn’t even real?”  

Mary took a wide step forward abruptly, following Lily right out the back door and into the rainy night. “You think I don’t know how you felt? You think I don’t feel it too? That song, it’s not about embarrassing you. It’s about us. It’s our story.”  

Lily let out a bitter laugh, shaking her head. “There is no ‘us,’ Mary. That’s the whole problem. You keep pulling me back like there is, but you don’t want anything real. And now you’re writing songs about it? Do you know how messed up that is? It's not even your lyrics, it's my exact words to you.”  

Mary’s jaw tightened. “You’re acting like I’m the one holding you back. You’re free to date whoever you want, Lily. I’ve never stopped you.”  

Lily’s eyes flashed with anger. “You really think it’s that simple? You think I can just... move on while you’re sitting there writing songs about how we feel?” Lily didn't wait for answer, she kept walking, continuing all the way down to the parking lot. Mary followed her, still speaking. Mary crossed her arms, her expression hardening. “I’m not stopping you.”  

“Fine,” Lily said, her voice cold. “Then I will. I’ll date whoever I want.”  

Mary’s lips pressed into a thin line. “Good. So will I.”  

The rain filled the silence for the time that it took Lily to process what Mary was saying and the entire argument. Lily’s breath hitched, and for a moment, her resolve faltered. “You don’t mean that,” she said, her voice softer now.  

Mary hesitated, her gaze flickering to the crumpled sheet music on the floor. “Maybe I do,” she said finally, but her voice wasn’t as strong as before. Lily stared at her, searching for something in Mary’s expression that wasn’t there anymore. Finally, she let out a shaky breath and opened the door to her car and started to step into the driver's seat. “Good luck, then,” she said, she turned on the ignition and the car lit up the dark that hid Mary's slow walk to her own car.  

Marlene waited in the sound booth for fifteen minutes before deciding they weren't coming back. It wasn't the first time and the two were always apologetic for leaving her like that, but it didn't stop them from doing it again. She finally grabbed her own keys and walked out of the flat for the night, hoping the both of them would return tomorrow.

-

Marlene sat cross-legged on her couch, her phone sat turned off in her hand. The faint sound of Lily’s angry footsteps stomping out of rehearsal earlier still echoed in her mind. A cup of tea sat untouched on the table in front of her, the steam long gone. Finally, she moved out of the position she had been in for over an hour. She pressed her phone to her ear, listening to the call tone until it stopped.

“I’m telling you, they’re going to kill this band,” Marlene said, her voice tight with frustration. “They’re arguing constantly, and it’s not just over music anymore. It’s everything. It’s... them.” 

On the other end of the line, a soft chuckle came through. “Sounds exhausting,” her girlfriend replied.  

“It is exhausting, Dorcas,” Marlene said, leaning back into the couch cushions. “I love them both, but they’re completely ignorant. Or maybe just too scared to admit they care about each other. Either way, it’s making it impossible to get anything done.”  

Dorcas' voice softened. “I know what you mean. Barty and Evan are getting me into the same boat. Two of my best friends won’t admit they’re into each other, and it’s ruining every attempt we make to get this band into something. We gave up weekly practices, every rehearsal is tense, and it’s like... how do you write music when no one can even look each other in the eye?”  

Marlene sighed, running a hand through her messy blonde hair. “Exactly. I mean, I’m over here trying to hold the band together while they throw all this past tension at each other like it’s my problem to fix. I've been left in the studio with no heads up three times in the last month.”

Dorcas was quiet for a moment before she spoke again. “You know,” she began hesitantly, “if it gets too bad... maybe you don’t have to stay in the middle of it.”  

Marlene frowned. “What do you mean?”  

“I mean...” She hesitated, then took a breath. “If you need another person to keep you from third wheeling their arguments, I could join. Even if I don't become an official member, it’d give you some space from all this drama so you wouldn't be babysitting them."

Marlene’s heart skipped at the suggestion, but she played it cool. “So, you’re saying we’d finally have an excuse to spend more time together?”  

Drocas laughed softly. “Pretty much. But I’m serious. Think about it. You don’t deserve to be stuck in the middle of someone else’s mess. Especially when it’s holding you back from what you want to do. But I know you don't want to abandon the ship altogether, I had to go back to working part-time at the coffee shop because I don't even have a band, and none of them even know we're together.”  

Marlene didn’t respond right away, her mind racing. She glanced at the tea she’d forgotten to drink, her thoughts flitting to Lily and Mary, two people she cared about deeply but who seemed incapable of sorting themselves out.  

“I’ll think about it,” she said finally. “But if I do this... you're telling everyone about us at our next group hangout.”  

Dorcas' smile was audible in her voice. “Deal. As long as I can try your electric guitar soon.”  

Marlene laughed, the tension in her chest easing just a little. For the first time that night, she felt like maybe, just maybe, there was a way out of the chaos that didn't make her lose anyone.